Artist Lucell Larawan’s acrylic paintings are biographical. In the same vein that they act as markers along his artistic unfolding, they likewise play as metaphors that dwell on his aspiration and desire for freedom and rootedness. 

The artist’s aspiration for freedom is best demonstrated through his recent explorations with thread as centripetal material that binds the set of paintings in the exhibition. He hammered a row of boat nails that outline the fringes of the canvas, around which he stringed mercerized cotton threads that criss-cross and hover above the pictorial space. Each thread poetically connects one point of the surface to another. And when seen together as meshes, they make new and enhance the manner the images in the works are presented. 

Underneath these meshes are landscapes and moments of personal meaning. Using his brilliant palette and stylized patterns of dots and other motifs, he animated selected scenes from his home province, childhood memories, past experiences, and dreams. His works evince keen observation of his surroundings and his mental and emotional states. In creating these works, he implicitly performed semblances of recollection, which may further be read as expressions of nostalgia for home and belongingness. It is from this desire for rootedness and grounding to himself, his past, his culture, and his environs where his art springs forth. 

At first glance, freedom and rootedness may seem different, if not in contrast, with each other. To be free is commonly conceived to be unhindered and untethered after all. However, what Larawan’s stringed paintings offer is how expressions of freedom are informed and enriched by an intimate understanding of oneself and one’s position in this world.

Richard Buxani hems intergenerational narratives in the exhibition “MAKINA,”  centering on the sewing machine as an object located within nodes of signifiers. 

We recall grandmothers and mothers sewing for their children. They sustain the family or sew at leisure as a gesture of care. The thought overlaps with the image of women in homes, side-street dress shops, and factories stitching cloth and spinning fiber. 

Mothers are the heart of the home, shrouding us with warmth and strengthening the family at the seams. Their nurturing image is embossed in us until we reach our twilight years. Words of a mother can mend our frayed psyche and ruptured dreams. Her tender touch drapes us in comfort. Guided by her firm and steady hands, we helm our dreams, thread our life patterns, and string beadworks of aspirations in the process. 

We embroider personal memories of how maternal affection fuels the creative labor interlaced in textiles; the hum and rhythm of sewing are now embedded in our unconscious. 

Collective and personal memories are patches on a quilt: life stories are intertwined, and the sinews and seams are strengthened. The mother’s feeble hands are frail yet graceful, wrinkled with age yet nimble, guiding every stitch with one hand while the other rests on fabric as the wheel steadily spins. 

Every slip, zigzag, backstitch, and cross-stitch encodes interstitial creativity and wisdom transmitted across time. We then endow needlework with enormous respect, asserting that artisans transform our heritage places into our common home and enshrine the legacy of generations of women who have sewn on sewing machines. 

Abe Orobia, the exhibition curator, highlighted “Buxani’s processes in collecting, selecting, conceptualizing, and designing his pieces.” To him, Buxani’s “use of old sewing machines as benches makes it contemporary and exceptional.” 

Found and discarded objects are repurposed and upcycled. Parts of sewing machines that fell to disuse are given new life, transforming each into utilitarian yet aestheticized objects.  One can sit on them, converse with kindred souls over a drink, play a board game, tinker and admire the workmanship of each piece, or simply revel in the lull of the wind and the soft rustle of leaves in the garden. 

The idea that bonds are strengthened and resilient since our formative years animates the exhibition. A few works are collaborations with fellow artists, where chairs are painted on to look like fabric or upholstery one finds in domestic spaces, and each layer of pigment signifies the creativity and friendship binding one artist to another. 

Some take the shape of pin poppets and other figures imbued with mythological references related to sewing and motherhood. Parts of the sewing machine are transmuted into forms that highlight the materiality, made significant by the stories. 

Instructive in Buxani’s works is how technological changes led to the use of digital sewing machines and the death of an era. Yet these are transformed by the artist and given an afterlife. 

Ang ating pananamit ay maituturing na kaugnay sa pormasyon ng ating gender identity. Sa madaling sabi, ito ang ekspresyon kung paano natin maipakikilala ang ating mga sarili sa ibang tao.

