“Sa Pagitan ng Gabi at Bukang-Liwayway” is the opening event for the 33rd founding anniversary of Buklod Sining, it gives reverence to various narratives coming from different classes in the Philippine society. The exhibition is the visual memoirs, situation and journey from midnight to dawn, in pre-pandemic and pandemic years. Each work of art is a representation on how time could be both the protagonist and antagonist in our decisions, conditions and choices. It could be under the notion of pure time and mathematical time. While the problem of time has been interesting to different thinkers like Henri Bergson and Michel Foucault, the participating artists from various art disciplines have used this concept to visually suture several stories “happening from twelve midnight to half-past five in the morning.”

 Political and economic development brought us to a new shift on how we live based on our needs to survive. Based on studies, numbers are relative to time zones, reference frames and conventional agreements on how to define the second, the conventional unit for measuring time. Through this concept imagine the different narratives happening all over the world in this time frame, where half of the world are sleeping, others are awake, and probably some are staring to nothingness and some are rhythmically listening in the lamentations of the night.

 This bracket of time which aims to develop a visual discourse of the protagonists’ shared memories, temporality, and the notion of other spaces inspired by the concept and definition of Michel Foucault, “something like counter-sites”. It involved the exploration of the various voices of their narratives that led to the continuous creation of their own utopias. Some narratives like vendors of Carriedo, the ‘bulungan’ in Navotas, jeepney drivers of Baclaran, yosi break in BPO areas, life and death situations in the hospitals, farewell scenarios in airports, film production dramas, the Bella’s of the red-light districts, and even simple stories as appealing to Filipina migrant workers staring to her sleeping daughter online.

 This culture-context exhibition will utilize diverse art disciplines that will reflect how the Filipinos dealt with the challenges of life in this time frame and the various behavioral issues affecting them. This theory also focuses on events occurring in the fullness of time, or when an overwhelming wave of smaller events causes certain developments to occur. The exhibition is a homage to the three voices of visual storytelling (social, dramatic, narrative) coming from small or powerful ripples of stories, whether from above or from below, through this, the participating artists and the audience will be able to grasp (if not fully understand) and contemplates about his immense responsibilities in creating small but relevant change that will contribute in our transformation as a nation

TAHI-TAGNING PAGSIBOL (New Life from Sewn Patches) is about today’s Filipino women rising together, emerging with hope from lives shattered by a two-year pandemic that has disrupted daily living, health, livelihood, well-being, relationships, and mobility. The art exhibit is in two parts: Collaborative Installations at the Open Gallery are by four women artists who sew and facilitate projects with women in their communities doing art on fabric for renewal of social energy, healing of trauma, and livelihood. Individual Artworks in various media at the Closed Gallery are by twenty-two members of KASIBULAN who continue their own unique ways to artistically cope with emotional, psychological and physical pain in the life and death challenges of the COVID crisis. This project has been completed within the prescribed health protocols, digital interaction, and social distancing.

Tahi-Tagning Kwento, Kwento ng mga kababaihan sa karagatan at kabundukan is Yllang Montenegro’s installation of aprons done by members of the AMIHAN National Federation of Peasant Women and the Rural Women Advocates (RUWA), whom she has been mentoring as advocate of women workers’ rights. Together they sew retazos into bags and aprons, stamping designs on them from colors beaten from flowers and leaves in the mountainside or backyard. Tahi-Tagning Kabayanihan is Jing Sinay-Ocampo’s quilt work done from fabric scraps from masks and PPEs sewn and collected by women in Barangay Malued where she lives in Dagupan City. Her very disciplined quilt work based on the hexagonal form recognizes women volunteer responders to the COVID crisis as unsung heroes in the whole sphere of bayanihan spirit. Tahi-Tagning Paghilom by Alma Quinto of Urdaneta, Pangasinan, alludes to personal experiences of mutual caring and moral support by artist-friends in two art organizations, the Art House of Comfort ( ARTHOC) which she initiated, and Kababaihan sa Sining at Bagong Sibol na Kamalayan (KASIBULAN) in collaboration with two of its founders’ caregivers. Caregiver Lani Caccam Maraya from Paranaque sewed yoyo-quilts for the third tapestry representing a herbal garden. Cristina Cayat, a weaver from Benguet currently works as caregiver in Hongkong and co-founded Guhit Kulay, a migrant worker artists’ collective in Hong kong. Tahi-Tagning Pelikula is Eden Ocampo’s installation of video projections of selfies, accentuated by a pabitin from which hang embroidered and stitched cones. The first video loop zooms in on the motion of needle and thread gently pierced, pushed and pulled by nimble fingers of sewers in the art collaborative projects. The second loop focuses on the individual artworks, showing KASIBULAN artists’ motions of drawing, mixing colors, splashing tints, brushing, painting, incising, cutting, pasting, and shaping.

As the pandemic threatens to become endemic, KASIBULAN women have become stronger in their sisterhood of art-making, surviving productively and compassionately, with great faith in the Creator, hope for themselves as whole human persons, for family, community, country and the planet earth.

In his piece titled “Takeoff,” he aims to draw his audience to their inner child. The concept for taking off is about children playing pretend to fly a plane. The face is childlike to mimic the child’s imagination. Using his background in aeronautics, the wings are structured like airfoils but exaggerated to create flow. The sculpture is inclined to simulate how a plane takes off from a runway. The slippers on the base of the artwork represent how a human stands at the edge of reality when thinking about flight.     

Another artwork that uses the artist’s background in aeronautics is titled “Cruising.” The streamlined shape airfoil-like structure mimics the movement of wings slicing through the air. The mask is dangling on a rod to create the illusion that the sculpture is gliding through the air. The rods pierce through the eyes to represent the eye’s focus on the sculpture’s wings.    

In his sculpture titled “What’s in the box is what’s in your mind,” the sculpture is a person’s profile with a big eye representing the mind’s eye. The two front eyes represent the physical eyes. The iris of the eyes is replaced with a red box. Larry’s goal is to show their imagination vividly. He wants to jumpstart the vision of the viewer. The sculpture is more psychological as you read the title. It will make you think of an item in the box. Later on, they will realize what’s in their minds. Thus the conversation begins as viewers visualize a different object in the box.     

As a dreamer about flight, Larry has also created a piece as his homage to Icarus, one of the first greek mythological creatures who flew into the sun. The sculpture amply titled “Ode to Icarus” is made of 3 parts. The first part shows Icarus in flight with his wings spread out. The 2nd one shows his wings melted, while the 3rd shows Icarus as just a man without attachments. You can see the sorrow in the gesture and body posture of the 3rd piece.     

The artist’s goal is to jumpstart the imagination of his viewers with each sculpture.   The artist aspires to create a tangible representation of the “enduring fascination of men with flight,” which is physically unattainable. But thru vivid imagining, determination to achieve one’s desire, to do what you wanted to do—Flight can be attained. The wing is a symbol of flight. It’s the symbol used by the artist to represent the different mindsets, hopes, dreams, and frustration of men. Using the winged figure, the viewer will identify his/himself with the sculpture. It will allow him to unite with his inner mind and accept the truth that he always wanted to fly.  

