LOCUS:

Interventions in Art Practice

Locus: Interventions in Art Practice
A Project of Lopez Memorial Museum and Pananaw ng Sining Bayan, Inc.
Through a Grant of The Japan Foundation
ISBN 971-814-047-6
@ 2005 National Commission for Culture and the Arts

Imelda Cajipe-Endaya
Conference Convenor

Joselina Cruz
Conference Convenor

Patrick Flores
Conference Convenor

Jay Koh
Conference Convenor

Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez
Project Director/Managing Editor

Datu Arellano
Design/Production Supervision

Michelle Pascual
Aileen Salonga
Natasha Vizcarra
Copy Editing/Fora Summaries

Bryan Paraiso
Transcriptions

Balay Taliambong: The Cojuangco Museum and Art Center

Lopez Memorial Museum
Pananaw ng Sining Bayan, Inc.
Conference Management

Locus 1 was held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Main Gallery, Manila on August 8, 2002.
Locus 2 was held at the Eugenio Lopez Center in Antipolo on October 8 and 9, 2002.

Acknowledgements
The Cultural Center of the Philippines
De La Salle University College of St. Benilde School of Arts and Design
University of the Philippines Department of Art Studies
Metrobank Foundation
Pilipinas Shell Corporation
Prince Claus Fund, Netherlands
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Foreword
Imelda Cajipe-Endaya

Society and the world are in constant change. Artists and our art not only mirror change; we are ac-
tive participants in change. We are initiators of change. It is but fitting that this international gathering
takes place in the Philippines where we are heir to a legacy of colonial resistance and an unfinished
revolution. Asia’s first democracy may be an epithet to political volatility, yet here we have a strong
civil society and cultural movement founded on participatory democracy that is relentless in its op-
timism. It is in this participatory spirit -- critical, activist, peaceful, and productive -- that we come
to dialogue about creating art that is bound up with desired action. The last decade into the would-
be Asia Pacific Century witnessed how visual artists have evolved into dynamic negotiators of the
creative process for community empowerment. The millennium has just begun and already we are
deluged with violent disjunctures wrought by the rise of new fundamentalisms in the global economy,
religion, and politics. These overwhelming phenomena challenge us to ask ourselves about the force
and efficacy of our art practice.

We look forward to sharing not only our art, for we will also examine and question the self and each
other’s intent, motives, visions, context, choices of site, material technology, and media, our stakes,
expectations, and ethos.

I should thank Jay Koh, artist and organizer of the International Forum for Intermedia Art (IFIMA),
for having broached to us in Pananaw ng Sining Bayan, Inc. the idea of organizing an international
conference on engaged art. Under the progressive guidance of Patrick Flores and Joselina Cruz, we
evolved the project into this twin conference of artists and curators, with Locus 1: Critiquing Critical
Art as the national run-up component, and Locus 2: Interventions in Art Practice, as the international
symposium. The indefatigable Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez should be commended for her total com-
mitment and efficiency in making this project a reality. We are fortunate to have partnered with the
Lopez Memorial Museum and to have shared the support of the Japan Foundation Asia Center in
this endeavor.

We welcome all the artists, curators, and cultural workers here who believe in art as a transformative
force. Art (without understating excellence) today is a multidisciplinary exercise, a didactic cultural
enterprise, that is mutually sustained by communities, collaborations, and networking. It can only
progress and thrive by developing intelligent discourse. Thus we are here in Locus.

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 Locus: Interventions in Art Practice -- Instigating Discourse
Joselina Cruz

I walk into the Whitechapel Gallery. There is an exhibition of Medardo Rosso.

The experience seems somehow to urge me to ask myself if I can write sculpturally or
if I can only invent something like an ecritore sculpturale. For when I leave the gallery,
I felt an urge to find my way onto an unknown space, The-Space-of-Writing.

-Alexia Defert (“In-between Schools: A translation,”

Writing Art in Act 1, 1995)

Locus was born from two different paths of thinking back in the year 2001. A local concern for emerg-
ing curatorial frameworks had been slowly bubbling, and curators as well as curated exhibitions were
gradually surfacing. Exhibitions had begun to carry the words “curated by” with more frequency,
and the previous decades’ debates regarding the use of the word “curator” (which consequently, and
dismayingly, developed a halo of hallowed proportions around the term) seemed to have reached a
crest. Criticism was also gaining a greater foothold as it broke the torpor of art writing, finally coming
into its own. Magazines devoted to critical writing on art were being published; a greater concern
for the documentation of events (exhibitions, performances, gallery shows, including international
participation by local artists) also materialized. Consequently, the necessity for text to be produced
to coincide with these new orientations became increasingly felt. These developments, surely still at
their nascent stages, are symptomatic of an art world system that is becoming gingerly aware of a
framework as it begins to recognize these elements within the gallery and museal systems.

The two paths that later on carried the two streams of the conference (Critiquing Critical Art and Me-
diating Art: Sites and Practice) converged to create “Locus: Interventions in Art Practice”. Pananaw
ng Sining Bayan, Inc., an independent organization which was founded in 1996, was initially focused
on bringing out an annual Philippine visual journal to record the developments in Philippine art. Its
long-term goal was to bring discourse into the practice of art. This international conference is one
of its many efforts toward making this possible. The Lopez Memorial Museum (through the Eugenio
Lopez Foundation), on the other hand, is a much, much older organization. Started in the ‘60s by
the patriarch of the Lopez clan, Eugenio Lopez, Sr., the museum began with the straightforward and
un-complex purpose of sharing art and culture to the Filipino people. In recent years, however, the
museum has aspired toward a greater engagement with current artistic impulse through a more ac-
tive exhibitions and education program. It has also worked toward audience development in the field
of art and museum work.

Both organizations were keen on bringing an international set of speakers to the locus of Manila.
This inclination was engendered by the local art scene’s growing maturity, as well as an increased
exposure to and awareness of international discussions. In light of these developments, we were
hopeful that the conference would stimulate in the local and international participants negotiations

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that crossed cultural, geographical, and disciplinary differences, as the conference was seen as a
unique platform upon which important exchanges and contacts could be made. The conference was
also seen as an opportunity to shift theoretical discussions away from perceived and recognized art
centers, and thus encourage theoretical formulations to radiate from a peripheral site. Unlike current
formulations, however, we wanted these to enter areas (relevant or otherwise) via unlikely paths,
unexpected means, and surprising portals.