Ang kasaysayan na mismo ang nagdidikta na ang isang babae ay kailangang magsuot pambabae habang ang isang lalaki ay kailangang magdamit panlalaki. Patunay na kailangan nating manamit nang akma base sa inaasahan ng ating lipunan. Noon pa man, may mga babae na nakapagsusuot na ng trousers at dahil dito, mas lalong napaigting ang ang tinatawag na Early Feminist Movement. Ngunit sa kasalukuyan, unti-unti nang nabibigyan ng pagkilala ang mga disenyo ng pananamit na puwede sa lalaki at puwede rin sa babae, na kung tawagin ay gender-fluid clothing o mas kilala rin sa tawag na Unisex clothing.

Para sa mga indibidwal na parte ng LGBTQIA+, ang damit ang nagsisilbing ekspresyon ng kanilang identidad at sexuality ngunit ito rin pamamaraan ng iba (closeted) na itago ang kanilang sarili. 

Gamit ang mga lumang damit, ito ang nagsilbing canvas ni Myr. Sa paraang ito, dito maipapakita na ang kanyang mga damit ay maraming representasyon na nakaugnay sa malawak na sakop ng kanyang gender expression at sexual identity. Ang mga obrang ito ay kombinasyon ng traditional at digital techniques na kung saan minolda ito gamit ang paint, pictures, at embroidery. Sa karagdagan, ang kanyang mga damit na nagsilbing canvas ay nirerepresenta ang kanyang komunidad na kinabibilangan at kasama rin dito ang mga istorya ng mga indibidwal na nais lamang makakuha ng pagtanggap at maging malaya sa ating lipunang ginagalawan.

Ang art gallery exhibit na ito ay naglalayong maipakita ang pakikibaka ng ating mga emosyon sa bawat pagsubok na ating kinakaharap. Ito rin ang daan upang makapag-iwan ng mga katanungan na kung kailangan ba talagang sundin ang mga inaasahan ng lipunang ito kaugnay sa gender at roles ng isang tao. Sa huli, ang exhibit na ito ang magsisilbing paalala sa lahat na hindi nagtatapos sa kasuotan ang ating pagkakakilanlan – there is beyond the closet. Tayo mismo ang nakakakilala kung sino at ano tayo at kahit gaano kapangit at mapanghusga ang ating lipunan, lahat tayo ay KATANGGAP-TANGGAP.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Hinubog sa Koronadal City o mas kilala sa tawag na “Dakbanwa sang Koronadal” sa wikang Hiligaynon, kung saan pugad ito ng mga ilonggo’t ilongga. Dito na rin nagkaisip at unti-unting kinikilala ang sarili.Nang mag-kolehiyo, siya naman ay hinulma ni “Oble” na kung saan nagmistulan itong simbolo sa kanya ng pag-alay ng sarili para sa bayan at kung saan natukoy niya kung ano ang kanyang mga kapasidad bilang likha ni Bathala. Siya si Maryll Dame B. Delposo o mas kilala sa ngalan na MYR.

Sa dalawampu’t tatlong taong pananahan dito sa mundo na kung saan kasali na rito ang mga panahong laro pa ang nasa isip, dito napagtanto ni Myr na mas gusto niya ang laruan ng kanyang kuya kaysa sa mga tipikal na laruang pambabae na binibigay sa kanya ng kanyang magulang.Kasali din dito ang mga panahong unti-unti niya ring nadarama na iba ang pananaw ng halos sa karamihan sa mga parte ng LGBTQAI+ community, na kung madalas ginagawang bala ang relihiyon. Sa mga panahong ding ito, siya ay natakot at nakaramdam ng hiya kung tatanggapin niya ba ang pagyakap sa bahaghari, ngunit kanya itong napatagumpayang supilin at pinili ni Myr na maging siya, na kung saan tuluyan siyang nakalabas sa isang madilim at nakasulasok na “Closet”.

Sa dako naman ng pagguhit, maituturing ni Myr na ito ang kanyang ekspresyon ng kanyang mga naramdaman o kanyang nagsisilbing medyum ng komunikasyon. Kung hindi mailagay sa mga salita ang kanyang gustong ipahiwatig, ang kanyang mga guhit o likha mismo ang nagdidikta.

Any entity can claim to be all about #feminism and #WomenEmpowerment, but how do they enforce these notions? 