The mostly figurative paintings, artists’ reflections, and supporting photos and texts presented at the larger space of the NCCA Gallery is a motion to discuss the dilations, delays, and purported dispossessions in art practice and education seen and lived in the schisms of center-periphery of cultures. As artists of today, the collaborators for the Tausug Visual Artists Now offer visual outputs and outcomes through these following influences: popular culture as migrated into the vicinity; institutional prescriptions (such as from national awards or grants, or guidances from cultural, academic, or governmental agents); and the precarity of the artists’ daily labors as they continue to balance domestic and collared responsibilities with their unfettered desire to experience and shape their lives through facturing art as they know it. 

Through the survey of works and sentiments assembled by Juliusking and his colleagues for Tausug Visual Artists Now, the audience on-site, online, and through print are invited to engage on this proposition: The scions of ‘the people of the currents of the sea’—the Tausug—are still ever buoyant, adaptive, and introspectively creative. Despite present stereotypes and pressures to conform, the waves of art practice and thought thrive in Sulu as they tessellate possible futures, while keeping the same rigor and depth that the Tausug have maintained for centuries.  

Registering into the constellation of the contemporary 

The images, iconography, and figurations in the works of Rhadzainal U. Hassan-Sahibul, Mudzhatty Isad Lakibul, Syamsir T. Marsuki, Norhima B. Sarabi, Aldam J. Sawadjaan, and lead corroborator Juliusking Indanan Vivas entail a disclaimer: Tausug Visual Arts Now acknowledges ethnographies, histories, and historicities of socio-cultural identity as rendered through art objects. The artists are not a formal or registered group of artists in Jolo, but have been associated with each other through collegial, collegiate, or professional relationships. 

To balance the ascribed definitions of Tausug cultures and arts from the artists, we allot spaces in the exhibition for descriptions of the Tausug culture from the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, a historical background of the Sulu State College (SSC), and a statement of the president of the college regarding their Center for Culture and Arts established on 14 February 2022. 

The proposal of Juliusking’s team to the NCCA Gallery was grounded on the ‘promotion’ of the Tausug visual arts scene. This is a conscious retort to the perceived discrimination towards creators and creations from the southwesternmost province of the archipelago. The artists applied for the NCCA Gallery competitive exhibition grant in contingent of their first-hand experiences of invisibility or exclusion. On behalf of the other artists, Juliusking gives this statement in their grants application: 

‘I don’t like when I’m being judged because of where I’m from. Sometimes Tausug are discriminated or even labeled as terrorist so by using the skills and talent l owed from God. As a Tausug, I want to show people what I am capable of doing and showcase the beauty hidden in our culture. This exhibit gives us an opportunity to show that Tausug people are talented, skillful, and kind.’

 This exhibition is the motivation enfleshed. The artists’ millennial temperaments attest their place and time in the contemporary based on their understanding of heritage and their visions of futures. The indigenous is transfixed as part and parcel of the acrylic and oil works. Their technical knowledge of perspective and planar figurations of human and other bioforms mesh with cognizance of abstractionism and expressionism, as Tausug art has already manifested abstraction through patterns long before the west had formally concocted Abstraction as an art style, a mode of thought, or a lineage of practice. 

Some of Juliusking’s compositions for Tausug Visual Arts Now are collages. All artists are aware of using motifs and icons for identification: Norhima, Rhadzainal, and Syamsir play on the image of the tutup (‘takip’ in Tagalog, weaved food cover shared with other Mindanao and Malay groups), while almost everyone renders textiles, the gestures of the pangalay, the Tausug musical-performance art of the kumintang, the hijab covering women’s heads in some works, and the tessellation or flow of Tausug weaving patterns transmuted in oil or acrylic, cross-pollinating with the modern, current, or urban images of most common things. 

Art as refuge

Juliusking and his colleagues express the necessity and the privilege of the practice of art: Art is a refuge for all of them as they go through current precarities of labor and the daily life. As we view the collection, we are highly encouraged to align our ways of looking with the way the artists graphically define the Tausug identity, ethnicity, and culture themselves now—in the zones of their specific artistic/creative idiolects as they devote a larger part of their time in studies, volunteering, or working for government and academic institutions in order to make a living. To meander a bit, we dip into Jamaica-born cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s text in 1988: ‘There can, therefore, be no simple ‘return’ or ‘recovery’ of the ancestral past which is not re-experienced through the categories of the present: no base for creative enunciation in a simple reproduction of traditional forms which are not transformed by the technologies and the identities of the present.’ 

Tausug Visual Artists Now is a project born of after-office hours, weekends, and spare times to paint, discuss, and share ideas among fellow artists. The creative ‘Tausug energy’ has been living and happening as some of these artists attend school or office meetings, while some support their families’ needs for the week. The artists’ travels within and beyond Jolo, and their experience with the Covid pandemic within the province contribute to the ways they practice visual arts. Creation/production of art is still done, as Juliusking shares, because a main valence of art is to vitalize not just the artists’ lives but also their immediate communities. There is strength and replenishment in consciously allocating access, entitlement, and time to appreciate the wonders and beauty of man-made creations and of nature.

What is Istilong Intramuros? What was the style and identity of the Walled City by the turn of the 20th century? In popular imagination the architecture of Intramuros in Manila is represented by its gleaming palaces, churches, and fortifications. Postwar literature has deified Intramuros as inherently Spanish with grand landmarks, such as the Manila Cathedral, the San Agustin, and the Fort Santiago.

Because nothing but the San Agustin Church was left after the Second World War, Intramuros has been reduced into an enigma. Literature, though countless, has been unable to create a more holistic presentation of Intramuros’ overall built environment prior to its destruction. Up until recently, for example, the Intramuros Administration was able to operate and implement for four decades the concept of a “Spanish-era” colonial style despite the absence of literature, drawing mostly from highly romanticized impressions of what Intramuros might have look like.

But what really is Istilong Intramuros? This exhibit, which is based on a book which is currently in development, aims to bridge the gap in our understanding and appreciation of Intramuros’ unique character and stylistic identity by the end of the Spanish colonial regime. It is divided into two major parts: Housing the People, which explores the Bahay na Bato, its indigeneity, as well as its place as the prevailing architecture of Intramuros; and Housing God and King, which presents how power and dominance is projected in the churches, state buildings, palaces, and the fortifications of the Walled City.  

Ang tanawin ng mga magsasaka sa ginintuang palayan ay makailang-ulit nang pumukaw kay Dante Claros Palmes bilang isang pintor. Sa eksibisyong ito ay inilapit niya ang kanyang pagsipat sa gawain ng mga magsasaka. Ibinaling niya ang kanyang mga kamay sa paglilok ng kahoy, pagdambana ng kanilang mga kamay, paa, at gamit, bukod sa pagpinta ng bawat tangkay ng palay o hibla ng dayami. 

Ang naka-kuwadrong tanawin ng ginintuang palayan ay imaheng waring nagbibigay-pahinga. Nguni’t sa pagbubungkal ng lupa, pagtatanim ng binhi, pagbubunot ng damo, at pag-aani ng palay ay ang pagyuko ng magsasaka ng bayan; di alintana ang panganib sa kalusugan ng kemikal na gamit para siguruhin ang ani; itinatago ang mga pagpayag sa hininging pabor na sekswal sa ilang mga nakompromisong babaeng ibig mapabilang sa susunod na pagtatanim at pag-ani. 

