Exhibition Spaces, Artists, and Works
MINI HALL, ABELARDO HALL, COLLEGE OF MUSICUniversity of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City The U.P. College of Music serves as an effective instrument in the task of national development by providing quality and professional instruction in diverse areas of specialization in Music. The Mini Hall is used as an additional venue for recitals, auditions and big classes catering to the needs of the growing student population |
RAMON SANTOSRamon Santos belongs to the New and Experimental Music group of Filipino composers. He initially trained in Composition and Conducting at the University of the Philippines, and earned his Master of Music (with distinction) and Ph.D. degrees at Indiana University and State University of New York at Buffalo, respectively. He was a full fellow at the Summer Courses in New Music at Darmstadt, Germany, and undertook post-graduate work in Ethnomusicology at the University of Illinois under grants from the Ford Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council. He has been awarded Artist-in-Residence fellowships at the Bellagio Study Center and the CivitellaRanieri Center in Italy. He has also been elected as Member of Honor of the Asian Composers League which he led as Chairman in 1994-1997, as well as elected Vice President of the International Music Council at UNESCO from 2001 to 2005 serving as one of only two Asians (and the first Filipino) in the 5-man Praesidium of the highest governing body of the international music community.’’
DANGAL Music and Score, 2006-2007 UP DANGAL NG KARUNUNGAN, DANGAL NG BAYAN: AWIT RITWAL was composed for the Centennial Celebration of the University of the Philippines. It is scored for soloists, speech choir, chorus, orchestra, gamelan, as well as Philippine indigenous instruments. The piece is divided into five parts. The text was written by the composer himself with the title UP Naming Mahal: Isang-daangtaon. The project was supported by the University Professors Grant Program.
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JORGE B. VARGAS MUSEUM AND FILIPINIANA RESEARCH CENTERRoxas Avenue, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City The Vargas Art Collection consists of a wide array of oil paintings, watercolors, pastels, drawings and sculptures, embracing an extensive range of Philippine artistic creativity from the 1880s to the 1960s. It also has the distinction of being the only public collection with the most number of artworks by the late National Artist Fernando Amorsolo. Aside from Mr. Vargas’s memorabilia and personal papers, the library and archives has a collection of rare Filipiniana documents, papers, books, journals, photographs, scrapbooks, newspapers and magazines. Its strength lies in its holdings from Commonwealth period and Japanese Occupation. Other galleries aside from the Main Gallery that houses the permanent collection are devoted to changing exhibitions for selected venue grants of contemporary art. The museum also serves as venue for workshops, seminars, lectures, concerts, book launchings and other artistic and cultural activities. |
JONAS BAESJonas Baes is composer and ethnomusicologist who studied at the University of the Philippines and at the Staatliche HochschulefuerMusik in Freiburg, Germany. His academic papers on the music of the Iraya-Mangyan of Mindoro Island in the Philippines, and other topics that relate to cultural politics, the sociology of music and the marginalization of indigenous peoples have been published in international academic journals like Ethnomusicology, Perfect Beat, Shima, the Journal of Intercultural Studies and the Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies. His compositions, most of which utilize Asian musical instruments and vocal styles, have been performed in numerous international festivals of new music in Asia, Europe and the United States. InAYTA Sound Installation, 2010 The title InAYTA is coined from the Filipino word, pinatay, i.e., “was put to death”/ “summarily executed”. It is scored for solo vocalist, large tam-tam and various percussion instruments such as scrapers, bottles, pipes, bean-pod rattles and tree branches and conceptualized while engaging indigenous peoples in an internal-refugee camp. The work is based on the narratives of NanayAdeling, a mother of seven children, from among the Dumagat people of Rizal province in the Southern Tagalog region of the Philippines. Sometime in 2002, NanayAdeling’s husband, a tribal leader and community organizer, was summarily executed and mercilessly gunned down allegedly by elements of military and para-military units in their province, as a suspected communist sympathizer. Within months after the incident, NanayAdeling and her children had to leave behind their ancestral domain in the mountains to find refuge in a nearby province because of fear and trauma. This work is a string of sound moments that create images of NanayAdeling’s story, whose intensity is embodied in the various levels of the sound of weeping, punctuated by sound colors of the tam-tam and the different percussion instruments. The work is dedicated to ican. Recording Credits: Performed by the Ripieno Ensemble /Director: Jonas Baes /Vocalist-Weeper: Katherine Trangco/ Large Tam-Tam (Gong): Juro Kim Feliz / Various Percussion: Dominic Quejada, Marie LuiseCalvero, Reis Luke Aquino / Sound Engineer: Michael Bulaong / Recorded at the University of the Philippines College of Music / April 16, 2010 A performance entitled Banwa will be at the Ateneo Art Gallery for one day only, 30 May 2010. ________________________________________ JESUS SANTIAGOJesus Santiago writes songs and has performed his creations before small and huge crowds in most parts of the Philippines and elsewhere. At present, he has recorded three albums