Marginal sites like Manila prove interesting experiments especially when current thought regarding
art and exhibitions continues to reach us by way of the West. Arguments and discussions which
appear to privilege peripheral locations have been done so by a majority of immigrants outside the
sphere of their attendant concern. It has been assumed (and accepted, although not without an ensu-
ing reactionary backlash) that their translocated status positions them within hegemonic structures
that give them access to dismantling machinery from within a variety of loci. But Geeta Kapur (1994)
provides us telling insight when speaking of the intellectual immigrant. She writes that the immigrant
finds his or her position both a strength and a problem: the need to negotiate with powerful cultural
elites within the western world and the inevitability of measuring success in terms of position gained
in the control of culture and the media that attends to it. If the aim is to turn the center-periphery
model inside out then the positions may change but not the model (p. 39). We should continue to
question the radical import of this statement.

Turning the simplistic and modernist center-periphery model inside out is not the goal of Locus; in-
stead it seeks, to quote from the conference rationale,

to enable artists, curators, critics, academics, architects, designers and allied curators within
the Asian region and across an increasingly global art world, to situate their practices in the
context of contemporary discourses that are transdisciplinary, collaborative, responsive to
the well-being of communities, and willing to discuss social issues that lie at the heart of this
generation of acts; to highlight two crucial areas that directly affect art and its public: criticism
and curation as practices in the remaking of art in a world ripe for revision.

These objectives make it apparent that this coming together of critical, curatorial, and artistic voices
here in Manila is not solely for the purpose of achieving a strategic exchange of positions. The tools
of cultural power centers will be consumed and utilized to make possible the re-making of art and the
re-visioning of the world. Thus, Locus aspires to be simultaneously a disruption of and a persistence
within the frames and burdens of artistic discourse.

Are there still subterranean modes of disruption within the entrenched facilities of criticism and cu-
rating? Are these modes still untouched and unhatched within a perverse sustenance of modernities
in an otherwise accepted situation of postmodernity? Niranjan Rajah seeks to upset the ease with
which criticism continues to manufacture interpretations of art by suggesting the need for a mediat-
ing South East Asian discourse to address the shift of power from national to international. Jose
Tence Ruiz proposes not an alternative for artistic agency, but in its place, that of an alternating mode
of production the schema of which can be used to push for an ethical space. Such an ethical space
is a need that most systems assume to exist, but are unable to realize. Lee Weng Choy’s gesture is a

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 close reading of selected passages and writing from Patrick Flores. Such close reading sustains the
necessary critical tension between theorists and the text they generate, and the demand for critics,
writers, even curators to be accountable to the work they bring upon various publics and contexts.
In fact, such labor should be encouraged to compel sustained dialogues between and among peers.
Gestures such as these allow critical thinking and discourse to be continually addressed and re-
dressed, providing the intellectual matter for practice.

It was another conference organized by Jay Koh, Crossing Cultures: Theories and Practices on En-
gaged Art (Hong Kong, October 2000), which jumpstarted Pananaw ng Sining Bayan, Inc.’s in-depth
concern with the affective criticality still maintained and claimed by artists whose work is supposedly
directed toward bringing about social change. The consequential relationship between the self and
the social sphere is explored, once again, most especially art and the artist’s role when working
within. Koh provides an in-depth consideration of the formation of solidarities and the individual’s
(the self’s) role in the negotiation of these. He bares the internal workings of the self (representing
the artist) within the structure of society and recognizes the complexities of environment which in
turn inform and affect the individual. The responsibility of an artist working on a project within soci-
ety should take on the network of structures where this action is to be carried out. Similarly, Judy
Freya Sibayan has directly engaged with the stringent structure of the art world system by flaying
out at its monolithic structures through the use of her self in uncompromising projects that challenge
art’s fixation with certain givens. Projects such as the Museum of Mental Objects make the object,
the museum, the gallery, and essentially the entire economics of the art system, obsolete. Scapular
Gallery Nomad also confronts the siting of art in specific spaces; by using her body as site, Sibayan
cuts through expectations given to art. She acknowledges her “autonomy” from the art world by
precisely feeding off its modernist need for a binary to exist. In Vietnam, where the art system has
hardly reached levels with which contemporaneous work could be contended, Nguyen Minh Thanh
pursues an individual absorption for his mother; as an all-exhaustive project in various media, this
practice breaks through Vietnamese society’s expectations of an artist. In an action similar to that
of Lee Weng Choy’s textual reading of Patrick Flores, but this time, perhaps more strategic rather
than gestural in nature, Thanom Chapakdee, a writer who works with the Nuts Society of Thailand,
presents a text taken from the Society’s interventive strategies presented within Bangkok. Suffering
from loss in translation, the text that appears here has also been manipulated by the Society as it
morphs to enter the form of a book.

Critical discourse has had a longer standing in shaping the art world, while curatorial direction in the
field of visual arts has only come into its own recently. One of the speakers, Ingrid Swenson briefly
gives a short assessment of the effects of the curator’s ascent:

The status of the curator and artist has risen exponentially, to the point where particular artists
and curators have become cult figures. Whereas this is less unusual for the artist (think of
Warhol, Dali, Picasso -- the list is endless), I personally feel that this is an uncomfortable and
potentially dangerous situation for the curator in terms of the power that this position can now
command. The appropriately dark term “gatekeeper” is one which is often used in reference
to curators.

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Swenson is currently director of Peer1, an independent arts organization in the United Kingdom that
develops and presents projects in a range of media and in various locations. Swenson’s place in
the field of contemporary art has moved from being part of a contemporary arts organization, the
Institute of Contemporary Art, to that of a freelance curator without the benefit of the support struc-
ture that an institutional framework can provide. On the other hand, she no longer has had to deal
with the bureaucratic or creative restrictions that this framework brings. Interestingly, her current
position allows her to have semi-structural support with decidedly less bureaucracy when carrying
out projects.