Sa pagkakataong ito, ipinaalam ni Dante Claros Palmes ang di hayag na kalagayan ng mga magsasaka na di maaaninag sa romantikong tanawin ng ginintuang palayan ng kanyang kasanayan. Ang pag-alam sa paksa ng manlilikha ay pagkatuto ng tumitingin. Makapag-ahon nawa ito sa pagkakayuko nitong mga nagpapabunga ng lupa para ating kákanin. 

“Saka” is curated by Katti Sta. Ana. Dante Claros Palmes’ creative production is supported by artist Junyee in his studio’s inaugural art residency program, and by NCCA through an exhibition grant.

How do we perceive the old, the decayed, the discarded? In his artistic practice, BD Villareal dwells on this question that interlaces heritage, history, antiquity, and vulnerability. What animates his explorations around this question specific to his exhibition are layers of meaning evoked by the term ‘poon.’  

At times said to have originated from the word ‘panginoon,’ the term ‘poon’ touches on the sacredness of a Divine ascribed to the object by the faithful, and the hierarchy in the relationship between the two. The potency of this sacredness and power of this relationship are emphasized by how the term is commonly used by those who have a panata (vow)—that is, devotion practiced and performed for the Divine that an image represents. But contrasted with other terms such as ‘santo’ or ‘imahen,’ the term ‘poon’ infuses the image of spirituality with a sense of pragmatism. As in certain areas in the country, the term is used to refer to images kept and taken care of within the private confines of a home, outside of the direct supervision of the Church. The concept of the ‘poon’ hence evokes not only the concept of faith, but also that of stewardship, bordering ownership. Tucked within the concept is the dual understanding of images as objects of devotion and as cultural antiquities, at times passed on from one generation to the next. Their significances are rendered not only in a spiritual manner, but also in historical, cultural, and aesthetic ways; not only communally, but likewise familial and personal.  

In a series of paintings and sculptures, Villareal took inspiration from images of spiritual content and potency that he encountered through jaunts in antique stores and personal research. Taking off from his earlier series documenting built heritage from his home, Quiapo, he depicted the likeness of the objects, capturing minutiae of decay: cracks, flakes, splits, losses, and splinters. These details highlight how the figures had lived long lives as silent testaments not only to the events that formed the nation, but also to the spiritual traditions that surround them. They also bear witness to the desires and gratitude of generations of faithful who took these objects as companions in their lives transformed in one way or another. In this gesture of documenting, he imagines not a static picture of these images, but instead, he intends us to recollect our knowledge and memory of these objects, hoping to evoke acknowledgement of the long tradition of spirituality that they represent and they themselves experienced through. From this recollection, the artist prompts reflection on our perception, position, and relationship with these objects, opening up issues that revolve around how we see, treat, and value them, being people with various perspectives. Concerning ourselves with issues allows our understanding of heritage not to be limited within mere reminiscence of the past, but as a way of understanding how it figures within the present and our futures.

Halos isang siglo na ang komiks sa Pilipinas. Marami na itong napagdaanan sa paglipas ng panahon—mula sa panahon ng mga Amerkano hanggang sa panahon ng Hapon, maging ang ilang mga naunang manunulat at dibuhista ay ipinanganak pa noong panahon ng Kastila. Naranasan nito ang panahon ng Martial Law, ang pagsulpot ng mga gadgets, ng internet, at kung anu-ano pang elemento na dahilan ng paglakas, paghina at pagbagsak nito. Sa madaling salita, ang komiks ay isang saksi sa nagbabagong panahon at lipunan ng 19th century Philippines.  

Opisyal na ipinanganak ang komiks noong Enero 11, 1929 nang lumabas si Kenkoy sa mga pahina ng magasing Liwayway, bagama’t may ilang mga tala ng ambag sa kasaysayan ng pagsulpot ng likha ng ilang personalidad, tulad ng ‘Ang Pagong at Matsing’ ni Gat. Jose Rizal, o ng babasahing ‘Lipang Kalabaw’, ang mga ito ay matatawag na ‘pre-komiks era’ na nagsisilbing mga unang hakbang upang ganap na maging midyum ang komiks.  

Nang lumabas ang Pilipino Komiks noong 1947, matapos mabilis na magsara ang Halakhak Komiks noong 1946 dahil sa suliranin ng distribusyon, ito na ang pagsisimula ng pagbaha ng komiks sa mercado. Literal na mula Aparri hanggang Jolo ay tinangkilik ito ng mga Pilipino hanggang sa umusbong ang kultura ng pagbabasa ng komiks.  

Sa mga aklat at interviews ng kasaysayan ng komiks, madalas na ‘highlight’ ang mga malalaking pangyayari o ‘big events’ ng paglakas nito. Hindi masyadong napagtutuunan ng pansin ang mga detalye kung bakit ang komiks ay naging isang solidong midyum hindi lang ng entertainment kundi ng sining.  

Entertainment dahil binasa ito ng bawat Pilipino mula sa mga nagta-trabaho sa opisina hanggang sa mga nagtitinda sa palengke hanggang sa mga estudyante. Sining dahil nagbago na ang pagtingin sa midyum na ito sa nakalipas na ilang dekada—dalawang National Artist na ang nagmula sa komiks sa katauhan nina Francisco V. Coching at Larry Alcala, maari na rin sigurong isama si Vicente Manansala na bago pumalaot sa mundo ng ‘fine arts’ ay naging dibuhista muna sa komiks.  

Ang mga detalyeng tinutukoy ko ay ang kontribusyon ng dalawang Velasquez sa industriya at midyum ng komiks. Hindi naman na maikakaila ang naging papel ni Antonio ‘Tony’ Velasquez nang pasimulan niya ang Kenkoy. Ito ang nagbigay sa kanya ng iba pang obligasyon kung paanong ang komiks ay pumusisyon ng kulturang Pilipino. Pinamunuan ni Tony ang ilang mga komiks-magasin bilang editor at editor-in-chief, siya ang nag-discover at nagbigay ng ‘break’ sa maraming talentadong manunulat at dibuhista, siya ang isa sa mahalagang ‘think-tank’ ng pagbubuo ng mga konspeto kung paano ito lumakas sa merkado, siya ay naging pangulo ng APEPCOM o Association of Publishers and Editors of Philippine Comics Magazines kung saan ito ang naging responsable sa malinis na nilalaman ng komiks noong mga panahong inuulan ng ‘bomba’ at ‘underground’ komiks ang mga pamilihan, siya rin ang naging consultant ng mga editors kahit nang magretiro na siya noong dekada ’70, at higit sa lahat, siya ang naging pangnahing inspirasyon ng mga kabataang gustong makapasok sa komiks dahil binuksan niya ang kanyang tahanan upang makita ang kanyang mga unang trabaho at kung paano siyang nagsimula.  

Sa kabilang banda, ang kapatid na si Damian ‘Damy’ Velasquez, ay naging kasa-kasama ni Tony sa pagtatayo ng advertising agency noong 1947. Ilang mahuhusay na empleyado ang kanilang tinulungan upang maging dibuhista sa komiks—kabilang sina Fred Carillo, Teny Henson at marami pang iba.  

