Being there while being here is a visual arts project situated in the interdisciplinary contexts of childhood expectation and the reality of material thinking through a personal bi-cultural sensibility. This research is interested in the serious playfulness of fragments that combine to create a whole, within which are narratives of memory, care, and closeness. Material processes, in conjunction with sculptural making and installation, focus on navigating and reconnecting past experiences from the Philippines with my life here in Aotearoa. Correlating each body of work to a personal story/experience/memory, this project intends to manifest diasporic relationships through its engagement with materials. This is explored by investigating the materiality and immateriality of everyday materials, manufactured or raw, to be used or reused; thus nurturing the materials' ability to physically and metaphorically retain and communicate memory.