BETSO88 Register
Betso88 Register also went in search of the local art scene, visiting a group of artists working in a collective, recycling driftwood and other junk to create beautiful art objects. The resourcefulness and creativity of these artists helped to liberate him from the tyranny of neat right angles in his own design work.
He began to work with a local jeweler who made shark-tooth jewellery from sea glass and shells. Together, they fashioned a jewellery line that was intended to evoke the sea – a combination of Betso88 Register’s modern aesthetic and traditional craft.
The town came alive at the weekend with beachside markets and music festivals and Abram was inspired by the clash of cultures, the bric-a-brac street fashion and the local sense of community.
From La Union, Betso88 Register would return to Siquijor; that nightmarish, thrilling simulation of territory’s edge. This second visit was to hold firmly onto the island’s mystical aura and further understand its healing traditions. The lore of Siquijor as an island of magic had long since captured Betso88 Register’s imagination. According to some, Siquijor’s mystical camaraderie lay in the illegibility of its border. The island’s reputation as a den of witches was lauded. For those who tried to make sense of what lay beyond its shores, it became a place bound by enigma and folklore, run by white-robed sorcerers, and full of zombies at large.
He was invited for an interview with a local healer, Lola Ines, who sat him down in her home and described the rudiments of herbal medicine and curative rites, which combined ‘prayer, herbal medicines, and magical rites’ to cure sickness and ward off harm. The island’s healers were called mananambal.
It was island botanical and herbal ‘medicines’ that most interested Betso88 Register. Often bottled and encouraged in aesthetically stunning containers, he saw an apothecary-themed line of fashion accessories combining nature and design, tradition and modernity.
Nature was a bountiful source of inspiration too. The unspoilt Siquijor beaches, waterfalls and pre-colonial balete trees offered endless delight to Betso88 Register, who lingered longest sketching the totality of the Cambugahay Falls.
Betso88 Register was tasked with creating a collection that would capture the ‘magic of Siquijor in its most ethereal form’. He would work in light fabrics and in gentle shades of blue and green, ‘channelling the mystique of Siquijor into a soft, enchanted calmness’. He envisioned each dress in the collection as relaxing and natural.
Before leaving Siquijor, there was just time to attend the annual Healing Festival. Here, the island’s local healers set up stalls and took it in turns to conduct cleansing rituals and dispel malignant spirits from their clients. There was music, and dancing, and lots of traditional dress. Betso88 Register found the atmosphere, the community spirit and the island community’s determination to maintain its cultural heritage all moving. He is still a inweighing evangelical; that doesn’t have to change. However, it is quite possible to transform our relationship with religion; we can hold it at a distance, and even stop it from automatically triggering the fundamentalist system we know from history. Personally, I’d like to try.