featuring his songs. Santiago’s research has produced a set of video documentaries on people’s music in Japan, Thailand, and Indonesia. Such an opportunity opens his eyes to greater possibilities that inspired him to compile music from these countries and come up with an album of Asian Songs. It encouraged him to work towards setting up an Asian Peoples’ Music Center, a dream he hopes to realize in the near future. A VILLAGE IN THE MAKING Video, 2006 The video, “A Village in the Making,” provides a brief overview of the peoples’ music scene in the project sites: Okinawa (Japan), Chiang Mai (Thailand) and Yogyakarta (Indonesia). It shows the current state and direction of peoples’ music from the point of view of local musicians by illustrating how musicians respond to social issues in their respective countries, by documenting the stories and struggles of socially-engaged singer-songwriters. The perspectives of these musicians present the power of culture as a tool for education and social transformation together with their aspirations toward building a community of artists across the region. This documentary consists of interviews with local artists interspersed with footages of their activities, including musical performances. It touches on the role of musicians in changing societies, and tackles such issues as globalization, presence of foreign troops on one’s native soil, assertion of people’s identity through music, impact of technology on music production, environmental protection, intellectual property rights, artists’ response to a disaster situation, and the need for Asian artists to come together. SONGS FOR LIFE Video, 2009 “Songs for Life”traces the roots and development of the “Song for Life Movement” in Thailand. It features the prime-movers and present-day advocates of songs for life. ________________________________________ KIDLAT TAHIMIKEric de Guia better known as KidlatTahimik (Tagalog translation of “quiet lightning”), is a movie director, writer and actor whose films are commonly associated with the Third Cinema movement through their critiques of neocolonialism AY APO! MAY BAMBOOKAM INDIGENOUS FILM CREW! Installation, Projection, 2010 Here today, obsolete tomorrow. In KidlatTahimik’s 33 years of experience as an independent filmmaker many technological developments have occurred resulting in different kinds of visual recording instruments. He has handled instruments such as hand-cranked 16mm film cameras, bulky Betamax/VHSvideorecorders, smaller Hi-8 analogue-cameras, mini-DV palm-corders, and HD cameras. He introduces the super-sized BambooKamin this installation against this generation’s trend of shrinking video cameras. In his guerre-de-resistance versus the Hollywood Trojan Horse, the “BambooKam Award” has become Kidlat’s metaphorical “firearm”. It is given to young independent filmmakers with a strong sarilingdwende vision—that is, their playful personal imagery, fired by a local cultural esprit, one free of the blockbuster formula. The bamboo camera Kidlat claims, really shoots indigenous stories, as he recruits independents into his shooting world. Thus, a full indigenous film crew to churn out BambooKam films—guided by socially relevant sarilingdwende visions. Vive le resistance! Works were produced by different artists from the Cordillera: life-size rattan figurines by Rogelio Giraroy a blind Ifugao sculptor / g-strings of junk items woven by Rommel Pidazo, Baguio artist / wood carvings by Tim-manen an Ifugao shaman / anonymous Hapao artists / bamboo cameras by DonataHimiwat, Ifugaoratten weaver / Bamboocam-Crane kariton by Jason Domling, Sagada rattan weaver, instrument maker / Mosaic “BanbooKamvs Trojan Horse” by Kabunyan de Guia. |
ATENEO ART GALLERYAteneo de Manila University, Loyola Heights, Quezon City The Ateneo Art Gallery was established in August 1960 due to the bequest of the late Fernando Zóbel de Ayala (1924-1984). Painter, art scholar and teacher at the Ateneo, Zóbel donated over 200 artworks to form a study collection for university students.??Today, the gallery holds over 600 artworks that include paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, photographs and posters. First housed in Bellarmine Hall, it moved to the ground floor of Rizal Library in 1967, where it has remained ever since. On the occasion of its 50th year in 2010, it is relocating to more spacious quarters and occupying the entire second level of the Rizal Library Special Collections Building, Ateneo de Manila University, Loyola Heights, Quezon City. |
AMIR BIN MUHAMMADAmir Muhammad is a writer, publisher and independent filmmaker based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He has been writing for the print media since the age of fourteen. His movies have been screened in numerous international film festivals such as the Berlin International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival and Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. Two of his documentaries, “The Last Communist,” (2006) and “Village People Radio Show,” (2007) are currently banned in Malaysia. He set up Matahari Books in 2007 to publish non-fiction books about Malaysia. In 2009 he launched his first collection of short stories, “Rojak,” as well as a book about early cinema entitled “120 Malay Movies.” During his API Fellowship, he was based in Japan and Indonesia where he created two video works: “Tokyo Magic Hour” and “The Year of Living Vicariously,” respectively. THE LAST COMMUNIST Film documentary, 2006 “The Last Communist” is a hybrid documentary, not because it combines fact and fiction, rather it combines testimony with song. Chin Peng, born in 1924 is the last leader of the banned Communist Party of Malaya. He now lives in Thailand due to the injunction the Malaysian government imposed on him, despite his repeated attempts to go