The installation Studies from a Forgotten Monument occupies the gallery floor with 327 plaster casts of Anastacio Caedo’s portrait study of Ninoy Aquino. In 1986, the renowned monument builder was commissioned to create a bronze statue of the national hero on the corner of Ayala Avenue and Paseo de Roxas in Makati. Caedo chose to immortalize Aquino at the precise moment of his assassination, shot in the head as he descended the steps of the China Airlines flight that brought him back to the Philippines after three years in exile. Caedo’s portrayal was deemed too depressing, not in keeping with the triumphal spirit that Ninoy’s death brought to the political landscape, and it was subsequently replaced with a more conventional statue. Abad’s installation revisits Caedo’s version – its insistent portrayal of terror and sacrifice a more appropriate symbol for the less triumphant times of now.