Isa si Damy sa mga pioneer ng Halakhak Komiks (1946) nang kunin siya ng editor nito na si Isaac Tolentino upang gawin ang isa sa mga unang superhero at science fiction sa bansa, ang ‘Kidlat’. Sa unang isyu din ng Pilipino Komiks (1947) lumabas ang DI-13 na isinulat ni Dammy at iginuhit ni Jesse Santos. Noong 1962 ay inorganisa ni Damy ang pagbubuo ng Graphic Arts Services, Inc (GASI), kalaunan ay sinamahan siya ni Tony nang mag-resign ito sa Ace Publications. Ang GASI ang isa sa naging pinakamalalaking publisher ng komiks (ang isa ay Atlas) sa bansa na umabot hanggang dekada ’90. Noong 1971 ay nag-resign siya sa GASI upang maging general manager ng Adventures Illustrated Magazines, Inc. Nagretiro siya noong 1978 at namalagi sa Amerika.  

Sa komiks, bilang isang biswal na midyum, ang nakikita lamang ng mga tao ay ang mga kuwento, dibuho at mga karakter. Sa likod nito, kung saan nagaganap ang ‘pagbubuo ng komiks’ ay madalas na lumalabas lamang sa mga interesadong pag-aralan ito.  

Sa exhibit na ito, ating babalikan ang mga naging kontribusyon ng dalawang Velasquez sa mundo ng komiks. Bagama’t biswal nga at ito ang magiging tatak ng kanilang mga ambag, maisasa-konteksto nito ang mga panahon ng pagsisimula nila sa komiks at kung paanong sumabay sa takbo ng panahon ang mga kanilang mga likha.  

Pumanaw si Tony noong 1997 at makalipas nang isang taon, si Damy naman noong 1998. Sa kasalukuyan, ibang-iba na ang pagtingin ng mga tao sa komiks, pinag-aaralan na ito sa akademya at marami nang scholars ang nag-aaral tungkol dito hindi lang sa Pilipinas kundi maging sa ibang bansa. Ang mga pahina ng komiks ay ini-exhibit na ngayon sa mga gallery at museum at pinag-aagawan ng mga kolektor. Marami nang workshops, events at conventions na nangyayari. Sa madaling salita, kung makikita lamang nina Tony at Damy ang naabot ng komiks ngayon, tiyak na walang pagsisidlan ang kanilang kasiyahan. Nagbunga ang lahat ng kanilang pagsisikap. 

How do we perceive the old, the decayed, the discarded? In his artistic practice, BD Villareal dwells on this question that interlaces heritage, history, antiquity, and vulnerability. What animates his explorations around this question specific to his exhibition are layers of meaning evoked by the term ‘poon.’  

Is it not amazing to know that the Philippines is one of the seventeen megadiverse countries because of its high rate of endemism? Despite its small land area, our country has the most variety of endemic and indigenous fauna species totaling 52,177 described species. Fifty percent are endemic, meaning they can only be found in the Philippines and nowhere else on earth. It is also a biodiversity hotspot with a significant pool of life forms. Nonetheless, habitat loss, climate change and human activities like poaching, illegal logging, and mining undermine the biodiversity of our country.

To answer the call for nature conservation and protection, the Philippine Fauna Art Society (PhilFAS) joins the World Nature Conservation Day celebrated every 28th of July. PhilFAS continues its mission to create awareness of our country’s native fauna and its conservation status through visual arts. The Para sa Kalikasan 2022 Art Exhibition is carefully curated to showcase the five taxonomic classes​ of animals​: mammals, birds, reptiles, invertebrates, and fish. Most of the featured species are threatened because of habitat degradation.

PhilFAS artists produced forty-four artworks depicting the fauna species in their form and uniqueness. These visual representations hope viewers see past the beauty but focus on the species’ dwindling number and habitat loss. The threatened and endangered fauna species are not just statistics to grapple with but are a vital natural heritage that we need to conserve and preserve for the sake of future generations. 

​​Visual art is a powerful ​tool to ​inspire us to act ​on nature conservation and preservation ​while there is still time. ​ ​PhilFAS hope​s that through art​, ​its calling para sa kalikasan will ​​become everyone’s advocacy someday.

Our social practices and perceptions towards society and social systems are rooted from quotidian encounters with our surroundings, the environment, and many other ecologies. In ecological anthropology, what makes these exude such conviviality is the mere connection, perhaps an undeniable relationship between people and vegetation. This relationship stems from myriad ‘collaborative agents’ such as ethics/values, culture, and ecological possibilities (Descola, 1994 and Ingold, 2000 in Hasna, 2003), among many others, propelling an incessant engagement process. British anthropologist Tim Ingold (2000), through a phenomenological approach, explicates that production and collection are two ways of securing subsistence from the natural environment. Both of these ways are perceived as binaries pointing to a dynamic field of interrelations between people and their environments.  

Through these lenses, potentials and possibilities of/in our dwellings in current times, characterized by isolation and limitations on mobility and modality, remain mesial to the idea behind Ang Ating Mga Kayamanan sa Bakuran. Such potentials and possibilities are viewed as interconnected with notions and practices of care, perhaps tending to life forms; patience and resourcefulness; and a state of becoming, a gesture of hope towards growth stemming from relationships between the visceral and physical conditions. The deliberate untangling of ‘treasures’ and ‘yard’, through the vegetative subjects in the works, is suggestive of a reconsidering and a revisit to how we approach lived experiences. Our immediate surroundings are viewed as a potent avenue for self-nourishment and ingenuity. On the other hand, treasures, in this exhibition, propose to reassess subjectivities and complexities, such as needs, interests, and desires, vis-a-vis Ingold’s ‘collection’ and ‘production’, related to the self intertwined with the social and cultural ecologies as well as the physical environment.  

Ang Ating Mga Kayamanan sa Bakuran alludes to the most recent set of sculptures by artist Joseph Andrew ‘Jandy’ Carvajal, who started exploring repoussé over 30 years ago. His two main sources of inspiration for these are Catholic sacramentals and pre-Hispanic gold artifacts as seen from his body of work. The title of and the works from this exhibition transpire from vegetables commonly grown in domestic spaces, rendered in low-relief brass discs, some of which gold-plated. In recent times, these direct us to growing interests in indoor plants alongside innovation across horticulture, and a revisit to backyard farming in diverse locales not to mention their benefits to our being, securing subsistence, and practicing care. According to the artist, the inedible gold ironically underscores that food is more valuable and this juxtaposition emphasizes that hunger is equally a threat amidst the current pandemic.     

Carvajal recently presented about his repoussé explorations online at the Performances: Virulence, Virality, and Vision session of the International Research Forum on the Philippines at Melbourne, Australia on 27 January 2021 and at the 2021 Annual Philippine Studies Conference at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, England on 26 June 2021. 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Joseph Andrew “Jandy” A. Carvajal is Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines Baguio, where he currently serves as Chairperson of its Department of Language, Literature and the Arts. Alongside teaching, he continues his art practice, working with various media, from graphite to metal sheets.  In the past eleven years, he has been re-exploring the time-honored art of repoussé. He has exhibited his metal reliefs, featuring various contents, in Baguio, Manila, New York and London. His 2014 solo exhibit at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, PLATA FLORA, showcased repoussé on salvaged aluminum, highlighting recycling as a process that can be incorporated into artmaking. Carvajal graduated magna cum laude with a BFA in Painting degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman, and an MFA in Studio Art degree from Montclair State University, USA.