to trial. Communists have the reputation of being “mad, bad and dangerous” in the artist’s days of growing up. Chin Peng’s memoirs, “My Side of History,” (2003) triggered Amir bin Muhammad’s interest to do a film about him. It is also the logical continuation of his two previous documentaries, “The Big Durian” (2003) which is about the prickly issue of Malaysian politics, and “The Year of Living Vicariously” (2005), which features Indonesians talking about, inter alia, the communist era during the 1960s. Amir bin Muhammad chose not to represent Chin Peng in the documentary, making him an active void that furthers the enigma. This documentary is banned in Malaysia citing public protest as its reason. COLIN NICHOLASColin Nicholas is the founder and coordinator of the Center for OrangAsli Concerns (COAC), a non-governmental organization that advocates for the rights of the indigenous peoples of Peninsular Malaysia. He has authored several popular and academic articles as well as published five books on indigenous and Orang Asli issues. Though he dislikes it, he is sometimes asked to speak at various fora. In February, for example, he delivered the second keynote address at the Kyoto Earth Forum. And in April, he spoke to a group of local EIA consultants on public participation. But his favourite audience is young people – the ones most likely to bring about change. He is also a keen photographer and a budding videographer. He continues to capture images and footage on the OrangAsli and the indigenous peoples for documentary and campaigning purposes. He is grateful to API for the many opportunities and support given. INDIGENOUS VISUALISM Photographs Photography is the best excuse anyone can have to travel and see other peoples and cultures, especially indigenous cultures. With the advent of very accessible compact digital cameras, taking postcard-type images of places and peoples is a breeze. Nonetheless, photography is not the reason for Colin Nicholas’ engagement with indigenous peoples –although visual documentation to complement the oral or written argument has been an important aid for advocacy and campaign purposes. Photography, in fact, can be a tool to get a visual peek into the lives of indigenous peoples and to better understand their situation. There is often more behind the image than the elements in the image themselves. Thus, while indigenous peoples generally lead more interesting, more complete lives—and we have a lot to learn from them—they also have sad stories to tell; all on account of outsiders not understanding them and not respecting their desire to remain indigenous. The artist gains more from photographing indigenous peoples than they do from being photographed. Sharing the images with them is but a small way to correct the disparity. It also ensures that he will be welcome on their land again. ________________________________________ KARNT THASSANAPHAKKarnt Thassanaphak is a freelance writer and artist from Thailand. GRAY RED SHIRTS Photographs, 2010 “We have complete right to agree with or even deny them but it shouldn’t [be] because of the ‘colours’ of the shirts they’re wearing” In recent years, shirt colours have symbolized groups of people among political conflicts in Thailand. There is prejudice against “red-shirt people,” and they are denied their right to equality and fair judgment; they are instead treated as society’s poor uneducated fools. Whatever political ideology or purpose they may have, this is predetermined by the colour red. The exhibition consists of photos of ‘red-shirt people’ taken from political demonstrations in Bangkok from March to April 2010. These photos are printed in black and white to express the artist’s response to this issue. What will outsiders see in case the colours of the shirts are not evident and cannot be determined? Without concrete ‘colours of shirt’, will they be able to uncover and move beyond wrapped intangible myths? If the colour of the shirt cannot not be determined, how will we look at them? Will we still draw conclusions, for or against them, without the colour red? Or will they finally be seen for what they truly are about? ________________________________________ KAOIRI FUSHIKIKaori Fushiki is a musician and producer who joins various ensembles doing percussions and participates in concerts throughout Japan and abroad since the 1990s. He is also the producer of New Creation of the Gambuh Theatre “Taketori-monogatari” (2007) among others. TAKAKO IWASAWATakako Iwasawa performs different Thai dances on stages in Japan. He recently directed the performance workshop “The Water Children Project” in Khiriwong, Thailand. MOTOHIDE TAGUCHIMotohide Taguchi is a composer active in Japan and abroad. He received Honorable mention at the 16th JSCM Composer’s Awards in Japan in 1999. He is also a selected participant of the 8th Young Composers’ Meeting in the Netherlands in 2002. MICHI TOMIOKAMichi Tomioka is a Javanese dancer, choreographer, and producer. She is active in reviving the Javanese court dance and does collaborations in Japan and Indonesia. She has been invited to Riau Contemporary Dance Mart in 2005 and 2008. CROSS-OVERLAP Site specific performance, 2010 Cross-overlap is an installation that makes use of dance and music. It is unlike usual dances and musical performances wherein the audience needs to watch the whole piece in order to appreciate it. In this case, the goal is to have the observer admire, not the construction of dance and music, but rather the space made through dance and music. Each element and fractions of the performance may be appreciated and experienced as it is, aside from the entire routine itself. This installation gives Asian and traditional, western and contemporary performances, as represented by traditional Javanese and Thai dance, a violin recital, to exist