Deploying  the idea of the changing seasons as a central motif,  “Raywen kan Hamyan” is an exhibition that frames the  poignancy of Batanes’ shifting seasons, seasonally altered states of its environment and the charms of a culture that is constantly affected by such predictable sequences and order in nature.  

Ivatans and their way of life is perhaps one of the most environmentally sensitive cultures in the country.   Since they inhabited these islands, they have been a people shaped by nature and they are known to be resilient, adaptive.    The show is a celebration  of that coexistence and ecology between man and nature.   

The show also serves as a subtext to portray and highlight the lives of local artists who also adapt to the seasons in performing their creative pursuits and professions.It’s a distillation of these island’s natural histories and human adaptation layered with contemporary and specific cultural and economic concerns of the artists from this side of things.

Like the rest of the locals, the Ivatan artists while already pursuing creative work would  still oscillate and dabble into other economic activities and this show is an indirect cultural record of that.   Artists in this show make an attempt to repurpose their own culture’s images to make nuanced references to their work as artists and in their personal lives because they too, work and organize themselves around the changing seasons.  They use the scenes to reflect and delicately frame the idea of seasonality and the patterns in nature that extends to their profession.  

Hangtay Artists, the group behind this exhibition is a group of Ivatan artists which celebrates rootedness and empowerment as means and end to growth of Ivatan communities and an extent, the safeguarding and preservation of their unique cultural identity. 

The show runs from June 04 – June 30, 2021  at the National Commission for Culture and the Arts ( NCCA Gallery) in the NCCA Building, Intramuros, Manila.