Lek Vercauteren Borja (b. Philippines) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, sculpture, drawing, collage, and writing to explore themes of displacement, identity, and cultural memory. Born in a rural village in the Philippines and immigrating to the United States at the age of ten, Borja draws from the personal and political terrain of migration, examining the complexities of belonging across borders and generations.

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Working at the intersection of personal experience and collective history, Borja investigates the enduring imprint of Spanish colonization and American imperialism on Filipino identity. Through research and an introspective studio process, she unearths historical events and ancestral/family narratives to trace how power, loss and survival manifest across generations. Her work often revisits moments of “otherness” and social trauma—experiences of assimilation, language loss, and cultural erasure—to understand how these shape the self and the diasporic condition.

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Borja’s practice weaves together archival fragments, inherited knowledge, and memory to reckon with grief, transformation, and resilience. While deeply grounded in the Filipino experience, her work resonates with broader global conversations around postcolonial identity and migration.

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Borja holds an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her chapbook of experimental poetry, Android, was acquired by Yale University Library for its special collections.