Nine queer artists explore the romantic feeling that is often met with both excitement and anxiety.
This Pride Month, gallery. sort of. presents “Kilig Much,” an all-queer exhibit that casts the spotlight on “kilig,” a unique term whose English approximations just don’t live up to how we Filipinos understand and feel it at our core.
Featuring nine artists from across the country, “Kilig Much” is a deep dive into these fleeting, thrilling, and captivating romantic experiences, viewed through a queer lens. The artists in the exhibit are as diverse as their expressions of “kilig,” from emerging artists with daring points of view to established creatives who have experienced their fair share of “kilig”—and what happens after, lovely or otherwise.
The queer experience of “kilig,” or that rush of blood to the head and heart when a queer individual sees their first-ever crush, is a defining and momentous experience—and quite a bittersweet one, too. Sure, life reveals that you are attracted to the same sex (or a sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, or SOGIE, that’s outside a heteronormative context), but because of these very desires, you might also feel fear, confusion, or dread. What if my crush doesn’t feel the same way? What will others say? What will my family think?
It’s a gripping feeling of excitement, romance, anxiety, and despair, all boiled into one: this feeling of “kilig” for somebody who’s queer. And perhaps that is where its beauty lies, however complex it can get.
Sponsored by The POST, ‘Kilig Much’ opens tomorrow, June 16, at gallery.sort.of, located at 37 Camaro St. Fairview, Quezon City.
