In a Room is a conversation series where we ask our friends to share their favourite domestic spaces. For this edition, we’re joined by arts and culture worker Mariam Ella Arcilla.
Mariam Ella Arcilla is a Filipina-Singaporean creative working across writing, producing, facilitating, and marketing. Her work explores the intersections of art, food, social justice, and knowledge-sharing practices. She runs Magenta House, partnering with artists, cooks, educators, and culture workers to stage programs and resources that support emerging artists, experimental practices, and equitable arts ecologies. Mariam has managed Australian commercial galleries, artist-run initiatives, creative strategies, and publishing projects since 2006. Her work has been featured in SBS Radio, ABC TV, Never Too Small, VOGUE Philippines, Habitat, and FBi Radio.
In this edition, Mariam talks us through the rooms that shape her life. From the kitchen where she prepares meals for visitors, to the library and courtyard that host her workshops and Magenta House projects, and back to the storage rooms and shared bedrooms of her childhood in Quezon City. Her reflections are about care, connection, and the rhythms of everyday life that make a space feel lived-in and meaningful.
Mariam Ella Arcilla • Photo by Mason Kimber
I’m in the kitchen. After a week of torrential rain, the sun has come out to splash itself all over our kitchen bench and serenade me with warmth.
It feels like the heart of our home shifts from room to room depending on the day or circumstance. Sometimes, it’s our library because it’s where good ideas start. Other times, it’s the internal courtyard because it’s where we host workshops, feeding sessions, and gatherings for a communal project I run called Magenta House. And today, it’s the kitchen because I’m preparing Filipino mango salad for visitors.
Probably the storage room in our family home in Quezon City, Philippines. I come from a big family as my grandparents had eight children. So naturally, we accumulated hand-me-down clothes, toys, watercolour paint sets and too many house slippers. A centrepiece of our storage room is this decades-old artificial Christmas tree filled with baubles and tinsel, cocooned in cling wrap. The Philippines has the longest Christmas season in the world because we ‘celebrate’ from September to February. So the Arcillas keep this tree dormant and ready to go, because, as my Aunty hilariously says, “What’s the point of reassembling the tree again in a few months’ time?”
It’s the care and presence that you put into a room that activates its spirit. I love inviting people into our home and making them feel like it’s their home too, and sometimes that involves offering food and sharing passages from a book, or engaging in robust conversations and ideas about art, love, life and destiny. These encounters turn a ‘house’ into a ‘home.’
Scenes from Magenta House
My husband Mason and I live in a micro-terrace that’s only three-metres wide, so there’s not many spots that we can avoid! But at the moment, I spend less time in the back studio because it gets cold at night and has a weak wifi signal, which results in frozen-face Zoom calls!
My grandmother’s kitchen. Seeing her cook meals on multiple stoves, stretch dough, throw spices in the air, and line up towers of fruitcakes felt like I was watching a magician.
This would have to be our family bedroom. As mentioned, we have a large family, so we were used to sleeping in rooms together—typical for many Asian homes. My cousins and I would sleep sideways on a Queen-sized bed, with our feet dangling on the sides, which is probably why I still sometimes sleep in a funny angle, which amuses Mason!