Sex and spirituality are being celebrated in the Philippines this month. The Arts In The City festival has brought together dancers, musicians, artists and many more of the international creative community for live performances, workshops and exhibitions. Among the attractions in Pasay City is “Body and Soul”, a show by sculptors Agnes Arellano and Duddley Diaz. The follow-up to their 2007 “Angels and Goddesses” exhibition, this collection examines the sacred nature of sexuality and is inspired by myth, religion and the erotic temples in Khajuraho, Northern India.

“Being an ardent student of the tantras and longtime lover of the human form,” said Arellano, “I was in bliss as I recreated some inspiring scenes, zooming into particular details in extreme close-up and syncretising these through the church windows of my Catholic girlhood…”

Using the image of the monstrance (the vessel in which communion wafers are presented) Diaz also attempts to reconcile Roman Catholicism with overtly sexual deities such as Eros and Psyche: “My thoughts wanted to go as far back in time as possible to trace the history of erotic literature in the old world… The monstrance itself is in bronze and contains details of some of the erogenous parts of the body in alabaster. From afar, the luminosity of the alabaster piece and the monstrance-inspired motif puts us in a quasi-sacred state or an ecclesiastical setting.”

Read more about the Arts in the City fetsival from the Philippine Star here, and see more from the Galleria Duemila here.