within a “contemporary composition”, i.e. to cross over and overlap with each other. These aspects interweave and blend harmoniously together to create a different and new experience for the audience. This “crossoverlap” imposes a change in pattern like that which appears on the surface of the water. This is experienced by witnessing the performance for a short period or through several visits. Performers: Michi TOMIOKA (dancer: Based on Javanese Dance) / Takako IWASAWA (dancer: Based on Thai Dance) / Kaori FUSHIKI (Percussion) / Criselda PEREN (Violin: Gust musician, Ateneo alumna) / Composer: Motohide TAGUCHI Guest violinist: CriseldaPeren. She is an Ateneo alumna, member of the Metro Manila Community Orchestra, The UP Orchestra and MusicaChiesa. ________________________________________ TAN SOOI BENGEthnomusicologist Tan Sooi Beng is active in the development of formal and informal music education in Malaysia. She is a keen advocate of community theatre which combines music, dance and drama as an educational device for young people. Her expertise in the field has led her to be elected as an Executive Board Member of the International Council For Traditional Music (ICTM), an NGO of Unesco. Dr. Tan Sooi Beng currently serves as Professor in the School of Arts, UniversitiSains Malaysia (USM) in Penang, Malaysia. She is the author of “Bangsawan: A Social and Stylistic History of Popular Malay Opera” (Oxford University Press, 1993) and co-author of “Music of Malaysia: Classical, Folk and Syncretic Traditions” (Ashgate Press, 2004). MUSIC OF SOUND: BUILDING BRIDGES THROUGH THE PERFORMING ARTS Video documentation, 2009/2010 Tan Sooi Beng re-envisions the cultural aesthetics and politics of multiethnic Malaysia by juxtaposing Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Western musical elements and instruments with topical Malaysian themes. Compositions such as Pulse, SuaraRimba, Beach Street, and PenjualSayur exemplify this eclectic topical style. Tan has also attempted to bring a new Malaysian identity to gamelan music through compositions such as Perubahan (CD Rhythm in Bronze, Five Arts Centre, 2002) and SalingBerpelukan (performed by Rhythm in Bronze at the DewanFilharmonikPetronas, 2004). She also inculcates the creative combination of sounds of everyday objects, the environment and traditional music through non-formal compositional workshops popularly known as the Music of Sound for school teachers and children. These compositions have been combined with movement and drama in children’s theatre productions including “We Have a Dream” (1990), “Red and Gold Shoe” (2001), and “Hen or Rooster?” (2005). Tan is does engaged arts and works with multicultural communities and young people in Georgetown, Penang. Through this they have recreated the history of Penang through musical theater. The DVD shown here is a documentation of the methodology used in Music of Sound and the performance of “KisahPulau Pinang.” The process of collecting sounds and stories from the environment, conducting fieldwork in multicultural Georgetown, and working towards the performance, promoted interaction and cross-cultural understanding among the young participants. ________________________________________ JONAS BAESJonas Baes is composer and ethnomusicologist who studied at the University of the Philippines and at the Staatliche HochschulefuerMusik in Freiburg, Germany. His academic papers on the music of the Iraya-Mangyan of Mindoro Island in the Philippines, and other topics that relate to cultural politics, the sociology of music and the marginalization of indigenous peoples have been published in international academic journals like Ethnomusicology, Perfect Beat, Shima, the Journal of Intercultural Studies and the Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies. His compositions, most of which utilize Asian musical instruments and vocal styles, have been performed in numerous international festivals of new music in Asia, Europe and the United States. BANWA Performance, 10 minutes, 2010 BANWA [i.e.: 'place / community] is borne out of a field engagement with Bilaan, Taga-kaulo, Ubu-, Diyangan- and TagabawaBagobo communities in 1997. Living within the peripheries of urban centers and cities in Davao del Sur in Southern Philippines, these pocket communities of former upland farmers grapple with any possible means of livelihood, after being uprooted from their ancestral domain in the rainforests and becoming deeply absorbed into mainstream of the national body politic and the cash economy. Sometime in May 1997, at the Office of Southern Cultural Communities [OSCC], an old man from the Bagobo rendered a song whose text he says was to “welcome our party to their banwa(a traditional village in the mountains). In effect, and for the old singer as well, that song reminisced of life in the forests. The composition Banwa magnifies that reminiscence even outside the initial context of the OSCC Office in Davao del Sur. Its resonance also extends into other localities to serve as a reminder of the natural and social environments of the rainforest, so neglected because of development aggression, corrupt feudal politics and the domination of transnational and multinational mining and logging industries. Structured flexibly so that the music adapts to every and any situation where the performance is to take place, Banwa premiered in Thailand in 1997, and subsequently had performances in Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. This work especially features the incorporation of the audience into the performance and into the creation of a “rainforest of sound.” Composer and Director: Jonas Baes/ Performed by the Ripieno Ensemble / Budyong (shell horn): Gabriel Valdellon Molina / 4 bamboo rasps: Dominic Quejada, Juro Kim Feliz, Reis Luke Aquino, Marie LuiseCalvero / Vocal Soloist : Nikka Mae Lopez / Group of Voices: Sara Matsuura, Patricia Poblador, Anna Patricia Rodriguez, AraJeannelleForonda / Maguindanao ‘gandingan a kayu’ [wooden gongs]: KanapiaKalanduyan / Brazilian ‘cuica’ [friction drum]: Alexander John Villanueva / 200 Iron Nail “Peace” Chimes played by the audience A sound installation, entitled Inayta, will be at the Jorge B. Vargas Museum, to run from 28 May until 5 June 2010. |
