I Thought the Streets Were Paved with Gold

Jack Garrity is the Director of the Pacita Abad Art Estate located in Los Angeles, California. Pacita's husband and companion for 32 years Jack, was involved in almost all of Pacita's artistic activities including exhibitions, public art projects, publications, and archival documentation.

The Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) is a not-for-profit institution that continues to be the external face of De La Salle – College of Saint Benilde.

Nadine El Khoury was a curatorial assistant at Jameel Arts Centre, supporting the exhibitions and collections team on researching, developing exhibitions and publications. She holds a double major in Art History and Studio Arts from Concordia University, Montreal, as well as completing Ashkal Alwan Homeworkspace program in 2016. She has experience in exhibitions, publications, institutional/private collections and is also a practising artist.

Nora Razian is Head of Exhibitions at Art Jameel. She has an MA in anthropology and cultural politics from Goldsmiths College, London, and has curated several solo and group exhibitions.

Born in the Philippines in 1946, Pacita Abad studied painting at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Arts Student League in New York. Her work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions including Life in the Margins, Spike Island, Bristol (2020); Pacita Abad: A Million Things to Say, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila (2018); Circles in My Mind, Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Singapore (2003); Exploring the Spirit, National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta (1996); The American Dream, National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington D.C. (1994); Masks from Six Continents, Metro Art Center, Washington D.C. (1990); Pacita Abad: A Painter Looks at the World, Museum of Philippine Art, Manila (1984) and Assaulting the Deep Sea, Ayala Museum, Manila (1983). She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning,13th Gwangju Biennial (2021); SWEAT, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2021); Whose Tradition?, Tate Liverpool (2021); The Crack Begins Within, 11th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art (2020); Asia/America: Identities in Contemporary Asian American Art, a traveling exhibition organised by the Asia Society, New York (1996); Beyond the Border: Art by Recent Immigrants, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (1994); La Segunda Bienal de la Habana (1986); and the 2nd Asian Art Show, Fukuoka Art Museum (1985). Her work can be found in the collections of Tate Modern, London; The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C., M+ Museum, Hong Kong, Art Jameel, Dubai, and the National Gallery of Singapore.

Pio Abad (b. 1983, Manila) is a Filipino artist living and working in London. His work is concerned with the social and political signification of things. Deeply informed by the modern history of the Philippines, where the artist was born and raised, his work uses strategies of appropriation to mine alternative or repressed historical events, unravel official accounts and draw out threads of complicity between incidents, ideologies and people.

Saira Ansari is an independent writer and researcher whose areas of focus include South Asian art history, global modernity, transnational discourse, publishing and science fiction.