Martha Atienza returns to Silverlens Manila with The Coconut Tree Methodology, her first solo presentation with the gallery since 2020. The exhibition brings together a new body of work anchored in the artist’s long-term engagement with the Bantayan Islands in Cebu, where she was partly raised and where much of her practice continues to unfold. The Dutch-Filipino video and installation artist uses the exhibition to revisit a coastline she has documented before. In footage from 2019, an open shore appears marked by fallen coconut trees, their roots loosened by rising sea levels and coastal erosion. Meanwhile, in footage from 2026, the same stretch appears again, now with a seawall built into the landscape. The before-and-after footage gives the exhibition its conceptual depth. For Atienza, the fallen coconut tree is proof that the landscape has already begun to register a crisis. From there, the work opens outward: shorelines are redrawn, communities..