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Alain Zedrick Camiling currently serves as Chairperson and Lecturer at the Arts Management Program of the De La Salle- College of Saint Benilde Manila. His curatorial practice stems from private collections management, pedagogical in curatorial, discourse and process, and interdisciplinary collaborative gestures. His texts have appeared on platforms like Art Basel, CNN Philippines Life, L’Officiel Philippines, Art Plus Magazine, among many others. Among his recent curatorial projects are The Manila’Bang Show (2021) as artistic director and curator, Alimuom Exhibition at Ibagiw Arts Festival (2021) as deputy curator and arts manager, and Thriving in the midst, leading the ascent for Metrobank Art and Design Excellence (2022) as curator. He is currently an MA Curatorial Studies candidate at the University of the Philippines Diliman where he graduated cum laude with a BSE Art Education degree.

Morbus is the harbinger of misery and the timeless enemy of humanity. Death favors no one: even the proud laments and the strong mourn. It is a rootless and merciless phantom.

Historically, Morbus brought famine, societal dissolution, uncertainties, and an apocalyptic atmosphere. There was an old belief that pestilential miasma, or disease-ridden air, engendered affliction in human bodies. Some look at the heavens and attribute the havoc on human lives to the conjunction of planets or the cosmic order. The pile of corpses led many to seek answers in unforgiving gods and vengeful spirits if only to make sense of tragedy and loss.

Plagues had brought devastation, assaulted nations, sapped the strength of city-states, and exposed frail political structures. Recurring outbreaks strike fear in the hearts of ordinary people and the ruling elite. Neither the wealthy nor the pious can elude death and decay, but during a pandemic, the collective body’s ailments can worsen social inequalities and cripple the economy.

The COVID-19 pandemic recently wrought havoc on many. With the death toll rising daily and thousands infected, the future seemed bleak for the past two years. The virus mutated and rendered entire populations vulnerable, especially those with little to no access to affordable healthcare. The Philippines was struck by a tiny unseen enemy, the coronavirus, but this virulent adversary rapidly caused the whitewashed facade of progress to crumble.

Morbus references crises at various layers of personal-collective experiences and discursive domains. The body’s infirmity also blights intimacies and can adversely affect one’s wellbeing, bring emotional turmoil, and fracture relations in the home. Morbus can pertain to the wounds of the mind and soul, which, through time, may fester until one’s exuberance dissipates.

Illnesses and physical defects are sometimes believed to be hereditary or the result of social sin, leading to stigma and ostracization and marring one’s childhood as though one was born to suffer. That affliction is expressed in many Philippine languages proves that it can be explained in scientific and folk spiritual terms without one being derivative of the other. Explanations of the unknown abound in myths, epics, and folk wisdom as part of intangible cultural heritage. The diagnosis of, remedy, or cure for sickness are varied in each locale, with folk healers or albularyos serving as intermediaries between the world of mortals and the supernatural realm. Ailments are also explained in possession, vengeance, retribution, curses, and divine wrath. On the other hand, public health reforms and access to healthcare in the Philippines are still wanting and often inequitable. Doctors in remote communities and conflict areas have intimate knowledge of this struggle.

Morbus also signifies moral or spiritual depravity. While it is associated with the corruption of the substance spirit, the systemic corruption in our nation is a lingering malaise. Individual greed is an incurable malady in our society. It is a burning cinder, an ugly eruption in many of our physical and social infrastructures. Cities decay, dehumanizing our everyday lived experience.

Inang Bayan cries for justice while languishing.

Morbus is an exhibition that explores the range of discourses, memories, and collective experiences around the idea of diseases known to the medical field and our ailing social systems. The artists in the exhibition attempt creative diagnoses to explain the discomfort and ills in our bodies, cities, and nation so that we may explore ways to mitigate and arrest the Morbus that debilitates us. The exhibition provides a space for introspection and challenges the spectator to identify the diseases that attack our bodies and those that linger in the social realm so that we may ruminate on the ways we can strengthen our collective immunity and arrive closer to a juncture of remedy and relief or a possible cure. We hope that the encounter with these works will also bring us an enriching dialogue about healing. 

Art is my religion and I am priest of that faith
— Riel Jaramillo Hilario

 Commemorating Riel Hilario’s first death anniversary, this exhibition titled The Four-Winged Prophet is a tribute to honor his greatness as a man of many talents and passions—an artist, an educator, a curator, and a critic. While these four roles best showcased Riel’s multifaceted faculties and abilities, they may not be enough to describe everything he was capable of. Most people knew him as a sculptor, but that was just what appeared on the surface. The total Riel went much deeper.

His life was prematurely cut short by a cruel pandemic, but it was a life lived intensely, and one that cast a long shadow in its wake. Beyond working with his hands, Riel used words with power and eloquence, articulating the plight of the artist in a world ruled by capitalism and commodification. A self-described priest of art, he used social media as his pulpit, from where he bravely excoriated those who exploited the ignorance, the desperation, and the kindness of artists to profit excessively from their creative labors. He bristled at injustice and defended the abused and inarticulate, at the risk of his own career and reputation. By doing so, he drew criticism out of academic aesthetics and brought it down to a level that most people in the arts community and beyond could actually understand and appreciate. He was a man on a mission who seemed to know—as he often mentioned—that he had only a short time left to achieve it, and so was driven to redouble his efforts even more. He was not without his faults, as he himself admitted, and he was given to drama, which he loved along with the attention it generated, believing that it all contributed to everyone’s education. His was an unapologetic intellect.

In this exhibition, selected creative works of Riel have been put together to remind the audience of his contributions in the field.

Riel’s Facebook posts from January to August 2021 have been compiled and organized for ease of dissection and interpolation. They are divided into six parts: 1. Artistic Career and Journey; 2. Dialogues and Discourses; 3. Wounded Soul and Triumphant Spirit; 4. Visions and Foresight; 5. Unfinished Projects; and 6. To Whom He Dedicates. These six categories hopefully reflect Riel’s thought processes.

 “Artistic Career and Journey” offers a short but comprehensive glimpse of Riel’s experiences and influences which he was always happy to share. This was an exceptional trait, given that many creatives tend to be quite secretive or silent about their sources. Riel took a different stance as a self-proclaimed constant learner. 

“Dialogues and Discourses” presents the main body of Riel’s vast knowledge in the creative field, tackling topics both important and trivial, and offering practical and on-point solutions. 

“Wounded Soul and Triumphant Spirit” portrays Riel as a man who suffered much under various circumstances, but whose durable mind and heart reinvigorated him and allowed him to transform from a confrontational instigator to a calm Zen-like guru in the last months of his life. One might argue that love won him over upon meeting Joyce Campomanes. Riel became more forgiving, but we should also remember that he was an existentialist who embraced the world as it was. He knew that his time was short and was not afraid of it. Anyone could dismiss him, but nobody could deny his body of work. 