| ART INFORMAL
277 Connecticut, East Greenhills, Mandaluyong City Art Informal is an artist-run center for art education and exhibitions. The gallery was launched in 2006. It is a venue for art exhibitions, installations and performance; gallery talks or art symposia, all with the end view of art education. The space features curated shows of contemporary Philippine art. It is a place for exchange of contemporary art pieces by leading Filipino artists. A representation program is also being implemented for artists to further set standards of professionalism in the proper handling of artists’ projects, shows and works. |
DAVID LUMENTADavid Lumenta is an Indonesian born in Amsterdam in 12 April 1971. He was an art student until he switched to anthropology. His first Borneo journey began as a volunteer during the 1997-98 forest fires in Central Kalimantan. He has undertaken four ethnographic studies in Borneo from which a seven-year research on cross-border mobility in Borneo earns him a Ph.D in Southeast Asian Studies from Kyoto University, Japan. Today he lectures on Southeast Asian Ethnography at the University of Indonesia – while maintaining a career as a musician / soundscapist. He was a second batch (2002-2003) API Fellow, working on indigenous cross-border networks in Sarawak, Malaysia. STRADDLING BORNEO Photographs, 2001 to 2007 Borneo, the third largest island in the world shared by three different states (Indonesia, Malaysia & Brunei Darussalam), has undergone rapid social, cultural and ecological change since the late 1960s. While images of deforestation predominate the visual representations of the island, the more nuanced penetration of change in people’s daily lives are often overlooked. Dave Lumenta presents the dominating impression about Borneo that conjures up feelings of ambiguity, a living space that cannot merely be understood through black & white nor rose-tinted lenses. BENEATH BATANES Photographs, 2010 Batanes at the northernmost fringe of the Philippines was chosen as one of the five API regional project sites. The Batanes islands have always been depicted as a pristine place frozen in time by geographical isolation. Looking beneath the façade, the artist sees the Batan and Sabtang ecologies as a fragile environment where the balance between humans and nature may face new challenges. Micro-penetration of forces from the outside is slowly changing the arid but delicate Batanese living space. While the resilience of traditional Mataw-fishing represents one intimate balance between nature and man, the ubiquitous political campaigns scarring the Batanes landscape, an odious representation of ‘modernity’, may hint to what lies in store for the future. ________________________________________ SHIGEAKI IWAIShigeaki Iwai’s recent works deal with issues of communication and multicultural phenomena in cities and rural areas around the world. He often conducts long-term fieldwork research prior to an exhibition. For Dialogue, between 1996 and 1999 Iwai filmed footage to record more than 60 languages spoken in multicultural cities in Europe and Asia. Iwai attempts to represent and reconstruct local communities or traditions in a contemporary way utilizing a range of media including sound, text, video and installation. He exhibits his works in London, Rotterdam, Aarhus, Stuttgart, Milan, Toronto, Havana, Bangkok, Brisbane, Perth, Singapore and various cities in Japan. He involves himself in organizing projects and educational workshops for people of all ages. He currently lectures at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. FAMILY SNAPSHOT 33 Two-channel video installation, dimensions variable, 2009
Shigeaki Iwai has been dealing with “family” as one of the subjects of his art activities for several years. He has tackled the issue within specific communities through long-term research. It is the accumulation of his experiences that he reached the idea of “family” as his next subject; he sees family as the most important factor for the structure of the community. For his work titled “Million Mama?2005?”, he collected a great number of telephone messages from mothers who are concerned about their own children. His video project “Contemporary Family, as an Involuntary Community” (2010) supported by API, is a good example of his work which captured peoples images by using the methodology of field-work and documentary. Other works regarding “family” have take on a different slant, such as his video series “Family Snapshots (2008- ongoing). With this work, the artist sought to create a real family with people from a variety of backgrounds (e.g race or religion) as members, and attempted to critique the fixed definition of family, as vital institution that has not been questioned. Iwai sets a premise that a family is “a collective body of separate individuals,” when in fact, without the effort to maintain the family’s unity, it can easily fall apart. ________________________________________ YEOH SENG GUANYeohSeng-Guan is Senior Lecturer at the School of Arts & Social Sciences, Monash University, Sunway Campus Malaysia. He has a Ph.D from the University of Edinburgh. His research areas are in the anthropology of the city, religion and media with particular interest in subaltern cosmopolitanism in the Southeast Asian region. Since his API Fellowship, he has ventured into making ethnographic documentaries. The two works being exhibited are the outcome of his API Fellowship in 2006 and subsequent follow-up research on street vendors in Baguio City (Philippines) and Yogyakarta (Indonesia). MANONG DIOKNO Video, 31 minutes, 2009 “ManongDiokno” follows the routines of a Muslim street vendor from Mindanao who migrated to the famous mountain resort city of Baguio City in the Philippines. Along the way, Diokno reflects about his business, family, faith and life situation. THE KUE SELLER COUPLE Video, 30 minutes, 2009 “The Kue Seller Couple” tracks the routines of a young married couple in the lively royal city of Yogyakarta. Mahmudah and Windi both earn a living by selling cakes made by housewives in the old residential quarter of Kauman in the bustling Beringharjo market place. |
