Stephanie Comilang

Stephanie Comilang (born 1980, Toronto, Canada) is a Filipina-Canadian artist based in Berlin. Working primarily with moving image and installation, she develops what she describes as “science-fiction documentaries”: works that combine documentary footage, fictional narratives and personal testimony to examine mobility, labour, technology and the social and economic structures of globalisation. Her films frequently centre on migrant communities and diasporic experiences, considering how people negotiate identities, relationships and forms of belonging across geographical and cultural borders. Comilang’s narratives are often constructed through multiple voices and points of view, bringing together intimate stories with broader questions concerning capital, labour and technological mediation. In *Come to Me, Paradise* (2017), for example, a drone-like narrator named Paradise observes the lives of Filipino migrant workers in Hong Kong, connecting experiences of migration and isolation with the ways in which technology mediates contemporary urban life. The work exemplifies Comilang’s approach to documentary as a form that can accommodate fiction, speculation and subjective experience, allowing personal histories to intersect with larger political and economic systems. Her recent work has expanded these concerns through projects that connect migration, ecology, technology and alternative forms of world-making. *Search for Life*, presented as a solo exhibition at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid in 2024, brought together moving-image works that consider the entanglement of human and non-human systems and the ways technological and economic structures shape contemporary life. The exhibition subsequently formed the basis for the second part of the project presented at Sharjah Biennial 16 in 2025. Her collaborative project with Simon Speiser, *Piña, Why is the Sky Blue?* (2021), has also been presented internationally, including at the Tate Modern, Julia Stoschek Collection and Walter Phillips Gallery. Comilang received her BFA from the Ontario College of Art & Design University. Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions and platforms including Tate Modern in London, Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, Tai Kwun in Hong Kong, Haus der Kunst in Munich, Julia Stoschek Collection in Berlin, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. She has also presented work at the National Gallery of Canada and the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, among numerous other institutions and festivals. In 2019, Comilang was awarded the Sobey Art Award, receiving the CAD 100,000 grand prize and becoming the first artist from Ontario to win that year's award. The jury specifically recognised her use of science-fiction documentary to address how technology shapes contemporary experience, as well as her engagement with migration, diasporic communities and the legacies of colonialism. Her work is held in collections including the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Contemporary Art Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany in Berlin, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and the Julia Stoschek Collection in Berlin. The National Gallery of Canada has acquired several works by Comilang, including *Piña, Why is the Sky Blue?* (2021), created in collaboration with Simon Speiser, and the sculptural works *Qhipa Pacha*, *Muru* and *Yuca* (2022).