“Unfinished Business” comprises Riel’s advocacies and projects that his followers wish he had the time to complete. He himself had said on several occasions that he intended to have all this material published posthumously. 

Lastly, “To Whom He Dedicates” displays graphite portraits in a sketchbook and separate sheets of paper and canvas of Riel’s friends whom he believed were unselfish in their efforts at sharing their knowledge and expertise in the community. He felt a close affinity with these people, who served as the sounding board for his ideas and visions before he came out with them in public. 

These serve as a prelude to the second component of this exhibition, which presents the portraits Riel made alongside his replicated studio, vision board, and the artworks of the individuals he portrayed.

 In response to Riel’s visual love letter, selected artists produced statements in both visual and literary forms about who Riel Hilario was and is for them as a friend and colleague. The participating artists are as follows: Agnes Arellano, Pandy Aviado, Alfredo Juan Aquilizan, Billy Bonevie, Laya Boquiren, Jinggoy Buensuceso, Noel Bueza, Richard Buxani, Joyce Campomanes, June Dalisay, Remigio David, Anton del Castillo, Ricky Francisco, Ayka Go, Toym Imao, Paul David Magisa, Glenn Martinez, DengCoy Miel, Kublai Milan, Jason Moss, Aze Ong, Ian Quirante, Gromyko Semper, Angela Silva, Ethel Villafranca, Jun Villalon, and Jayrous Villanueva.

As factures of memories, motives, and intents, Mike Garcia’s pieces for A Diver’s Tale are synaptic relays of sums and parts. The viscous visual amalgams gestured through oil, graphite, ink, and other markers are teeming with transfixions between figurative and non-figurative realms. Mike introduces us to his El Nido, Palawan – the place being a common synecdoche of our nation-state for tropical beauty, rest, and (still lush) biodiversity. The town, administratively demarcated on the north tip of the main provincial island and tectonically connected to the Sulu archipelago and to the main Austroasiatic plateau, is the harvesting site for Mike’s propositions of thoughts and interventions through his chosen visual art implements and temperament. 

Mike’s  paintings, drawings, and other materials, framed or otherwise, that are laid out in the blue and cream room of the gallery hold a promise as products that the artist wills to matter, to exist: Upon invitation and willingness, we have the ability and privilege to change our viewpoints about the tendered icons, settings, and stories. Our assumptions of Palawan, fishes and other creatures, a person in diving gear, splashes and ebbings, cliffs and abysses, fish eyes: these are the troupe in Mike’s works. They are quite familiar to most who might have been captivated by a blue sea, and the familiarity with the properties and characteristics of a most universal natural element. The promise and nearness of the theme of A Diver’s Tale are common and reachable because aside from the works being materials of interpretations of the natural world interplaying with the artist’s personal memories, the audience can view these factures christened as Contemporary Art in their existence now. We can refer to how art critics also view art objects as part of the realities of this world, while representing other realities or perceptions: 

“The work of art, therefore, becomes the work of the world, extensively and deeply conceived… The work of art transpiring in the world becomes the work of the critic who lets it matter in language, freights it and leavens it with presence so that human potential unerringly turns plastic, or better still, animate.”

– The Social Form of Art, Patrick D. Flores in Frisson: The Collected Criticism of Alice Guillermo, Philippine Contemporary Art Network (PCAN), 2020: Philippines.

Motives of expressions, intents of confluence 

We let Mike’s animated artworks leaven and ripen as perhaps one of visual art’s vital purposes is to be reflected upon through our attentive use of sight. Upon our gaze then we can in turn formulate our own interpretations relative to the artist’s assessment and depiction of a world, in Mike’s case: a world surrounded by water. We optically fish out into some of Mike’s seascapes, we are summoned to anchor ourselves to a part of the pictorial milieu with the aid of images and icons that are tangible through perspective, outlining, and detailing: A head of a saltwater fish with scales of brillant specks and patterns; A render of an underground cove with steep foundations stemming down further into the deep; An impressionist panorama of an islet from a viewpoint at sea level of a person either on a boat or who is perhaps about to go under water, a hundred meters away from the shore. 

However, Mike breaks graphically some of his canvases (yet still weaving associations and flows from a canvas to another through signatures of hues, gradients, strokes, and finishes) by merging painting styles, and we are requested to recant isometric logics and vanishing points. We are requested to submerge partly in a world of refractions, dissolutions, and decompositions. Therefore we can engage with the artworks with the attitude to open ourselves and flexibly think of the possible. The motive of fluidity  is transposed onto the graphic, and the graphic conversely and intently permits nuances that bend scales, proportions, and common likenesses of things and beings. 

Mike’s conscious choice of cropping images also braces us to speculate scenarios and intentions beyond the measure and method bound by the frame. His works for the Eye joke series volley the gaze back to the viewer, as realistic detailing of shades, folds, texture, sheen, and shine rendered on the survey of oculi of marine species is an adept showcase of chiaroscuro, and the western academic trainings or insights deviating from the technique in the succeeding movements of fine painting. 

Visual Art: A moment of telling, regenerating, placemaking 

The artist proposed this exhibition as a way to keep remembrances. The protagonist in Mike’s works, explicitly and visually unnamed in the series, is from his personal life. Like many epics and kuwentong-bayan we have been told, the tale in this setting of wide and tall canvases, drafts and works on paper, and round canvases is led by a lead actor, the diver, composited and abstracted from the artist’s stepfather, whom he dearly calls “Uncle” in his notes and conversations for this exhibition. The ode is doubled as the artist endears seascapes and snippets of beings and places that he may think should be kept safe for the longest possible time. As the artist is a father himself and also an art teacher, his works relay a calm yet steady confidence: His explorations of forms, contexts, and languages are nonetheless the evidence of the regenerative expansion and  conscious refinement of his art practice. 

Though the whole repertoire is a proof of personal conviction and a trove of deep souvenirs, the exhibition is an ‘elsewhere’, where one can always have the capacity to be welcomed. The project is a venue for sharing. The collection in A Diver’s Tale is a manifest of a range of styles, techniques, and roots that the artist consciously embrances. The ensemble of images, figures, and silhouettes is an exercise to return to origins (whether filial, spiritual, artistic, or of the labor of hands, mind, and heart), as a means to profess a stance borne from a particular artistic praxis: Artists perform, create, and exist so that their experiences, imprints, and objects that represent the contemporaneity of moments and relationships, in their impermanences, complexities, and transversalities, can help a person or a community navigate through the uncertainty and ambiguity of thoughts, aspirations, and changes that spin constantly and abundantly across the sea of human lifeways. 

Across the rivers and seas, their stories will be told.

Estuario or estuary is the part of the river where it meets the sea. It symbolizes convergence – the joining and blending of ideologies, encouraged by the members of PLASOZ or the Pinturas en Lienzos Artists Society Zamboanga City.

The group – though relatively new and comprised of people with varied backgrounds – has emerged fluidly. Each member has braved themselves to represent their region with their creativity and intellect. Just like their forefathers who were mostly seafarers, they have circumnavigated obstacles, such as: not arguing about the proximity of their abodes and ignoring the differences in their schedules. Instead, they have united to help each other while recovering from the pandemic. Metaphorically, they are like waves- swirling and crashing into different forms and shapes. That, with such, is exhibiting beauty as a group that is not monotony, but, distinctive and innovative with their muses.