Before you continue reading, take a pause and think of the last time you saw something that claimed to be about women’s empowerment. A top-of-the-mind answer will do. Let’s see if it feels genuine by the time you reach the end of this text.

Has our perspective of feminism defaulted to the mere inclusion of the female body?

Today there’s an abundance of messages harping women’s empowerment to the point where their identities are acknowledged by their mere inclusion over genuine representation. We see a lot of female bodies in the media predominantly conforming to age-old archetypes that tout impossible idealizations of femininity.

Instead of embracing the broad spectrum of what a woman can be beyond being an object of beauty or as a caretaker, there is a tendency to fall back on tried and tested representations of women with the expectations that it is reframed to conform to buzzwords like feminism and empowerment. 

The dilemma it creates is that it continues to thrive on the stereotypes that feminism is trying to break. Hence we are confronted with images of women’s bodies being stripped of their character and agency. 

This is a problem that women in advertising are trying to work around. In fact, it’s a constant balancing act between championing diverse identities especially since they create stories around women on a daily. They are pressed to build authentic stories while wrestling with these ironies.

Have you thought of an ad yet? Yes? Good. Keep that in mind. If not, let’s keep going all the same.

The process of how these advertisements come about is not as simple as writing a script with creative choices decided by one person overnight. The reality is advertisements undergo a process of exchange of ideas that are vetted by a group of people. There is an exchange that happens, sometimes a negotiation but ultimately, it is the client who has the last say in what the final message will look like.

Women in Advertising

Be that as it may, advertising agencies are constantly offering out-of-the-box representations of women. This is especially true for the three artists in this show. They offer a critique of the female body, challenging conventional takes on “what is” with “what ifs”.

Whether it’s children’s snacks, health products, kitchen appliances, or cleaning products, brands gravitate towards women as their endorsers. Women have appeared in commercials that pushed the sales of household conveniences, and it became generally accepted that women hold the role of taking care of the household. All that responsibility while dressed to the nines and looking happy. So much so, that it brought in a generation of men who expect the household chores to be dealt with by women as a default.

If at this point you just thought of an ad, good for you. You probably thought hard to pick one. You didn’t have to think that hard.

Today women are empowered to break away from these expectations. We’ve seen women go from homemakers to girl bosses. Yet, women in advertising still deal with these archetypes and how women’s bodies are supposed to look.

In the age of social media, the numbers speak for themselves. There are more women influencers than their male counterparts. It’s still the same gameplay, influencers pushing products and brands. However, the algorithm seems to work in favor of women whose bodies fall under a new stereotype-physique of “The Instagram model.” This stereotype reinforces how brands assume that their audiences view women’s bodies as merely disembodied entities.

Did you change your answer to a viral Tiktok video or an IG post you recently liked?

Women of Advertising

The artists understand firsthand that women are not just there to look a certain way and conform to a cookie-cutter mold formed by other people’s expectations.

Play within The Box: Woman Reframed features three women artists who hail from the advertising industry. Jo Aguilar, Villarica, and Tricia Salonga explore and play around with these aged stereotypes of women which are still prevalent in their line of work.

The exhibition’s title flips the industry adage “to think outside the box.” These ladies go full circle and seek from within. Circling back to their own struggles and presenting works that aim to underscore that when women are devoid of agency and choices, their bodies themselves become an ideogram of oppression.

The Exhibition

The show is designed to deliver a sensorial experience for the viewers. As such, the artists have intentionally placed their works in a literal box. Expressed through formats and mediums framed within a box, a square, or a cube, to give their viewers a sense of wanting to be freed from being boxed into a stereotype.

I bet you stopped reading at this point. Let me walk you through the works in the gallery. Start from the left and follow a clockwise route around the gallery.

Upon entering the gallery, you will find the works of Tricia Salonga, some of which the audience are free to interact with. Her wood-carved print installation is presented in a frame-by-frame format that calls to mind how storyboards are used in advertising.

You’re more than welcome to try the prints for yourself. Go ahead and grab a sheet, ink the roller, and take home a print.