Judy Freya Sibayan, unlike Swenson, rendered her own move from the hold of mainstream art sys-
tem toward a more autonomous and cleverly independent representation of her art. This personal
journey led to self-exile from the world she had considered hers, and in her words, this dis-ease
called for a move toward quietude, humility toward self-truth, and autonomy beyond the limits of
the center of production, circulation, and reception of art. This constituted Sibayan’s escape from
the infrastructure of privilege and pervasive modernist myth-making. In fact, curatorial explorations
sought to contest Derrida’s il ny a pas de hors-texte (approximately: there is nothing outside the
text; or there is no outside-the-text) (in Harrison and Wood, 1998, 918) by seeking to break out from
the modernist prison through a variety of tactics, one of which is Sibayan’s quest for autonomy from
the system. Vincent Leow and Ringo Bunoan, both artists and directors for spaces which originally
began as artist-run spaces (ARS), resist one insidious aspect of the art system by giving space to art
forms and expressions that cannot be supported by the commercial and public system of art. While
the form, that is, the apparent need for infrastructure, continues within their organizations, Plastique
Kinetic Worms (PKW) in Singapore and big sky mind Foundation (BSM) in Manila have shown how
spaces without the support of the present systems (government and commercial) provide the much
needed space and encouragement for artistic innovation and independence. While initiatives like
these do not usually last, it is interesting to note that both BSM and PKW have been in existence
for more than four years, and their existence continues to yield significant work and a wide range of
practice. As they teeter on the verge of institutionalization, it will be worthy to note how they evolve
in the coming years.

Sharmini Pereira’s work as an independent curator in the UK with Asia as the subject of her curato-
rial concern, even if similar to Sibayan’s search for autonomy, questions the very notion of indepen-
dence. She writes that:

as an independent curator this preamble is mainly intended to raise the question of what ex-
actly I am independent from and how perhaps a notion of independent is hinged between two
or more mutually reliant opposites and begs the question of how I might also be independent
from these questions asked of me but not by me.

Further, she describes her projects as acts of independence, which is less about being intervention-
ist and more about mediation between a set of circumstances, people, funding realities, and shifting
contexts. Ranjit Hoskote’s situation is a cross between Pereira’s independence (not being attached
to an institution) and that of the artist-run spaces (resisting the path of commercial and public sites
for art). His quandary is adequately elucidated when he writes that “acting within the system, yet also

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 pointing outside it, theorist-curators and critical artists lead dual lives, amphibians constantly cross-
ing the border from one condition into another, negotiating a geometry of schizoid spaces.”

Lani Maestro’s thoughts accurately place the conference’s aspirations at the center. By questioning
our many assumptions, she dislodges our comfortable theories and discourse. She asks for a shift to
a temporality less linear and more generous. Citing the work of Vietnamese filmmaker Trin T. Minh-
ha, she reminds us of “new ways to speak about difference within.” She comments further:

There is a third world in every first world and vice versa. Within each entity there is a vast field
and within each self is a multiplicity. For example, when do I see myself as part of the
east and when do I tell people that the west is also me. It is not a question of blurring bound-
aries or of rendering them invisible. It is a question of shifting them as soon as they become
fixed.

The conference was conceived as a coming together of areas that were seen to have encircled the
world and system of art, and how their entry into the system had been absorbed to produce a diver-
sity of methods and/or practices. Locus was to become a place where these exchanges would take
place -- our negotiations to turn into a flow of dialogue and our dialogues to turn into considered rev-
erie. Pleasant contemplation when turned into considered reverie embodies our intense discourses
with a seriousness combined with cheerful enthusiasm. Perhaps then we can respond similarly in the
manner of Helene Cixous: that when faced with the task of having to talk about state authority, she
instead goes to sleep. In fact, it is in sleep and our dreams that we are able to re-vision the world.
Then we wake up.

References

Harrison, C. & Woods, P. (Eds.). 1998. Critical Revisions, Art in Theory, 1900-1990: An Anthol-
ogy of Changing Ideas. UK: Blackwell.

Kapur, G. 1998. “A New Inter Nationalism: The Missing Hyphen”. In Global Visions: Towards A
New Internationalism in the Visual Arts, (39-49). London: Kala Press.

Note

1 Not to be confused with a funding body, Peer is primarily a commissioning and initiating
organization concerned mainly with the visual arts, but has had projects that involved musicians,
filmmakers, writers, and philosophers.

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LOCUS 1
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Locus 1 Conference Outline

Session 1:
Social Realism: Histories and Hopes

Social realists tracing their roots to the anti-Marcos movement have, with varying levels of success and
intensity, sought to deal with political realignments and evolving popular sentiments among Filipinos.
Discussions in this section are expected to present a cross-generational summing up of efforts even as
artists continue to explore alternative strategies and consciously work alongside specific sectors in the
Filipino people’s movement.

Session 2:
Art Collectives: Defying the Hermit Mindset

Despite persisting notions of artistic genius and extremist individualism, a significant number of artists
foreground the group as a progressive alternative. By organizing themselves and pursuing identified
advocacies, artists have at specific junctures not only created a counterpoint to the artistic mainstream,
but challenged ideas of authorship and acceptable didactic language.

Session 3:
Artist-run Spaces as Tactical Bases

The increasing recognition and patronage of artist-run-spaces has led to the inevitable blurring of main-
stream and fringe. This section expectedly brings across these initiatives’ initial intentions against their
current positions that are constantly under threat of reintegration.

Session 4:
Art as Cultural Work and Community Collaboration

Expressly defying suppositions that reinforce the art-craft divide and the perception that artists ultimately
find themselves dissociated and alienated from non-art audiences and their societal context, these ac-
counts argue on behalf of the viability of these interactions and their potential for realizing empower-
ment.

Session 5:
Art and Civil Society: Cases in Point

In the past two decades, Filipino artists have perceptibly sought to cross once thought to be irreconcil-
able ideological and aesthetic gaps, apart from critically aligning themselves with various civil society
projects. This section attempts to examine this tendency through the experiences of artists and cultural
workers involved in various initiatives.