Established in 2017 by Juan Pedro Pollisico, the Plazios along with its core members join regional exhibitions to continuously organize. It is merely for the love of the arts and to test their mettle to improve and be recognized in the scene as every artist’s dream.

Moreover, the group advocates for the indigenous people (IP) community by doing immersions through on-the-spot, plein air art sessions inspired by the pristine beauty of the rich and diverse culture of their hometown—the mountains, hills, flora and fauna, rivers, lakes, and the sea. As a group, they generally show styles and nuances that vary and are driven by one or more of the following: nostalgia; particularization on things that are personal, symbolic of pride in history, and a sense of poetic nationalism.

Collectively, this exhibition is tidbits of information exhibiting the artist’s authorship of semantic and technical approaches both as the signifier and the signified. Albeit, each use of strong imagery is aided with simple explanations. With it, a layman can adoringly understand what messages the artworks are trying to convey. However, it is not in the simplicity and straightforwardness of the works; but the overall spirit that connects when the audience looks at the collection as a whole- creating the convergence point.

Finally, the exhibition’s centerpiece is a multi-panel painting depictions of different weaving patterns of the IP groups the Plazios have met or interacted with in some points of their lives. It embodies unity in spirit to honor their ancestors- their meeting point and their own estuario weaved in knots of fabrics.

The exhibitors are as follows: Nelvert Anino, Florenbert Broñola, Jean Christine Cadano, Christian Cueno, Joefin Jamalul, Abdel-Aziz Masjiril, Romy Jones Mata, Elimar Pingkian, Juan Pedro Pollisco, Michelle Sing, Aileen Tan, Joefet Van Villegas and Mikaela Kyle Yvanoff.

“If you would like to know how it feels to be in hospitality during the corona-virus pandemic…Remember when the Titanic was sinking and the band continued to play?… Well, we’re the band.”

When the dreaded Covid-19 emerged and descended upon the world in 2020, humanity found itself in a dark place. So dark and dim as if the Grim Reaper had decided to set up camp at our very doorstep. Despite the enforced lockdown, despite the social isolation, the insidious virus, with cunning and stealth, succeeded to infiltrate our private spaces and claim the lives of our loved ones.

And like the band that played on while the Titanic was sinking, Sonny Fernando, an artist based in Tarlac, continued to paint while the pandemic raged relentlessly, and, together with his wife Grace, secluded himself at home. Though the Filipino artist may be in solitary confinement, he is not without defense. He knows that art is the best vaccine for the ailing soul.

While the pandemic scourge has plunged most everyone into deepest introspection about mortality, the meaning of existence, and the helplessness of life against an invisible enemy – the more emotionally fragile succumbing to depression and misery – Sonny Fernando, by dint of natural temperament, looked at the interminable lockdown with a different perspective. Sonny reminds us of the words of the Irish and playwright Oscar Wilde: “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.”

Thus, by choosing to perceive the quarantine not as a toxic experience, but as a real tonic – meaning invigorating, rejuvenating, reviving – a time when he can devote all his hours to his art – Sonny emerged from his studio with more than enough works for a solo exhibition. In October 2022, he will present all these works in a show, aptly titled: “Sonny Fernando: Under House Art-rest.”

Husband: One nice thing about quarantine, is we haven’t been spending money.

Wife: (clicks add to cart) So nice.

A 1977 graduate of architecture at the University of Santo Tomas, Sonny immediately worked for his father who had a construction company. In 1980, he joined a design company, MGL Designs, where he honed his design prowess.  After the Edsa People Power Revolution in 1986, the partners emigrated to either the US or Canada, leaving Sonny on his own. Now with a permit from the Philippine Regulation Committee (PRC), Sonny set up a design shop that bannered his name, putting up a furniture workshop in Quezon City. A total, all-around designer, he did murals and stage designs for concerts and beauty pageants. Sonny recalls applying designs with textile paint on five dresses brought by Cory Aquino, not yet the president, but a kabalen from Tarlac, when she visited Ninoy Aquino in Boston, USA.

After seven years, Sonny responded to an advertisement for an interior designer needed in Saudi Arabia. Despite being the last one to submit an application, he got the post.

It was only in 2013 when, back in Manila, Sonny took up painting seriously. Previously, however, he had joined exhibitions in Manila., such as the one held at the Elks Club. He still remembers that he sold a painting for P400. In 1982, Sonny managed to have a solo show at the Hyatt Hotel Art Gallery, where he thrilled to a sale of 12 works. After that, due to his many design assignments, his art was kept simmering on the back burner.

Through a high schoolmate from Don Bosco, Noli Romero, who owned Renaissance Art Gallery, Sonny was able to have a solo show in Manila in 2014. This writer, meeting the artist for the first time, wrote:

“Indeed, in Fernando’s works, the trace of the hand seems to have been banished from view. His works are streamlined, sharply geometric, seemingly machine-tooled, studiously calculated and measured, nothing improvisatory, with no allowances for accidents, mistakes, and, one might say, surgically and cleanly executed with all the instruments at the command of an architect or an engineer. Precision is paramount. In Fernando’s creative dictum, sloppiness is anathema.”

In his forthcoming NCCA show, Sonny will be exhibiting selected works from a body of paintings all done during the long pandemic lockdown. They bear all the trademarks of his earlier works, reiterating his highly systematic creative process, now reified into representational images: provincial gardens, a barber shop, a sabongero, or cockfight aficionado.

Simply told: they are a marvel to behold, a labor of love that documents in his uniquely geometric style the many themes and images that preoccupied him, all impelled, interestingly enough by some philosophical musing, triggered by a specific subject. This is indicative of Sonny Fernando as an artist: he seizes upon an image only when it can stimulate him intellectually, offering something to the mind and not just being eye candy.

Best believe I’m clapping on the plane, the first place I go after lockdown.

A regular traveler to the US with his wife Grace, to visit their grown-up children and their grandchildren, Sonny keeps an observant eye on all the goings-on. For instance, he has observed a radical change in the lifestyle of people coming from a diversity of races and gender, in particular. As reflected in his works, it is indistinguishable whether the figure is a man or a woman. Though he works in a stylized geometric style, Sonny vanishes all traces of gender identification. To be sure, the figures are not specifically Filipino: they could belong to the brown, black or yellow race. Indeed, he likens America to a bowl of salad: a medley of various greens, nuts, cheeses, and croutons. The dressing is democracy: its all-embracing openness to a merry mix of races, genders, and lifestyles.

Lovers in an embrace in the park, or a couple walking a pet dog – a scene Sonny frequently sees – may be both men or both women, or the conventional man and woman. Thus, the figures in his work depicting Adam and Eve and the Forbidden Apple might as well be Adam and Yves. 

(Talk of forbidden: Sonny has dared depict a scene that is bound to offend polite society, at least in our own country: the rude, startling image of a man excreting, seated on a toilet bowl. Still “decent” by Western standards, in America, this is called “Poop Art”.)

