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“…listen to me as one listens to the rain,

the asphalt's shining, you cross the street,

it is the mist, wandering in the night,

it is the night, asleep in your bed,

it is the surge of waves in your breath,

your fingers of water dampen my forehead,

your fingers of flame burn my eyes,

your fingers of air open eyelids of time,

a spring of visions and resurrections,

listen to me as one listens to the rain,

the years go by, the moments return,

do you hear the footsteps in the next room?

not here, not there: you hear them

in another time that is now,

listen to the footsteps of time,

inventor of places with no weight, nowhere,

listen to the rain running over the terrace,

the night is now more night in the grove,

lightning has nestled among the leaves,

a restless garden adrift-go in,

your shadow covers this page.”

~ Octavio Paz

This is an excerpt of “As One Listens To The Rain” by Octavio Paz. Paz is the recipient of the Cervantes Award, the Neustadt Prize, and the Nobel Prize for Literature. Born in 1914 Mexico City, Paz studied law and literature at the National University of Mexico, publishing his first poetry collection when he was nineteen. He worked for the Mexican diplomatic service before founding the magazines Plural and Vuelta. A prolific essayist, his writing was informed by his view that poetry is “the secret religion of the modern age”. Influenced by Modernist and Surrealist movements, Paz’s work is famous for its complexity, in how it investigates the intersections of philosophy, religion, art, politics, and the role of the individual. “Wouldn’t it be better to turn life into poetry rather than to make poetry from life?” Paz asks. “And cannot poetry have as its primary objective, rather than the creation of poems, the creation of poetic moments?”

Join us in commemorating this astonishingly brilliant poet’s birth centennial with this stellar photo-art series, titled Shared Spaces, by Lilen Uy. Of this series, Lilen has this to say: “It started with a curiosity on how a bed space and sleep behavior can give insight to an individual. The initial attempt was to capture the imprint of sleep. I got turned down several times, reason being the bedroom is personal, private and exclusive. This series is called Shared Spaces – shared because there is more than one individual using the space. The process was like traveling. I found landscapes, and landscaping. The inhabitants of the rooms remained strangers, most of them I never got to meet.”

Based in the Philippines, Lilen Uy is an accomplished photographer who runs Tao Photography, a commercial photographic outfit. With stellar work in both advertising and editorial industries, Lilen’s images have been published by numerous publications including Town & Country, Elle Décor, Philippines, Preview, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Metro Magazine, Mega, Yummy, Good Housekeeping, Martha Stewart Weddings, among others. Lilen received her BA (Communication Arts) from Ateneo de Manila University in Manila, as well as a BA (Commercial Photography) at Brooks Institute of Photography in California, undertaking several fine art courses at the San Francisco Art Institute.

With work stints at Michele Clement Studio (San Francisco) and Rebecca Blake Studio (New York), Lilen was a commercial photographer in Singapore, shooting people and products for advertising agencies and design firms, with portraits and fashion spreads published in magazines like Her World, Go, Home and Decor, and Man magazine. She received Her World’s Best Cover of the Year at the Singapore Press Holdings Annual Awards in 1991. Lilen subsequently became a photojournalist at national daily The Straits Times, further winning Feature Picture of the Year at the Singapore Press Holdings Annual Awards in 1992. She helmed the photography team as chief photographer at Caldecott Publishing, working on an array of magazine titles, with assignments that took her to Germany, France, USA, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Indonesia.

Over the years, Lilen has photographed such known personalities as Yo Yo Ma, Mstislav Rostropovich, Gidon Kremer, Stephen Hawking, Imelda Marcos, Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Paloma Picasso, Chng Siok Tin, and Shaquille O’Neal. Other projects Lilen has been involved in include: The Philippines Yearbook: 99 Cultural Heroes (The Fookien Times), The Star Book (Caldecott Publishing), A Tribute to the Human Spirit (Singapore Sports Council for the Disabled), and The Book of Longing (Theatreworks). Her work has been exhibited at the following venues: Silverlens Gallery, Gallery Orange, Notices Gallery, and Gallery 21.

To purchase these art print collectibles, scroll down our extensive gallery below.