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 Ringo Bunoan, Cristina Taniguchi, Norberto Roldan.

Marilyn Canta, Imelda Cajipe-Endaya (partly hidden), Katti Sta. Ana.

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Plague
Patrick D. Flores

The conference Locus was conceived to discuss contemporary interventions in art practice. By the
term “interventions” we mean initiatives that seek to redefine the project of art-making in particular
contexts. We are aware that art, contemplated here as broadly as possible and subjected to reflexive
critical interrogation, circulates in a range of ways because it is made and received through distinct
technologies of production and reception. Crucial in this respect is a sense of place, a locus of emer-
gence. Locus refers to position, setting, and ground. To mark out locus is to carve a vantage, to map
a terrain, to configure a landscape of possibilities.

How do we reckon the current locus of Philippine contemporary art?

We know full well that there is a market and that this market is characterized by combined and un-
even development, as well as overlapping modes of production. It is a market that is largely orga-
nized in Manila and in urban centers around the islands, sustained by collectors, gallerists, brokers,
publicists, and corporate patronage. Although it cannot be denied that there is a market abroad as
well, nurtured by galleries that have an eye for Asian or Southeast Asian art, the center remains to be
Manila. The category of the “commercial” is associated with this market in the sense that art is sold
and bought within the circuit, but its connotation as “commodified” or as belonging to the “culture
industry” is something else and is more contested and inherently controversial. Is art within the com-
mercial sphere necessarily commodified? If yes, is it undesirable? If no, how can it be recuperated?
Can art practice be reduced to an individual career and the market be driven solely by cutthroat
careerism? Is there an outside to this market, or is it all-encompassing?

There is the State that through its agencies of culture supports the arts. The Marcos government has
demonstrated well enough how the State can serve as a pervasive patron of the arts, and the present
bureaucratic structure of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts can only prove that the
State takes advantage of its prerogative to lay claim to a nation’s cultural patrimony, which includes
contemporary art. After all, it has been theorized that culture and the State are the domains in which
“the highest expressions of human being and human freedom are realized.” (Lloyd and Thomas
1998, 2) In light of the assertions of the State, is there a locus of convergence between it and the
market? There are numerous examples that can be cited to illustrate how the State and the market
may come together in the name of art. The more instructive question to ask, however, is this: Does
the State regulate the market of art? Substantially no, but the State participates in another economy
that is indispensable to art: the conferment of legitimacy. In what ways does the State legitimize art
so that the latter becomes marketable? Moreover, the State finances art projects that would other-
wise be dismissed by the market as not feasible and disseminates contemporary art in the interna-
tional setting through inter-governmental channels, which are able to hurdle the circuit of the trade.

Are there other loci beyond the pale of the market and the State? This conference foregrounds a
forum for initiatives that are not within the purview of traditional institutions to be argued. Let it not
be said, however, that these initiatives are totally alienated from certain dominant structures. We

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 realize that there are boundaries policed by gatekeepers, but that these are porous and are crossed
in everyday practice and through strategic means. We further understand that the art infrastructure
in the Philippines is such that makeshift schemes and improvisational tactics define relations and in-
terests rather than stable rules and doctrines. Having said this, this is not to imply, on the other hand,
that there are no operative structures. The fact that the grassroots representation at the National
Commission for Culture and the Arts has not been able to compel the President to hew closely to
the preference of the sectors supposedly representing culture in the Commission with regard to the
National Artist award is a testament to the hauteur of State power and its mainly developmentalist
goals, or crass cravings for self-perpetuation. Without doubt, structures exist. But the art republic is
not as strong as the will of creative human agency to poach on these territories. From within or at the
margins, it strives to challenge limits and guarantee the conditions for extensities.

We harness these capacities in this conference as we confront our own locus in relation to the
spaces of others. In this regard, let me offer three categories for your consideration as some sort of
framework for this conference:

First is the notion of the alternative. What constitutes the alternative? Underlying the idea is differ-
ence, which makes sense only in relation to other articulations of practice. In other words, alternative
to what? To a style, a practice, a mode of production, a conception of art, a mentality, a public, an
ethical norm? Is it limit or latitude? Is it fleeting passage or eternal emergence? Is the alternative a
destination or a trajectory, a transition or a teleology, meaning an end that is also means? How is
the alternative to be construed when grappling with what is referred to as the mainstream? What
is the mainstream anyway? Is the mainstream synonymous with the market or the State? If yes, is it
redeemable from its own museological system, its logic of enterprise, its ethic of accumulation, its
culture of collection, and in the long haul redemptive in its own right in the sense that it mutates from
within to become almost but not quite its mandate? These are not new questions. Twenty-five years
or so ago the Kaisahan, which formed the core of the social realists, and the experiments at Shop
6, the province of high modernism of the ‘70s, pondered these dilemmas and concretized specific
resolutions to lock horns with them. It is high time we reassess these paradigms in the contemporary
context, drawing not only connections and continuities, but also departures, ruptures, and contin-
gencies. It is alarming to learn, for instance, that in an international competition, one of the judges,
a critic from the Philippines who is preoccupied with paeans to masters, declared that the growth of
Philippine art has been retarded by social realism. How do we put these remarks in perspective and
these critics in place?

Second is the concept of an agenda. Interventions are delineated by determinate choice and there-
fore are political and politicized. Even seemingly innocuous expressions of tendency signify value
and a gauge of valuation, discrimination against one in favor of another, a bent, a slant, a leaning, a
vested staking of claim and risk. We might want to appraise why we design and craft interventions.
For whom and against whom? For what cause and against what cause? Certainly, in the face of such
questions, the common defense of self-expression turns out to be weak and ultimately prone to ma-
nipulation. As art is caught up in the making of the social, even personal prejudice is compromised
by the social. And it is not as if the social were mere scenery in this theater of human action; it is at
once figure and ground, an embodied project. It is not that art exists in a context, but that art gener-

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ates the context through the affective agency of the artist in society. In this generation of context,
the mediation of curators and curation, art criticism and history and art critics and historians, and a
responsive and responsible audience is vital not only in presenting art or tracking the energy of the
realm, but in making sense of it, in weaving discourse about it, in making things happen.