So you’re staying inside, practicing social distancing, and cleaning yourself. Congratulations! You have become a housecat! (Source: Jokes about the Coronavirus)

Sonny Fernando’s style, which is mainly driven by the engine of geometry, impresses Americans as a kind of quilt, a multi-layered textile kept in place by lines of stitching.  His works are all laboriously and punctiliously hand-painted. The artist achieves this quilt-like design through the ingenious device of cut stencils, which are applied and re-applied all over the pictorial space, giving the impression of fractals: “a series of patterns repeated over and over again, at many different scales.” With immediacy, these fractals summon the visual pleasures of an animated surface saturated with abstractive images.

The show “Sonny Fernando: Under House Art-rest” is a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit, refusing to be cowed by the curse of the Covid-19 pandemic. And yes – let it be said – this is an arresting show! 

What is Freedom? What is Love? How do we relate such concepts in the ever-expanding field of Art? The concept of “Freedom” is rooted in the idea of autonomy, sovereignty, and independence. It is equitable with tenets of “Love” as an intimation of strong devotion to that which is true, just, and beauteous. “Art” on the other hand, encompasses a wide spectrum of human enterprise. It involves the creative process of production of materials and expresses a gamut of concepts, experiences, and emotions. Taken together, freedom and love under the guise of art found its fullest expression when the Freedom and Love International Art Group was formed.  The passion to encourage and support artist initiatives so as to freely pursue and express their creative endeavor in conjunction with connecting with the contemporary and global art world became the clarion call for the group. 

     The Freedom and Love International Art Group was founded by Singapore artist Abu Jalal Sarimon. Intent on actualizing the vision of an artistic community that transcends nationality, race, and geographic and cultural borders, he extended this altruistic alliance with visual artists from neighboring countries such as Deddy Paw from Indonesia, Roy Espinosa from the Philippines, and Zaki from Malaysia.   Together, they successfully held three “Freedom and Love Art Exhibition and Symposium” in Indonesia (2019), the Philippines (2019), and Turkey (2020)- a feat that brought together visual artists from twenty-five (25)member countries. Exhibition of artworks, art workshops, art symposiums, cultural tours, as well as participation in festivals within the localities were the mode by which intercultural exchange among the participating artists became possible. They also soaked in the sights and sound of the local communities as they interacted with its people and learned about the places they visited. 

     This year heralds the second edition of “Freedom and Love Philippines”, an art exhibition with participating visual artists from the Philippines, Singapore, India, Nepal, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Brunei. These fourteen (14) talented individuals brought with them not only their distinct culture , customs, and tradition as exemplified in their unique works of art, but they are also prime movers in the professional field of art in their respective countries. Their art advocacy extends to fostering an atmosphere of openness and camaraderie among their fellow visionaries. And they all believe that the art practice should be immersive and therefore a by-product of a continuous dialogue between the society and that of personal and communal history.

Toys have always been an essential part of growing up. Whether they have been purchased, handed down, or created from scratch, they are all designed for the same purpose. To bring amusement and pleasure to the user. Though for the artist Lino Jamisola, a big part of the fun actually comes from the process of creating them.

To celebrate children’s month this November, Jamisola presents Re-creation, an art exhibit highlighting the aspect of play in art-making. Through repurposing found objects and reimagining them as toy guns, the artist animates an assortment of materials that would otherwise be left to litter the streets or choke up waterways.

This do-it-yourself approach to art making was rooted in his childhood sensibility of maximizing opportunities that came his way. According to the artist even as a child he has created his own toys. Through his fertile imagination, simple materials like newspapers, cartons, styrofoam, tin cans and other odds and ends were transformed into space ships of different shapes and designs. He witnessed the more practical side of repurposing by observing his mother create round rags from sacks of old fabrics and other textiles. By the 4th grade, he started attending a special art class in the afternoon. From the 5th to 6th grades his favorite subject, shop class gave him access to its workshop. There he familiarized himself with different equipments and power tools and learned their safe and proper use. His skills were further honed thru the vocational courses he enrolled in during his high school years and even more so when he decided to take up Fine Arts at the Technological University of the Philippines in Manila.

These experiences growing up shaped his approach in his art practice: a mix of playful intuition and precision execution. He starts by observing his environment then he responds to the forms and possibilities of various found objects and proceeds to gather the ones that show promise. Afterwards, he proceeds to systematically fuse together the seemingly incoherent pieces of junk into an assorted array of toy guns, robots and other free standing or wall-bound creations.

A noticeable element in his works is the constant use of the PVC (polyvinyl chloride) pipes, a common construction material used primarily in electrical and plumbing works. Jamisola shares that the use of PVC were inspired by the “boga” the modern version of the bamboo cannon. It used to be wildly popular as a firecracker during New Year’s Day until it was banned due to the injuries it caused, most notably among minors. Still he notes the ingenuity of its design, the affordability of the materials needed and the simplicity of its construction.

On the other hand, the “weapons” he re-creates are decidedly non-functional in the conventional sense because they are crafted to encourage the viewer to imagine what these weapons are capable of. The parts are deliberately made recognizable to make them accessible to the viewer, to inspire them with the endless possibilities one can create through repurposing.

In today’s content on demand world, the weapons presented in the exhibit are created to combat the growing problem we now face: the lack of creativity and imagination. Being used to having finished products delivered to our doorstep and downloaded to our devices have lessened our ability to be creative and more importantly, to connect and empathize with other people. The spreading culture of violence and continued environmental destruction is a direct result of this growing detachment.

Still, as this exhibition demonstrates, there are creative ways to tackle the problem. If we are ever stumped by difficult situations, we just need to find that element of fun. As George Lois, America’s Master Communicator puts it “Creativity can solve almost any problem – the creative act, the defeat of habit by originality overcomes everything.” So start crafting your own weapons and shoot down the bad habits that keep you boring.

The conversation between fashion and religion is not an easy one as the two separate fields can clash, according to Almila. The sensuality of modern clothing poses a conflict with the wearer’s belonging to a religious institution that is characterized by conservatism. In “Stitching Faith and Fashion,” such controversy does not arise as the artworks exhibited intertwine fashion and faith, and not religion. The artworks are the truly personal interpretation of the artist’s religious belief as expressed in two disciplines that the artist has mastered – fashion and the visual arts.

There is no pretense or claim to assiduous research on the Luminous Mystery of the Holy Rosary, which is the main inspiration for the exhibit, to reflect historical accuracy of the vestments not only from a religious perspective but also of Philippine history. What is shown, on the contrary, are avant-garde fashion draping select religious figures in Catholic belief such as Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary that are rich in symbolisms. Juxtaposed with what the artist refers to as “Art to Wear” are a diminutive Nativity shadow box and a huge tapestry of mixed materials depicting the Last Supper that presages Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. This aspect of presaging parallels the artist’s own auguring of what was yet to come in fashion with his use of unconventional materials such as abaca, handwoven traditional textiles, and vintage cañamoso long before the words “repurposed,” “upcycled,” and “sustainability,” among others, became in vogue.

The profusion of iconology in the artworks in this exhibit certainly holds personal meaning for the créateur who invokes artistic license to the hilt to make art that the viewer can interpret from his or her own perspective whether in faith or in fashion.