These relief plates show tight shots of female body parts. It is a critique of the female being the emblem of commercialism. “In advertising, when one writes a casting brief that involves a female as the main character most of the characteristics of these women kind of sound the same, and are usually safe (e.g. normal, able-bodied, caring, heteronormative, slim, and the list goes on). Even though they still get pretty much edited anyway, sometimes we use different sets of hands or some parts of the body which would fit the composition of the key visual.” Says Salonga.

Her installation piece “Things I Wish Were Heard: F(rag)m(e)nt Room” looks at the tradition of pottery production which is often occupied by women. And last but not least is “Flick(Her)” which is a critique of the societal views of female masturbation or female sexuality which is very particular to the Philippine context.

These are followed by Jo Aguilar’s works that emulate obsolete print ads that touch on the different notions of feminism. Her piece examines the portrayal of middle-class women and their role as housewives in the 1950s. 

Let’s see how many female tropes you can identify here.

A series of vintage print posters titled “The Stains of Society”, rework laundry detergent packaging into tongue-in-cheek statements that seek to challenge the sexist culture of the advertising industry. 

Her central piece titled “Disparate Housewives” brings together the most commonly used female archetypes in advertising. “The composition was made up of various magazine advertisements published in the decade that limited the placement of women into “The Housewife” stereotype and perpetuated specific qualities that women should conform to. The “ideal wife” shown in those advertisements was domestic, pleasing, and traditional. It also emphasized the woman’s role as a well-behaved wife or a doting mother.” Aguilar explains. 

This fresh take by Aguilar recontextualizes the depiction of women in obsolete ads in comparison to the modern take on women being free and unfiltered. 

And if you turn once more to the right you will see lights. And yes, you can take a selfie.

Brightening the space are the LED light pieces and mirrors by Villarica. Inspired by the LED signages that light up the night, Villarica uses these lights to remind women that as women in advertising, they are the very people who will push for messages that inspire women to lift one another.  Her piece “Talking to the Woman in the Mirror” aims to reinforce that message as well. When a viewer looks at the mirror and reads the message on them, it is as if one is having a pep talk with themselves.

Challenging the Status Quo

Collectively the works offered a glimpse into the frustrations and hopes of these three women. A unique take of what it’s like from the inside looking outside of the advertising industry. The audience is invited to not just think outside the box but also seek to unveil their own prejudices over the female body.

Play within the box: Woman Reframed humanizes women in advertisements as an attempt to liberate them from the figurative box of which everyone is invited to think out of. As these three stalwarts of advertising have championed the brands they’ve worked with, this is their way of creating space for women to recognize their own agency and uplift other women through their art. 

Lithe lights, supple shades

Featuring a collection spanning five decades, Romeo Gutierrez’s Beyond Gold rounds out the artist’s principles and practice of “recording scenarios of a beginning, a creation, a naked truth and motion” as noted by Rene R. Salem in Philippine Panorama in 1976. Citations from the artist’s contemporaries – luminaries of the Philippine art scene – essayist-critic Leonidas Benesa, art historian-professor Santiago A. Pilar, and National Artist for Visual Arts Jeremias Elizalde Navarro among others are our signposts for our refreshed acquaintance with the layered visual essays of Gutierrez through oil, acrylic, and print. 

The overall calmness and temperance conveyed from the gathering of around 40 abstract and figurative works at the NCCA Gallery is a register of materials: Aside from using canvases as ground for oil and acrylic, Gutierrez also used other kinds of surfaces, or he diligently recreated simulations of textures and atmospheres as graphic documentations of his observations and aspirations in life. Virtually cosmological and spiritual, Gutierrez’s modernist and contemporary approaches may evoke scenes of personal meditations or social relationships, but his outputs significantly rely on the potent faculty of abstraction to facilitate the affordances for multiple and lithe interpretations.

Synthetic conflations

The visual arts’ modernist period is one of the more current foundations of our world’s highly graphic and image-based language now – particularly in the twined industries of computer-aided graphic design and social media: Adobe Photoshop, Canva, Procreate, or any other digital painting software make ‘objects’ float on top of another, bleed through each other, or desaturate through optical mixing with just a click or swipe of the finger.  These technologies that efficiently skip time and even space to create hypnotic or engaging outputs are from the accumulation of formal techniques stemming from various academic traditions of painting and drawing since the European Renaissance and even earlier. 