Finally is the issue of address.

Address may mean locus: destination, situation and situatedness, residence, abode, community, a
sense of belonging and settling (or resettling for that matter).

Address may mean discourse: a speech act, a gesture of utterance or enunciation that involves ideas
and accountabilities, the production of text and its performance, meaning its textuality and ethnog-
raphy, and because it is production, it entails labor, the process of which constitutes signifying and
social practice. Discourse is intimately linked to knowledge and power: the construction, critique,
and prospective transformation of reality.

Address may mean engagement: a strategy of dealing with a problem, tackling or confronting a con-
cern, a form of action and revelation of will, a mindful feeling about what is wrong with the world and
what must be done to save it, an advocacy.

How do we address our interventions?

We are gratified that this conference is able to bring together different alternatives, different agenda,
and different addresses, affirming the fertile field of Philippine art amid the barren pretensions of
power and its custodians. We are able to facet the many angles of the bigger image by inviting
people from elsewhere, by broadening the world of the Philippines. We collect the various tempers,
from the conceptualist to the regional, from the grassroots to government, from lesbians to agitators,
from critics to cultural workers. And we harvest the fruits of past attempts and present perseverance
across diverse disciplines, traditions, and constituencies. We take consolation in the thought that as
an ecology of impulses, art is beyond itself, and this level of beyond is art’s horizon that cannot be
transcended, its engagement with the social. The conference fosters the spirit of this “inclination
outwards” as presentations are deepened by inflections of resonances from other voices, experi-
ences, gains, and failures. In the end, the practice of art that is legion bedevils it to the point that it is
chastened, and thus finally outlives its modernity within the dispensation of a postcolonial dislocale.
This is the locus of the real.

For this endeavor, we acknowledge the support of the Japan Foundation Asia Center and its Manila
Office and the Cultural Center of the Philippines, institutions that also negotiate the constraints and
chances within an ambivalent structure embedded in State apparati, corporate subsidy, and populist
programming. Oftentimes, agencies like these are able to bypass nation-states through lateral ex-
changes that inevitably represent the nation and its shifting localities in the context of a global milieu.
It is a turf moving according to the logic of an economy that underwrites international exhibitions,
biennales, and convergences of the sort. We may ask then: Are these agglomerations of capital
and dispersal of labor too that constitute contemporary society? Or are they fluid or maybe viscous
configurations of a migratory world in pieces that intimate a matrix for a transnational civil society

21
 resistive of globalization?

Like any other mission, the search for locus is fraught with peril. It also demands from us a sense
of history, that is, an intuition of precedence and path, a spirit of memory and even heroism as we
come to terms with a world before us. This locus, whether low-cost or high-end, is always difficult to
secure and salvage, always necessitating a reciprocity of sacrifices in an alternative economy that
need not require return of investment, only moral entitlement to well-being. It is hoped that we glean
not fusion or synergy among contending yet potentially affiliative forces, but a solidarity of engaged
practice, theory, and history in art, a radical democratic chain of persuasions and sympathies, so
that the locus we trace in this conference would in the future radiate into a network of loci of truly
transformative interventions and inspire no less than a plague.

Reference

Lloyd, David and Paul Thomas. 1998. Culture and the State. New York: Routledge.

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Session 1:
Social Realism: Histories and Hopes
 Fact-Finding Mission, 2002
Jose Tence Ruiz

While no longer a media buzzword, the term ‘fact-finding mission’ may resonate among those mature
enough in the Marcos years to recall the church/civil society ad-hoc committees tasked to exhume
the remains of the summarily executed dissenters and/or workers from among their ranks, to de-
termine causes of their deaths, and, subsequently, impute culpability within the Marcosian military/
paramilitary machinery. I appropriate this term, specifically the act of excavating and re-examining
assumptions buried under layers of passage hurriedly spaded over a practice now labeled social
realism (SR).

I will dig at three sites where assumptions were ‘shoveled’ over the practice:

That social realism came within and therefore became co-terminus with the Marcos auto/klep-
tocracy.

That social realism was a bourgeois/gallery phenomenon steeped in ambivalence: a pro-ma-

jority movement quixotically hoping to reform the jaded minority within rarefied and contradic-
tory territories

That social realists and their work, by most current account, be read from a narrow, if not
orthodox, matrix of Marxist and post-Marxist theorizing as opposed to a more polychromatic
spectrum of motives.

Before proceeding, I must declare that an appreciation of social realism may better be served by
going through the many writings of one of its most consistent and prolific theorists, Alice Guillermo,
especially two tomes: Social realism in the Philippines (1987) and Protest /Revolutionary Art in the
Philippines, 1970-1990 (2001). One might also cross reference these with issues raised in Patrick
Flores’s Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Art (1998) and in the collectively edited
Muog/Ang Naratibo ng Kanayunan sa Matagalang Digmang Bayan sa Pilipinas (1998). I will skirt
redundancy by organizing this paper as supplementary to all that they have already proposed. I
therefore will proffer interstitial insights and data culled from the inner track of the endeavor. As for
readings, there is by 2002 a longer yet substantial list that begs reference, which we will point to at
pertinent intervals of this paper.

I will preface my excavation with a working definition of social realism as proposed by Guillermo in
1987:

The term realism in social realism, within the Philippine context, is not limited to mean real-
ism in the original sense of keen observation of and fidelity to reality, in which no wrinkle,
defect, irregularity of proportion or infirmity of flesh is spared. Realism in Philippine social
realism is not a stylistic term: instead, it is a shared point of view which seeks to expose or

24
 lay bare the true conditions of Philippine society as well as to point out solutions by which
these are changed and transcended to achieve a truly human order. It involves observation in
the sense that the social realist must necessarily know his subject which is Philippine society
with its contradictions and its forces in conflict.

