When I walked into Val Cabadonga’s ‘Puhon’ exhibition (May 2024, Auckland, New Zealand), I wasn’t expecting to see an almost perfect execution of an art exhibition. The results were so good that I needed to share my observations with you in the hope that you can be encouraged and inspired as you plan your art events.
Val is “a Filipino-Kiwi creative specialising in digital art and design, art direction and fashion photography.” He is not a traditional artist and had never planned or participated in an art exhibition. In my opinion, that was one of the many reasons for his exhibition’s success. He was unencumbered by the art ‘ecosystem’ and approached the event’s planning like a digital marketer with a commercial mindset.
I know Val well and talked with him early in planning his exhibition. I was able to prompt him with, “Have you thought of this or that; don’t forget xyz.” Then Val worked alongside his friends and family and created an event that only he could create. Let’s dig deeper into why (in my humble opinion) this particular art exhibition was almost perfect.
The ingredients
Theme
‘Puhon’ is a Bisaya (Filipino) word that means ‘God-willing’ or ‘hopefully’, and it is said when you are hoping something will happen. As Val put it, it is the promise of a new start.
Val called the digital art in his exhibition a ‘love letter’ to his parents and grandparents. It was a celebration of his heritage and emigrating to New Zealand, expressed in the food of his culture and memories. The story behind the artwork was a powerful narrative that we could see, hear, and read, and it pulled us into Val’s world for a moment. Never underestimate the power of a good story.
Imagery
Val’s work is impressive. His digital art incorporates CGI, AI, photogrammetry and many other technical and photographic skills. Interestingly, he did not talk about the technicality of the pieces at all. All we saw was the end product. He wanted to let the images speak into the narrative without divulging the magic behind the work.
Location
Val chose to host the exhibition at Small Rave, an event space on Karangahape Road, Auckland. K Road is one of the busiest roads in the heart of the CBD of our largest city. It is easy to access from any direction (though parking was challenging). The size of the venue suited the number of artworks and attendees well. The venue has excellent lighting, acoustics and flooring. Small Rave was a good choice.
Val created window graphics, which added to the promotion and professionalism of the event.
Food
Val serviced his guests bite-sized Filipino food, perfectly matching the exhibition’s theme.
Music
Val’s cousin performed live music. His speech explained the family connection, which only added to the specialness of the evening.
Photos and video
A friend of Val’s captured the whole event on video and stills, which he quickly used on social media, post-event.
Speech
Around 45 minutes into the event, Val gave a speech (using a microphone so everyone could hear well). He acknowledged the team that pulled the event together and explained the significance of the theme, the images and the story.
A Puhon video played on a drop-down screen throughout the night and during Val’s speech. The video added to the event’s ambience, creating movement and colour, and gave another thing for attendees to look at.
Artwork display
When I spoke with Val in the early planning stages, I encouraged him to consider how he would display the images. We talked about printing, mounting, hanging, the potential weight of the pieces, and the costs.
Some pieces were large (A1-ish), others around A2/A3-ish. All were mounted on a 5mm black foamcore board and floated out from the wall using mounting blocks. This type of presentation was the cheapest and lightest option, and the effect was good. It shows that fancy framing is only sometimes required when you have powerful images.
Following the story
Each image had a small card beneath it showing the title and a QR code. Scanning the code took you to a hidden page on Val’s website (cabadonga.com).
These screenshots show the desktop version, but (obviously) the attendees were reading from their mobile phones, which showed these graphics in a slightly different format.
Here, you could see the image and read the story behind the food you were looking at. The story revealed the dish’s history and how it related to Val’s upbringing in the Philippines.
Promotion
Val’s wife, Blair, is a digital marketer, and Val has worked in the digital design / photography / videography space his entire career. Together, they created an impressive promotion plan for the event.
To begin with, Val created a teaser video, which he uploaded to YouTube and pushed out to his Instagram followers. You can see the video here:
The following is what he wrote in the initial promo posts:
For the past couple of months I’ve been playing with an idea, slowly crafting that idea into a series of artworks for an upcoming exhibition.
This is a big deal for me. I’m showing a side of myself that I don’t normally, even getting in front of the camera which doesn’t come naturally! But I’m so excited to share a big part of myself and my culture.
This exhibition brings together all the things I love. Food and art, brought to life through mixed media, photography & 3D. The process has been challenging at times, but the concept has been so vivid in my mind, that everything just clicked. And, I’ve got to use all the skills and tech I’ve been learning - Photogrammetry, Generative AI textures, and more…
I’ll release the exhibition dates and venue in the next few weeks. It will be in Auckland and I would love to have my community join me in celebrating my culture. There are a few other ways you can support me and my art, more details to come on that soon.
And as always, a huge thank you to the people who encourage me, even when things get hard…
You know who you are 🫶🫶
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/val.cabadonga/
Website: https://cabadonga.com/
Val has nearly 8,000 followers on Instagram. He has worked hard for many years to build his audience and fan base, and this large number of eyes undoubtedly helped generate buzz for the event.
eDM
Val encouraged people to register an RSVP for the event so that they could better cater for the food. He could have asked for RSVPs earlier and maximised the email marketing more, but it was still a good channel for him and will help to build his email list for the future.
Family and friends
Val spread the word through all his personal contacts to encourage attendance. There was a large contingent from his workplace, old university friends, family members, etc. Though Val is quiet, he is well-respected, admired, and supported.
Why ‘almost perfect’?
$$$
Val is a humble man. He said the exhibition was a bucket list tick for him and that the event’s success was achieved by simply holding it. In his speech, Val said that if anyone was interested in buying one of the works, they could talk with him.
There was no sell price on the artwork label or the website (via the QR code). The Puhon exhibition attracted high-net-worth people, and not having a visible sales price was a missed opportunity. By selling his artwork at an event he arranged and paid for himself, there would have been zero commission fees to pay.
[UPDATE: After writing this article Val reported that over half of the artworks sold after the exhibition. Looks like his strategy paid off after all!]
Start time
The event started at 6:30pm on a Friday. For attendees who finish work between 4pm and 5:30pm, the 6:30pm start time felt somewhat awkward. What do you do between work and the exhibition? It could have started slightly earlier.
Duration
Puhon was a one-night-only event on a Friday night. I assume this was due to the cost of venue hire. The outlay to put on an event like this (printing, mounting, venue hire, graphics for the windows, equipment hire, etc.), especially when you were not overtly going for the sales, would have been high. Adding one more day of venue hire might have been too much for the budget.
However, could one more day have brought in foot traffic on busy K Road? Also, Val may have had contacts who could not make it along on a Friday night and may have been able to attend on Saturday instead.
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, the Puhon art exhibition was a ‘perfect storm’ of Val and his team’s skills and determination, and there is no chance that anyone else could replicate this event to the letter. However, some of Val’s fairy dust can sprinkle onto all of us.
Val and Blair approached the planning of Puhon like an ‘event’, not an ‘art exhibition’ per se. In there was the key. They knew that to make Puhon successful, they had to utilise a variety of digital marketing tactics. They had to create a buzz. They had to elevate the presentation so that every facet of the process was professional, engaging, interesting, and intriguing. They had to make a genuine and heartfelt connection, and they did a great job. I hope you can take some of Val’s magic and use it in your event planning.
Oh, and by the way, at no time did Val let doubts about whether he was ‘good enough’ or ‘well known enough’ or a ‘recognised artist enough’ to prevent him from having a solo exhibition. He just did it, and you can, too!
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