| PABLO GALLERY
Unit C-11, 26th Street, South of Market Condominium, The Fort, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City
Pablo’s original gallery is located at the Cubao X area with a space where the works of talented young artists could be showcased. The gallery has caught the attention of critics, older artists, members of academe, art collectors, and other gallerists. The new Pablo Fort is situated at Fort Bonifacio which is evolving as a hub for the modern arts. Pablo Cubao X will continue being a steppingstone for young artists to break into the bigger, commercial galleries. Pablo Fort, on the other hand, will be working with older, mid-career, or more established artists as well as under-recognized older artists.
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TOMONARI NISHIKAWATomonari Nishikawa has been a filmmaker since 2001. A number of film festivals including Berlinale, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, and Toronto International Film Festival screens his films and videos. His work/s will be shown at MoMa P.S.1, New York in 2010. He makes film installations using pinhole techniques, and one of such works, Building 945, received the 2008 Museum of Contemporary Cinema Foundation Grant. Nishikawa works as a guest adviser and curator for Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions in Tokyo, and a co-director and curator for KLEX: Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film and Video Festival. He currently teaches as a visiting artist at Binghamton University in the United States. CLEAR BLUE SKY Single channel video installation, 4 minutes, 2006 It is a beautiful Sunday morning at Washington Square Park in San Francisco. Tomonari Nishikawa uses a pinhole/slit photography technique and shoots a video. The small implement he employs allows him to adjust the angle and the length of the slit, in order to manipulate the visual while videotaping. “Clear Blue Sky” shows the artist’s direct response to the scenery, along with his interests in forms and abstraction rather than representation. It is a study of movement, color, shape and their relation to sound. Visual effects are created through, not a lens, but an adjustable slit, which was attached in front of the image sensor chip of a DV camcorder. ________________________________________ MOHD NAGUIB RAZAK Mohd NaguibRazak is the first Malaysian to produce & direct a documentary for a major international broadcaster (Discovery Channel, 2001) and to have a documentary take part in competition at an international film festival (Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, 1999). He produces and directs international documentary films for National Geographic Channel and Crime & Investigation Network since then. He has his personal documentary films presented at prestigious film festivals around the world, such as Mannheim-Heidelberg, IDFA Amsterdam, Rencontres Paris/Berlin/Madrid and It’s All True – Sao Paulo/Rio de Janeiro. Razak is a recipient of two long-stay arts residence fellowships from both The Japan Foundation (Invitation Program) and Nippon Foundation (Asian Public Intellectuals Fellowship). He has more than 14 years of experience in the broadcasting, advertising, design and publishing industries. GLASS ENCLOSURE Film/Single Channel Video Installation, 2002 The film is a visual_aural document of the artist’s journey to come to terms with the lonely but lovely city of Tokyo. The result is a personal journey that marks the encounter between myself, the voices of Tokyo, and tookyo as an environment—half-constructed, half-natural; half-contrived, half-pure. There is a wish by the artist to undermine some of the widely prescribed and commonly-held western view of “things Japanese.” The film is, ultimately, a journey, wherein the artist from behind the glass enclosure—a glass tower, the glass window—to beyond the camera and face-to-face with the people and nature of Tokyo. |
| SILVERLENS
2320, Yupangco Building 2?Chino Roces Avenue, Makati City 1231 The Silverlens Group, established in Manila in 2004, is composed of Silverlens Gallery for photography and related media, SLab (Silverlens Lab) for other contemporary art, and the 20SQUARE project space. Silverlens shows artists who push the boundaries of their medium and are aggressive in their dialogue with a critical audience. With an annual schedule of 20-30 shows a year in three (3) spaces, as well as participation in art fairs and institutional exhibitions, the gallery artists are represented by Silverlens for their exposure, recall, recognition, and collection.??TheSilverlens Group also provides consultancy for art collections and acquisition committees. Thus, establishing the vital partnership between defining the market and shaping contemporary Philippine art history. |