Realism in the strict sense, requiring fidelity to empirical fact is only one of the styles in
social realism. Others show the influence of surrealism, expressionism and even conceptual
art. (p. 50)

In addition, I will read off an expanded roster, by no means complete, based on personal reckoning,
of visual practitioners who contributed to the matrix of social realist production not included in lists
in both of Guillermo’s books -- from Kaisahan: the late William ‘Also’ Swinton and Arnel Costa; from
Banaag: Jose Ablen; from Alab, Tambisan, and Buklod Sining: Jun Dulay, Rey Zipagan, Elias de
Loyola, Ramon ‘Chitoy’ Zapata, and Nards Palang; from PETA, Josephine Sanchez, Weni Gamboa,
Bal Bernardo, and Mel Bernardo; from Bakas: Petite Calaguas Perredo and Felocillo ’Nonoy’ Fer-
rarez; from ABAY: Winnie Rose Reyes, Norymil Dangel, Sonia Alluso, Patria Sanchez, Jess Hiñola,
Ruben Abenojar, Sergio Maglalang, Rafael ’Abay’ Mariano, Will and Alex Dulay, Jun Gulapa, Grace
de Jesus, and Leah Cube Padilla. Mention must be made of the late Emmanuel Gutierrez and the late
Nestor Bugayong, JV Villacin, Oscar ‘Buckshot’ Pineda, Juan ’Johnny’ Luna and Donato Alvarez ,
Emilio ‘June’ Saño, Willie Aguino, Benjie Lontoc III, Christopher ‘Perry’ Sorio, and Ludwig Illio.

On Considering Temporal Parameters for Social Realism

It was after Marcos’s declaration of martial law that social realism as an organized initiative came
into being, was labeled as such, and, among a hundred other flowers, bloomed. It is not necessary
that Marcos’s departure from power occasioned co-terminal status for what was a symptomatic for-
mation of a longer-running transformative project that found precedent at repeated occasions in the
years that the Philippine territories began to be conceived as larger than a confluence/co-existence
of contending tribal and territorial formations. Tenacious negotiations in the cultural/visual arena be-
tween assimilation by larger hegemonies and indigenous resistance/self-assertion have been noted
by more recent research.

One must note however that the skewed, if artificial, prioritization that Imelda Marcos provided the
arts from the late ‘60s on may be counted as a factor for the rise of art as resistance. By valorizing
the efforts of artists to a degree wherein their efforts now became cultural barometers, both of hav-
ing arrived economically and of a state-endorsed nativist/filipinist identity, Mrs. Marcos, and the en-
tire apparatus of state adjunct to this very institution, provided a springboard for contention, wherein
not only inclusion within, but also exclusion from, determined a viable artistic standpoint. There arose
a dialectic between a vicarious internationalism, fostered as an image-boosting program of said ad-
ministration, as opposed to a nationalism prerequisite to inter/nationalism which was part of social
realism’s project. The opposition of activists to the Shell art competitions of the early ‘70s provided a
parallel dialectic moment. These were again part of this larger arena of contention between colonial

25
 and neo/post-colonial hegemony and indigenous resistance.

One earlier manifestation may be traced in Vicente Rafael’s account of how the ladino (linguist)
printmaker Tomas Pinpin proffered his version of how Tagalogs in the 17th century under Spanish
governance should take up Castilian to mitigate the “shock” of colonization:

Perhaps, this is why Pinpin constantly warns the Tagalogs in the latter sections of his book of
the perils of learning Castilian, stressing the physical arduousness involved in its acquisition.
But by the same token, the shock value of Castilian gave it its privileged place in the realm of
Spanish signs. By exposing themselves to the hazards of Castilian, natives could immunize
themselves against those real shocks that might come at any moment from the Spanish priest,
official or soldier. (2000, 65)

Further down a tenuous timeline one would come upon printmakers Nicolas de la Cruz Bagay who
signed his work Indio Tagalo, Cipriano Bagay who signed as Indus Manil (Manila), and Francisco
Suarez who used the more broadminded moniker Indio Filipino (Flores, 1998a, 160). Among De la
Cruz Bagay’s more notable collaborations with Suarez is the copper engraving of the Pedro Murillo
Velarde map of 1734, which was doubly significant as one of the earliest visualizations of the entire
Philippine archipelago under Spanish consideration (Pilar and Cajipe Endaya, 1993).
In a rapid scan forward, one would have to note merchant/painter Esteban Villanueva’s 1821 painting
in 14 panels titled Basi Revolt, which, as Dr. Flores describes, “. . . captures the moments of colonial
control and resistance as well as the modes of violence and cooptation which circulated in Philippine
society at the turn of the 19th century” (1998a, 25). One cannot ignore Juan Luna’s Spoliarium of
1884 and its umbilical relationship with the class assertions of Filipino ilustrados entering the phase
of the Philippine revolution of 1896. Nor the NPAA’s ironic appropriation of such an image as a cri-
tique of the very class from which it sprung 86 years later in 1970.

To add to these, the excellent editorial works in Lipang Kalabaw attributed to Jorge Pineda under
the pseudonym Makahiya (McCoy and Roces, 1985, 9), among others, who maintained anonymity
against the relentless judicial harassment of the American colonials in the guise of Sirom, Lipay,
Lagnaton, Taga Kalagnaton, and Kolak. Pineda is attributed to have begun the use of the everyman in
a salakot that we had for long known as Juan de La Cruz. Interesting would be the early, vituperative
tirades of Fernando Amorsolo, he of the idyllic brown maidens and orange/mauve sunsets. He cas-
tigated Jesuits, Chinese businessmen, and corrupt bureaucrats of the colonial government in works
done for Vicente Sotto’s The Independent for at least the years 1916 and 1917.