In the age of virtual reality, augmented optics, and artificial intelligence, the plasticity of form during Gutierrez’s time in the Philippine art scene of the 70s – abundant with posturing and canonizing the national in art – was at its prime and this was retained resiliently within the artist’s works which have been generated up to this new decade. The planes of painting and printing were bursting at the seams. It was indeed the time of maximizing the graphic, the painterly, and the printed in the 2D that Gutierrez exploited the strengths of his mediums in rendering surfaces through non-figuration. He created his own modernist signature of visual and actual tactility, as remarked by lifestyle journalist Millet M. Mannanquil in 1985 as something “difficult to make a fake of.” Several pieces from the selection for this exhibition were done in canvas, while others were created on the ground of a product commercially known as Versaboard, a particularly rigid yet flexible, smooth-surfaced, and liquid-resistant material. The patterns, reliefs, and gradients in Gutierrez’s works are all technical manipulations of the liquid and dry pigments he chose, which are most of the time coated with a waterproof finish. Like ants or leaves fossilized as embers, Gutierrez’s manual and belabored application of paint or print are crystallized. 

Beyond gold: An aurous lifeway

At his current home at the foot of urban Antipolo near the (relatively) newest train station servicing the west-east route of the capital region, the artist, his wife, and their son are living with most of his prized works. Gutierrez thoughtfully collects news clippings and comms ephemera about his previous and upcoming projects, and writes regularly about his creations – all of  these are all archived on ledgers. The diligence from these acts are present in the works in Beyond Gold. Gutierrez narrates that he leans into art for provisions, not just for his social and financial needs but also for his connection with the sacred. Art gives him sanity and refuge amid private challenges or shared turbulences. It may be true that the power of abstraction or non-figuration is that it predicates on capturing the intangible – whether it be thought, emotion, or impulse – through the thorough examination of the material in the singular moment. Art professor, critic, historian, and painter Reuben Ramas Cañete † wrote in the broadsheet The Philippine Star in 1998 that “Gutierrez frames his development with a metaphysical approach that overcomes the emptiness of forms for its own sake.” The energy and aura of Gutierrez’s masterworks may definitely be inflections of the self and his relationship to the ethers. But the act of painting as a public signature – a disclosure; the pursuit and fine-tuning of artistic techniques as crucial to teaching; and the dialogics of national identity through semiotic sharpness – these are performances in a lifeway of a master not only concerned of himself. After 50 years and one as a visual artist, Gutierrez generously forges on to create as he can.

Through catering these modernist and contemporary pieces at the Beyond Gold exhibition of the NCCA Gallery, it is hoped that audiences will be aware of the importance of introspection in creating art as an integral part and pleasure as we live our lives day-to-day. This retrospective is a proposition that works of art are portals to our realization of the constant swing between our notions of transcendental beauty and the rare graces borne from irreplicable moments – ways of perceiving and understanding which are vital to our cultural nourishment.

It’s one thing that multi-hyphenate Reuben Laurente is a gifted visual artist. It’s quite another that he is equally an impassioned lover of his home country.

The exhibit Pilipino Ako, Ito Ang Aking Lahi is a showcase of Reuben’s laudable talent as a painter whose passion for craft birthed very early on in life, or just around the same age he found his love for singing which he eventually became primarily known for. It is also a reflection of his patriotism that empowered his identity as an artist who, apart from serenading from his diaphragm, also draws images from the heart. 

“I am an advocate of our rich cultural heritage and this is my own little way of showcasing how proud I am of where we come from,” he said, emphasizing how his sense of nationalism has molded his mindset while letting his paintbrush express the depth of his message. 

For the art collectors and enthusiasts to have a guiding compass to Reuben’s exhibit, the artworks put on display have been neatly divided into four sections, namely, Kwentong Bayan, Pagdiriwang, Ang Babaeng Pilipino, and Muebles. 

Kwentong Bayan touches on the mysteries and supernatural glitter of Philippine mythology and folktales. Pagdiriwang captures the kaleidoscopic merrymaking of Filipino festivals. Ang Babaeng Pilipino celebrates the innate beauty and charming character of Filipino women born and raised in the land dubbed as Pearl of the Orient, and Muebles is Reuben’s tribute to the art of interior design that focuses on furniture that is inherently Filipino.

