[8] Part of this long-term artistic project is a sculptural collaboration with Abad's wife, the jewelry designer Frances Wadsworth Jones, concerning Imelda Marcos’ jewellery collection.

Jane Ryan and William Saunders were the pseudonyms adopted by Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos in 1968 to set up a Swiss bank account that notoriously became a depository for funds diverted from the Philippine treasury for their private benefit.

In Abad and Wadsworth Jones's collection, "the jewels exist not as luxurious accessories but as a spectral line-up that hovers between evidence and effigy, carrying with it the painful history of a nation".

[citation needed] In 2019, his exhibition at KADIST San Francisco, Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite, "examine[d] the political consequences of Ferdinand Marcos's dictatorship in the Philippines, and its effects abroad.

[11] The exhibition was a culmination of Abad's ten-year project examining the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, employing a wide variety of media from the traditional forms of painting and photography to new innovations such as 3D printing and augmented reality.

[16][17] Sam Thorne, a jury member running the Japan House cultural center in London, said that Abad's work feels timely, raising questions about restitution.