We may then proceed to Jose Pereira’s and Esmeraldo Izon’s splendid illustrations for The Free
Press, done from 1925 up to, in Izon’s case, all the way through Fidel Ramos’s administration of
1992-1998. We slide ahead through Francisco Coching’s heroic stereotypes, Hernando Ocampo’s,
Cesar Legaspi’s, and even Vicente Manansala’s early paintings of Philippine laborers, to Bencab,
Danny Dalena, Jaime de Guzman, Edgar Doctor, and Fred Liongoren and their images of nationalis-
tic ferment, and as a form of summation see the process of intense negotiation and plunging into the
contradictions that shaped and still shape our social matrix that would prefigure the ebb and flow of
the transformative project at one instance fixed to be labeled social realism. One might even add a

26
consideration of Victorio Edades’s modernism, not as a variant of Cezannesque expressionism/for-
malism but as an appropriation of the American Socialist vision, as articulated by the AshCan school
of John Sloane, Reginald Marsh, and George Bellows (Reyes in McCoy and Roces 1985, 96), and
of Galo Ocampo’s worldview surrounding a specific image such as the nagpepenitensiya in his Ecce
Homo series.

Thus the question need not lie in setting a point of fixity for social realism’s tenure but to chart, with
some hints from our over-condensed retrospective, a prospect for its eventual adaptation to changed
conditions and mediations, particularly the media-suffused, post-colonial, globalist terrain of the third
Gregorian millennium.
Considering a Scope

One of the problematic contradictions foisted on social realism early in its life as a collective project
was its apparently quixotic if not deluded tenure within the walls of a fine art/gallery system fuelled
by capitalist surplus. Even among its movers, the debate was irresistible, on occasion provoking
exchanged accusations of collusion with the reactionary bourgeoisie as against imperatives of fos-
tering a popular culture readily accessible and affordable to the proletarian audience to whom the
transformative project was primarily dedicated. Two decades on, critiques persist:

There’s much more to politics than hollow, knee-jerk protestations. Who ends up buying their
paintings? Who ends up patronizing them? Certainly not that adulated entity they earnestly
seek to educate. . . Inevitably, it is the Salingpusa that gets absorbed into the system like a
vaccine shot in the arm of the institutions they purport to criticize. (Achacoso in Flores 1998b,
16)

An overspecialized view of visual cultural practice may be the thread that constricts such contradic-
tions, being as it may that stepping back and investigating the larger scope of possibilities will move
the activity forward to a workable dialectical plane. To assume that social realism rooted its raison
d’etre in the gallery system means ignoring the total effort that this community immersed itself in as
part of its transformative project. It may just as well have been that, given the repressive climate of
the Marcos auto/kleptocracies, it was efficacious not to assert these other aspects. Nearly 16 years
thereafter, threads may now start to emerge.

Social realism sought valorization in and projection from the gallery in order to contend with domi-
nant strains of thought and their privileged projections, as articulated often enough in such sites.
The option and prospect of surplus earnings simultaneous to such a contention would neither be
unwelcome nor useless. Nevertheless, there was so much else to work for and with: entire civil/al-
ternate/supplementary society networks to set up in the project that many of the social realists lent
a sufficient amount of their time to an emergent schema of organizations which would be tagged as
NGOs or civil society formation by the mid-’90s. It would be important to simultaneously engage this
polyphony of tasks, as it were, to encircle the field.

Organizations servicing a broad range of social sectors demanded, in the more appropriate post-
modern sense, media to assert their agencies, media in the form of publications, slide, film, and

27
 video presentations, as well as promotional, organizational, and educational paraphernalia to co-
alesce into the alternative culture that would lay the transformative matrix envisioned in the definition
of social realism earlier enunciated. The sectors were made up of labor and agricultural/peasant fed-
erations and unions, agencies of medical and health workers, communities representing organized
and established religious denominations as well as across the field co-cultural groups such as film/
video, literary, journalistic, dance, and theater organizations. There would also be the occasional,
but increasingly frequent request for visual products that would promote issues pertinent to minority
group rights, landholding indigenous populations, and environmentally conscious agencies.

The key lay in their supplementary nature, supplementary/complementary/ alternative as they would
be to state initiatives. This also implicated a critical, if not outright antagonistic co-existence for both,
with the state’s police/military/paramilitary powers at the disposal of bureaucrats and politicos, all
willing to unleash suppression/ repression/co-optation on organizers, activists, and their co-workers
in efforts to preserve the advantageous status quo. For social realism and its advocates, the signifi-
cant balance lay in effective rendition of service that actually fed the polemic of gallery work, and a
gallery engagement that honed expressive potentials/technologies to be back-channeled to excel-
lence and subsequent eloquence and effectivity of communicative materiel. It is paramount to stress
that to deprive the practice of this symbiotic exchange engendered disintegrative consequences on
either side.

Social realism is one of a few cultural movements to have had a fairly thorough body of polemics sus-
taining its practice, a practice that, in the loop described above, nourished and updated that polemic.
This polemic stands outside of the predictably marketing-oriented art anthologies that have become
symptomatic of a commodity culture dangerously corrosive of transcendent spiritual engagement.
Germane to this polemic is its specificity, rootedness, timeliness, and historicity. To sever the cord
between the organizational service and the gallery praxis would have resulted in a situation evinced
by the experience of Salingpusa and Sanggawa, whose meteoric success in the gallery circuit (lo-
cal and international) was trailed as effectively by disintegration into non-collaborative individualist
careers contingent on patronage and its incipient ambivalences rather than on a project of applied
transformative initiatives, all within six years of application. While there was an exciting and genu-
inely creative body of editorialized large works which contended with the polemic realities of the
post-Marcos/Cory/Ramos era, the residue of such efforts remains within the commodified limits of
gallery prerogative.

The maintenance of viable exchange and co-production between the artists and their larger, extra-
gallery communities, even in the directionally challenged terrain of socialist rifts and divisions, would
be a minimum requisite for sustenance of the transformative possibility. Without it, one ran the risks
of merely dog-paddling through the bog of “show biz” arbitrariness and narcissistic caprice that
has accompanied the commercial gallery since its emancipation from state-induced academic and
cultural constraints.

One must mention that a new batch of transformative practitioners have revived their active engage-
ments with sectors and communities, although we must let Mideo Cruz, our next speaker, elaborate
on this.

28
There is no negating ambivalence in cultural exchange although there is the reinforcement of external
links and communities that lend stabilization to the disorientations endemic to the gallery circles and
their contingent groupings. One specific symptom of this assertion is the effective national network
of art communities organized from Ilocos Sur down to Davao and Tawi-Tawi on the other end of
Mindanao, a network forged through long-drawn wranglings with the Cultural Center of the Philip-
pines (CCP) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, as well as NGO cultural groups.
Suffice it to say that this network was laid by leadership cognizant of and actively replicating the
reciprocal nourishments I have described.

