Marian Pastor Roces
Museo Pantan
Philippines · Curating
Museo Pantan
Independent curator, cultural critic, and policy analyst Marian Pastor Roces was nominated for the 2025 AFIELD Fellowship for Museo Pantan, a museum to help drive intercultural understanding in a place emerging from violent conflict. It integrates ethnographic-historical characterization with a contemporary exhibitionary approach.
Founded in 2025, Museo Pantan is a museum conceived by Marian Pastor Roces in partnership with Isabela City’s mayor, Sitti Hataman. Located in Basilan, an island once marked by decades of sectarian war and extremist violence, the museum embodies reconciliation through art and local craftsmanship. Its name, pantan—a term describing a threshold between land and water—reflects the region’s aquatic culture and symbolic openness.
Designed to be accessible by sea, it centers the participation of Sama Bangingih and Sama Badjao communities, integrating their mat-weaving traditions into contemporary art. The initiative promotes collaboration between sea nomads, rubber plantation workers, and museum professionals, turning creative labor into dialogue and social healing. Through TAOINC’s curatorial framework, Museo Pantan links material culture with the politics of peace, offering an enduring model of cross-cultural understanding for post-conflict societies.
Museo Pantan about to be launched, in rehearsals for a boat festival
Marian Pastor Roces is a Filipino independent curator, writer, and cultural policy analyst. Known for her decolonial approach to museology, she founded TAOINC, a company developing exhibitions, museums, and archives across Southeast Asia. Her critical writings on art and culture have been published by MIT Press and other major institutions. In 2025, she launched Museo Pantan in Basilan, a museum that redefines curating as a form of peace-making through collaboration between communities once divided by war. Her work bridges scholarship, activism, and cultural diplomacy.
Marian Pastor Roces
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