This carefully crafted collection of Reuben’s artworks is a mix of masterpieces delivered while battling health crises on separate fronts, one personally threatening, another earth-shattering. This exhibit shows a few of his paintings he did a decade back, exactly in the year 2013, during his free hours while on board a cruise ship where he performed for passengers. Some are fairly new, committedly painted at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic where he found himself back in the country, addressing the situation at home. 

Himself an embodiment of positivity regardless of what’s thrown at him, even a nationwide quarantine to deal with a faceless enemy, Reuben channeled his inner calm to produce obra maestras that make his exhibit an outpouring of love for the motherland and a strong symbolism of resiliency. Some of the art works are now owned by notable art patrons and select fellow artists in the recording and theatre industry. 

Reuben’s style is characterized by his use of squares and rectangles, often with curved corners emblazoned with gold, silver, and copper.  Such definitive visual elements naturally metamorphose into “swirling movements of plant-like rectilinear, curvilinear design motifs” which for him is representational of what is called “okir” art, one that is found among the Moro and Lumad people breathing through the terrains of Southern Philippines.  

Pilipino Ako, Ito Ang Aking Lahi is a singing painter’s testament on lifelong endearment for his birthplace where he happily grew up and became the person that he is, diligently unwavering even in the face of challenges usually present in Filipino communities, faithfully believing despite debilitating politics and competitions, and spiritually empowered regardless of natural and human frailty disasters.

Thus, after assessing Reuben Laurente’s numerous and beautifully produced art pieces, his deep track record on the medium and experience on artistic progression, and his genuine love for country, the multi-awarded recording artist and live performer was finally given the undeniable support, blessing, and confidence to conduct this exhibition.

For a Filipino interdisciplinary contemporary artist like Jasper Castro, her artworks significantly affixed her feminine lens by amplifying both the gender and mental struggles of women artists who are often labeled as ‘madwomen’, and whose art was viewed by patriarchal society as ‘hysterical’, ‘fragile’, or ’emotional’.  Vincent Van Gogh, Edvard Munch, and Mark Rothko– three male artists whose mental health struggles are romanticized making their art more appealing, introspective, and revered by the present society. While the 1970s contained many watershed moments in the women’s movement, incremental change has occurred over centuries . Art history shows that women artists during the 19th and 20th centuries pioneered new forms amplified by a radical thought towards the feminist movement . They created works that gradually broadened the possibilities for art and its audience that almost took decades to register with mainstream culture. The widespread recognition of the work of women artists has accelerated as they continue to produce works that complicate and challenge our understanding of gender, identity, empowerment, and expression. Consequently, the female imagery in Castro’s works represents surreal double-images, in which the spectator will be challenged to see beyond the surface-level labels allowing for an in-depth appreciation of female creativity. Just like fellow women artists like Frida Kahlo and Yayoi Kusama, the artistic process allowed Castro to exchange pain and anxiety for creativity, discovery, and eventually recovery – neither her scars nor her illness lessened her femininity or her strength. 

In The Artist is Alive, Castro announces her presence and vulnerability of living with bipolar disorder. By using herself as the main subject in her paintings and poetry, she heralds her survival, her rebirth, that through art there is hope. Each station in the exhibition corresponds to the stages of a full bipolar cycle – Trigger, Mania, Depression, Respite, and Liberate, as it presents a voyage of discovery that could lead to reckoning, to an awakening, to a breakthrough rather than a breakdown. This collection of artworks comes at the tail-end of a pandemic that has left almost everyone with surprising and unwelcome self-discoveries about the limits of their mental health. Through each piece, the public is invited to embark on a journey of self-discovery and reflection, while drawing from a real-life experience of the artist. As the spectator journeys with the artist, their mind will drown in a plethora of blunt, uncomfortable truths. Through it, Cuss-a-Gun will trigger the untouched mind, Anxiety of Happiness will become an accessible vicarious experience, and By Every Word will leave a mark on their soul. 