NADIAH BAMADHAJNadiah Bamadhaj was born in Petaling Jaya, West Malaysia in 1968. Trained as a sculptor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, she now produces drawings, video, and digital images. She has worked in non-government organizations on HIV/AIDS prevention, human rights advocacy, and lectured in art in Kuala Lumpur. She is author of “Aksi Write” (1997), a work of non-fiction on Indonesia and Timor Leste, co-written with her late brother. In 2000 she began full-time art-practice, and was awarded the Nippon Foundation’s Asian Public Intellectual Fellowship in 2002, electing to spend her fellowship period in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, where she produced an art-based research project on the social aftermath of Indonesia’s 1965 coup attempt. Her recent artwork looks at architecture as historical and nationalist documents, which is the topic of her PhD research at Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia, which began in 2006. Quiet Rooms Drawing (Charcoal on Paper Collage), Installation, 2009
“Quiet Rooms” 2009 is an installation of several components, which attempts to articulate a trying time in the life of a married couple attempting to start a family in Yogyakarta’s suburban kampungcontext. The drawing technique of shredded paper forms the contours of portraits of both husband and wife. The Medusa-like reference on the male figure is a borrowed from previous drawing series. Interlaced within the drawings’ components are found technical drawings—architectural, structural, and anatomical— to provide subtext and alternative scale to the other components. The portrait of wife, has her eyes made up of an architectural drawing of a domestic space, referencing spatial immobility compounded with verbal suppression. A similar reference to silence is in the drawing of a closed mouth replacing an ovary on a cross-section of a uterus. At the base of the uterus is an architectural drawing of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. The idea of surveillance is carried through references to a Javanese house’s haughty roof finish and a pair of loudhailers; suburban elements that imply observation and declaration on the private lives of a kampung’s inhabitants. The Mega Mendung batik motif implies something cloudy and turbulent within the Javanese context. The text, doayaa, are the polite wishes of onlookers, or the mantra of doctors unable to provide answers. This installation attempts to visually articulate the multifaceted social conundrum in the desire and failure to biologically reproduce. ________________________________________ PHUTTIPHONG AROONPHENGPhuttiphongAroonpheng was born in Bangkok where he obtained a B.F.A at Silpakorn University. He later studied at The Digital Film Academy of New York. He is particularly interested in avant-garde and experimental film. In 2007, his film project “We all know each other”, a film on collective storytelling, utilized investigation and dialogue about the nature of film as a medium. This project was supported by the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum and Irish Museum of Modern Art. Phuttiphong’s films are shown in international film festivals and art exhibitions, including the IFFR 2009, Gallery 4A, Sydney and Escape Art Gallery, UK. In 2009, he was selected as a fellow of Asian Film Academy organized by the Pusan International Film Festival. A TALE IN HEAVEN Single-channel video “I want my ashes to be scattered in the forest” These are the last words of PhuttiphongAroonpheng’s father before he passed away. However, scattering the ashes of a deceased person in the forest is against Buddhist belief and tradition. The artist resolves this by scattering his father’s ashes in the forest of his film, “A Tale in Heaven.” MY IMAGE OBSERVES YOUR IMAGE. IF IT IS POSSIBLE TO OBSERVE IT. Single channel video, 6 minutes, 2008 In December 2007, while working on my project at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Ireland, the artist met two video artists: Yuki Okumura (Japan) and Yahui Wang (Taiwan). Conversations with both artists brought the artist to inquire: “Do artists really need their individual identities in their works? If so, what is going to happen if I integrate their identities? Will my project acquire a new identity or identities, and will this/these still be pure?” Aroonpheng subsequently produced the work, “My Image Observes Your Image, If It Is Possible To Observe It.” The artist began this work by asking permission from these two artists to duplicate their works (or identities) as well as their styles and techniques; in so doing create a new work. The concept of the work is not to answer the questions, but to emphasize my questioning. ________________________________________ DAIN ISKANDAR SAIDRaised in Cairo, bred in London and based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian director Dain Iskandar Said has a fascination with cultural products located within a cross-cultural framework – from architecture to literature, art and film – within which signs and meanings serve to reconstitute a dialogue towards understanding hybridity and the human condition. His 4-channel video art installation ‘Near Intervisible Lines’ was invited to premier at the 16th Biennale of Sydney in 2006 and is currently on display at the UBC Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, Canada. In 2009, Dain was commissioned to direct a media art installation on permanent display at the Burj al-Arab building in Dubai. In September 2009 Dain shot his documentary ‘Fish Listeners of Setiu Lagoons’ which is near completion. In October of 2009, together with artist Yee-I-Lann, he embarked on a collaborative video installation project for the BurjKhalifa. NEAR INTERVISIBLE LINES Dain Iskandar Said and HayatiMokhtar 4-channel video, 2006
