You mentioned before that digital fashion can be a way to showcase culture and identity. How does your cultural identity influence your work?

IM: “In the literal sense, I’ve been really inspired by the Filipino connection to nature. Last year I did a lot of visual research exploring different islands and collecting seashells, driftwood and rocks. Something I also explored a lot through my work with Vogue Philippines was variations and interpretations of the terno, a traditional Filipino dress. I got to reinterpret Filipino codes and cultural motifs through digital design. It made me reflect on how we can view culture in an innovative way, where we can share things with each other and become richer as an art community.”

How can digital fashion empower diverse artists?

Can you give me an instance of where you felt like people of colour were put into narrative boxes and how that made you feel as an artist?

IM: “Every year the Art Gallery of Western Australia hosts an exhibition where it would showcase the best pieces from graduating students from across the school Districts.

I went there twice, across two separate years and remember walking in one year and seeing all these portraits of people of colour – watercolours and big oil paintings. They were all exploring the challenges of being some sort of ethnic minority in Australia. One work featured portraits painted on pieces of luggage, and it was about the emotional baggage and trauma that comes with being a refugee.

But then I look to the next work and it’s another sad person of colour. And then another. Then another. And I realised that all the artwork being exhibited was centred around cultural pain, assimilation, trauma and suffering.

I was glad that they were platforming young people of colour, but are these stories the only ones that are valuable and worth sharing? At the time, I wasn’t exploring Filipino identity in my work, and  it made me, as a young artist contemplating pursuing a career in art, feel like my work wasn’t valuable if it didn’t talk about these heavy topics.”

How do the metaverse and virtual exhibitions help with more diverse stories being told?

IM: “That’s what I mean about ethnocentric art practices. Institutions so heavily push the agenda that the most important stories minorities have to tell are those that aim to counter ideas of colonialism and racism. Art is intrinsically political, but there always seems to be great pressure on people of colour to only produce work that is deemed ‘socially productive’. We always have to be activists; it feels like nothing else we have to share matters in these dominantly white spaces. The metaverse can help us challenge these practices that circle around Western value systems. How can we use the metaverse as something to platform and celebrate art from diverse artists and communities?

With the metaverse, there isn’t a curator or curation team you have to appeal to. There are many exhibition and virtual space platforms that you can take advantage of to display your work or use to put together a group show. I used ‘New Art City’. No driving boxes of artwork across cities, and no application entrance fees. Just spaces dedicated to you that you can distribute virtually to guests around the world. I’m really excited about how things like this can eliminate and dissolve borders around meaningful art engagement and distribution.”

What was your first experience with the metaverse?

IM: “An argument that I have is that the metaverse comprises multi-decade-long relationships that Gen Z’s have been having with the internet and online spaces. I remember making my first avatars on Jumpstart and Poptropica, spending hours in these virtual spaces after school, or playing during lunch in the computer room. I was around twelve.

Think about the Minecraft servers people started with their friends during the first batches of lockdowns, how multiplayer gaming stood in as a mode of socialisation among friend groups who were isolated from one another. We all turned to virtual spaces for escapism, for comfort, for the warmth of human connection.”

How do you think Gen Z or Gen Alpha’s relationship with the metaverse differs from other generations?

IM: “I think the metaverse is a utility for older people. It’s a tool to sell things like NFTs. But for young people, we were raised and fully socialised online. The internet became another facet of our lived experiences. Like another room in our house, we live and socialise in virtual spaces. And that’s why it bothers me when people so heavily commercialise the metaverse and put it into a box.”

Love that! Okay so I really want to end this by talking about creativity. You’re obviously incredibly creative. What was the first thing you remember creating?

IM: “I remember making books in second grade. I’d illustrate pictures on coloured paper, mainly featuring video game characters like Mario and Luigi, and write narrative lines above them with the little literacy I had back then. The pages would be laminated and bound together; I’d flip through them on the class shelf.

I’ve carried the tradition of making art books and filling up sketchbooks throughout elementary and art school. I think I’ve come full circle with  the digital fashion magazine (Independent Variable) that I’m working on now.”

And finally, what’s a spicy take you’ve got on creativity?

IM: “Great work requires a degree of creative cognition. I’m not referring to how much experimentation or research or refining you do, but instead how you make creative decisions. The instinctual or ‘innate’ way you express yourself through work. This, like any skill, can be exercised and built. However, I see it as something of utmost importance.

In my opinion, creatives who have a solid creative cognition: a solid sense of self and direction, make the most substantial art.”

You can support Ivan and his work here: https://linktr.ee/ivv.n

Protostars is a program run by the Blackbird Foundation. We give young people from Australia and Aotearoa, aged 16-25, $1k grants to work on their passion projects. Applications are still open for Season 5, and are closing at 11:59 PM AEST on Sunday 6 August. Find out more and apply here.