When words are not enough, Castro turns to images and symbols to tell her stories. In Honest Oasis, the painting started with her self-portrait and then later on she added a visual metaphor of cacti–spiny and a phallus to reference the idea of sexuality and romance, eventually, the snakeskin to reinforce sexuality, but also referencing the serpentine ability to shed skin and in a way, be reborn. Labor Bae, delves into her fascination with nature and honeybees and talks about the formidable task of embracing one’s vocation–whether as a short-lived spring bee, an autumn bee that lives long but spends most of its life huddled in the hive for winter or as a lonely Queen Bee powerful yet damned to spend her whole life in the hive. The woman sits amid gigantic crimson poppy flowers–an ode to Morpheus, the god of dreams who fuels Castro’s art.  One might also notice the curly hair of the female subjects which symbolizes the artist’s current state of mind and emotions. A local derogatory phrase and the idea it represents – kapag kulot salot which translates to “[the] curly-haired are cursed” – has made her embrace her insecurities growing up with curly hair. Oftentimes, the hair is represented by a force of nature such as ferns as depicted in The Magic of My Boston Ferns. Ferns, in their luscious soft verdant blade and the neon green young furry fiddlehead, symbolizes a phase in a creative pursuit. 

Sensorial, profound, and unflinching, this exhibition is not just a celebration of the human spirit and a testament to the power of artistic expression to heal and transform, but it also bridges the gap on intersectional issues (e.g. socio-economic class, employment opportunities, discrimination, public health care) and alleviates mental health in the context of a third world country. In the Philippines, living with a mental health condition is often understood as a sign of weakness, poverty, or even evil possession. One cultural trait often associated with this stigma is the prevalence of the kulang ka lang sa dasal mentality, which translates to “your faith is too little”. This mindset emphasizes the importance of self-reliance and downplays the significance of mental health problems, suggesting that people should simply toughen up and deal with their issues on their own. Additionally, a local belief is that mental health problems are caused by evil spirits, rather than biological or environmental factors. Because of these negative cultural phenomena, mental health is still stigmatized and often leads to people with mental health conditions being ostracized, discriminated against, and even abused. Even after the country passed Republic Act No. 11036 or the Mental Health Act and Republic Act 11223 or the Universal Health Care Act, only 5% of the health care expenditure of the Department of Health is directed toward mental health as reflected in limited health facilities, public programs and employment of mental health professionals in public hospitals.  In conclusion, The Artist is Alive offers a unique opportunity to explore the intersection of mental health and artistic expression. 

Chaos — the grand choreography of what we call a city.

On Animated_Landscape, Ilagan situates his experience of a complex system of chaos in Manila, the city where he lives — cars, combustion, weather, politics and people. Ilagan’s sonic experience of chaos is mostly represented by transportation, by commuting, on how he navigates the urban landscape, a bodily experience assaulting the senses. Ilagan being a sound artist restructures this sonic experience into a set of graphical notations, finding his own rhythm in this seemingly impossible systems. By seeing sound as graphical notations, sound became an abstraction, a visual representation of sound. In this transformation of sound to visual, Ilagan is proposing a visual field journal, a rigorous account of what it means to live in a city like Manila. There is no romance in this, the senses overwhelmed with combobulated tones and notations of violent punches ringing back and forth are like deathless machines scrambling to finish its task. Comparable to Ilagan’s experience is the articulation of Manila in Miguel Syjuco’s Illustrado (2008) —

“You can’t bring an unwritten place to life without losing something substantial. Manila is the cradle, the graveyard, the memory. The Mecca, the Cathedral, the bordello. The shopping mall, the urinal, the discotheque. I’m hardly speaking in metaphor. It’s the most impermeable of cities. How does one convey all that?”

In Ilagan’s observations, the sonic component is what’s composed of this city. That the Manila he knew is obscured by sonic improbabilities. Sound when composed creates a rhythm. Cities when regulated with policies creates organization. Both the city and the sound can be composed, to create harmony or to attack the senses. It is Ilagan’s proposition to illustrate a world in chaos in notational abstractions. In this seemingly more disconnected world that we live in, we are confused with equating progress with chaos, convenience with advancement. There is no stopping how we operate in this capitalist world. The modern world is designed to create capital, to endlessly squander its resources and collectively change its climate. We are not in the brink of collapse, we are already in the middle of it. In Ilagan’s means to create this exhibition is a soft proposition — on how we can imagine to compose a better world for us, that we may realize that the ecological notations should be rearranged and performed accordingly in order to survive and live a life that resembles a utopia.