This work examines a shifting landscape on Malaysia’s east cost, inquiring into ideas about memory, place, and belonging to reveal a deep connection between people and their lived environment. The artists worked collaboratively with community members who took roles as actors and storytellers. Though Mokhtar and Said maintain that the characters are real, their identities are not hidden or made exotic: “They are portrayed as themselves, part of this landscape, as is their music and their stories. They are not passive or exotically supine. They are collaborators in the process, presenting an odd juxtaposition to their traditional role presented in ethnographic filmmaking or as ‘art’…” Using film, Mokhtar and Dain approach ‘landscape’ as an abstract understanding of place. They write, “In BahasaMelayu there is no real translation for ‘landscape’…the landscape tradition is a western concept.” (HayatiMokhtar lives and works in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Most recently her video installations have been screened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia; GaleriPetronas, Malaysia (2007); Malmö Art Museum, Sweden (2008); and the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide (2009)) |
| SAN AGUSTIN MUSEUM
2/F San Agustin Monastery, Gen. Luna St. cor Real St. Intramuros, Metro Manila The Monastery built in 1587, was originally used as the living quarters, classrooms, refectory, vestry, library and infirmary of the Augustinians. It was destroyed by the British forces in 1762, by the American soldiers in 1898 and during the Japanese and American liberation war in 1945. The San Agustin Museum was conceived in 1965. It first exhibited photographs of some one hundred Augustinian churches in the Philippines built from 1565 to 1898. Plans for a permanent museum were drawn in 1968-1969 as Architect Angel E. Nakpil began the restoration of the San Agustin Church and Monastery. The old vestry and the community refectory, located in the ground floor, were the first rooms to serve as art galleries. It grew into a full-pledged museum. In 1993, the San Agustin Church became one of the four baroque churches in the Philippines to be included in the UNESCO’s World Heritage List. At present three large halls of the ground floor and six in the second floor have been restored with funds from the convent and the help of private donors. |
NICK DE OCAMPONick de Ocampo is a prizewinning filmmaker, author, film teacher, historian, and director of the Center for New Cinema. His academic credentials include a Master of Arts degree in Cinema Studies at the New York University under a Fulbright Scholarship Grant. He received his Certificate in Film as a French Government scholar in Paris, France and graduated Cum Laude with a degree in A.B. Theater Arts at the University of the Philippines. Known for his gritty documentaries and personal films, he won several awards including the Grand Prize in Brussels for his documentary trilogy about life during the military dictatorship in the Philippines and the Audience Prize in the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival for his autobiographical film, Private Wars. De Ocampo is the author of several books in cinema including three that received the National Book Awards. De Ocampo is presently a faculty member at the University of the Philippines. CINE>SINE: SPANISH BEGINNINGS OF PHILIPPINE CINEMA Film, 2009 “CINE>SINE: Spanish Beginnings of Philippine Cinema” is the Philippines’ first full-length documentary in 3D digital animation with live action sequences. The hour-long digital animation recreates the origin of motion pictures in the country and is the first episode in a series on the 100-year history of cinema. Based on Nick de Ocampo’s award-winning book, Cine: Spanish Influences on Early Cinema in the Philippines, the documentary traces the beginnings of cinema in 1897 when two Spaniards showed the first moving pictures in Escolta, Manila. Public entertainment has never been the same again. ________________________________________ LALITA ROCHANAKORNLalita Rochanakorn was born in Thailand in 1957. She has travelled and lived around the world, from Switzerland to Sri Lanka, to France where she studied at the Sorbonne and Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris. She is an artist and conservationist, advocating environmental protection through the practice of botanical painting and illustration. In 1999 she was awarded a Grenfell Medal by the Royal Horticultural Society in London for her paintings. She works in a variety of media ranging from oil on canvas to Chinese aquarelle. While travelling and pursuing her art, she exhibits her works and teaches botanical art techniques. In 2002 the API Fellowships granted her a scholarship to do research on botanical painting, giving her the opportunity to study plants and flowers in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. In 2005, after six months of travelling through the scholarship program, together with her experiences from living in Switzerland and Japan, Lalita published “KohPieng Tae Hen” or “Just Being There”, a staggering book of over 100 full-color botanical paintings. VARIOUS BOTANICAL DRAWINGS OF ENDANGERED SPECIES OF ORCHIDS Digital prints (originals are watercolour on paper) “For me, painting represents a kind of meditation, which helps me to find myself. When I work on my paintings, I am surrounded by the sound of silence, concentrating on the flowers or leaves in front of me. Each petal is different, like mankind. They may look similar in general but always different in detail. Botanical painting gives me the opportunity to appreciate nature more. It is so unbelievable! All these things have existed all along but have often been taken for granted: trees, leaves, flowers, dried leaves, etc. but now, I can see them better and understand them in a very different way.” (Artist’s statement from www.lalita.biz). Three works come fromChiangmai (Thailand); two from Kyoto (Japan); three from Mount Kinabalu (Malaysia)
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