On Further Investigation of the Matrices of Theorizing

Social realists would have to be classified, in popular ‘70s terminology, on the left, or at the very
least, left of center. Theorizing built around and read into their work would find its episteme in Marx-
ism (the writings of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and later, the thoughts of Mao
Zedong on Literature and Art as articulated in the 1942 Yenan Forum on Literature and Art), post-
Marxist thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Frederic Jameson, Georg Lukacs, Edward Said, Janet
Wolff (among a definitely longer list), and Filipino historians and theorists such as Teodoro Agon-
cillo, Claro M. Recto, Renato Constantino, Jose Ma. Sison, Bienvenido Lumbera, Emmanuel Torres,
and Dr. Guillermo herself, to start off what actually is a much longer list.

I have sought, for the conclusion of this paper, to re-interrogate a limited number of SR practitioners
to inventory their theoretical motivations, specifically chart their conceptual epiphanies, or the mo-
ment when their practice formed a workable collusion between their worldviews and the polemic
totalizing provided by the earlier list, and any addenda to it, we had mentioned.

The nine subjects for this series of interviews, together with my personal recollections, would round
off to ten. Much of the motivation or revelation that led to this practice was recalled to have been
grounded in a first-hand experience of social alienation and/or its symptoms as manifested in the late
‘60s and/or early ‘70s. Renato Habulan recalls poignantly a consciousness that stirred as early as
when he was seven, the eldest son of a janitor, surviving the streets of Tondo when he asked himself
why such a thing as fundamental to humans as drinking water was unavailable and how, to avail of
it, one had to “break the law” and filch it from the fire hydrant at the peril of being manhandled by
the police. Neil Doloricon recounts his high school years as a period of observing and attempting to
rationalize the turmoil of the streets that characterized the First Quarter Storm, as he saw for himself,
living just behind the Congress building in Arrocerros in the early ‘70s. Cap Reyes immersed himself
in the street culture that melded hippie anti-war motives with anti-fascist slogans as a way of educat-
ing himself; he had difficulty with theoretical readings due to a yet undiagnosed reading disorder and
found that the street discussion groups provided hands-on education. Pablo Baens Santos was older
than most when his work as artist/photographer for the pre-martial law Manila Times exposed him to
rallies, strikes, labor unrest, and urban poor encounters.

Edgar Talusan Fernandez joined activist groups and socio-civic neighbors during his high school
years, drawn to the more community-oriented services they rendered especially during times of

29
 natural disaster. Ramon Chitoy Zapata, on the other hand, was immersed, as early as second grade,
in the shoemakers’ world of his father and grandfather and grew up in a scene of both manual labor
and entrepreneurial organization. Norberto Roldan married into a landowning family in Bacolod and,
in the course of discharging marital expectations, saw first-hand the misery of migrant farm workers
on the territories he was put in charge of. Al Manrique’s early photographic assignments opened up
a seedier side of life among the bargirls of Mabini and Del Pilar, an exposure that would clue him
into dehumanization and exploitative relations. My petit-bourgeois world was shaken by a month and
a half-long civic service stint at the National Mental Hospital which etched in me a sordid microcosm
of social disequilibrium. Theorizing generally came after, not before, exposure that would trigger off
a form of what Paulo Freire called conscientization -- a sense of alienation, of questioning, of groping
for a totalizing principle that might weave the disparate yet intense encounters into a workable unity
and course of remedy/address.

Others approached their awakening through exposure to art, as in the case of Federico Sievert
whose encounter with early social realist paintings at the Hiraya Gallery in the early ‘80s moved him
intensely and forged its own epiphany. Having a brother who was studying to be a social worker and
was immersed in social and socialist theory gave reinforcement to this visual realization.

The benchmark tract for most of SR would have to be Renato Constantino’s 1975 timeline of Phil-
ippine history as articulated in The Past Revisited, with its appropriation of history from below, an
antidote to the earlier tracts that merely reiterated Spanish and American viewpoints describing the
history of the Philippines. A factor to consider was that repression was institutionalized in the second
Marcos term so that tracts that would in European libraries be standard educational fare (regarding
Marxism, Socialism) were treated as illegal and thus assumed a sense of mystique as cult readings
rather than as part and parcel of a broad analytical education. Baens Santos recalls that a certain
organizational status was needed to gain access to what had perforce become privileged material.
Most others seeking theorization would have to settle for condensations in the form of handouts that
accompanied the continuous welter of discussion groups, overt and discreet, that accompanied the
times.

Another conduit for theorizing was provided by the conscienticized sectors of the Catholic and
Protestant religious groups. I recall encountering the notions of Gustavo Gutierrez and Paolo Freire
and Dom Helder Camara through the mimeographed tracts excerpted and distributed at Sunday ser-
vices. They were prepared by a blanket group called the AMRSP, the Association of Major Religious
Superiors. They broke down into mimeographed newsletters salient, operative aspects of Liberation
Theology. Roldan also cites the sympathies of Bishop Antonio Fortich toward their cultural orienta-
tion.

Art from art was another tributary. Bencab’s work of the early ‘60s was inspirational to Doloricon,
Baens Santos, Delotavo, and myself. Habulan would cite Antonio Malantic as a model, but recalls
vividly Jose Rizal’s Noli me Tangere and its description of the abject Sisa which provided him a po-
tent early image. Delotavo cites the realism of American photorealists (accessible through books at
the Thomas Jefferson Cultural Center) Richard Estes, Robert Bechtel, and Don Eddy. He adds that
he found European sculptor painter Ozenfant’s tract Foundations of Modern Art provocative. Baens

30
recalls that his personal/theoretical companion Roz Galang recommended that he study the Mexican
triumvirate, citing that Galang sensed a compatibility in his temperament and mindset that would at-
tract him to Diego Rivera, Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqiueros. Baens Santos preferred
Orozco, because, as he stated: “…Rivera and Siqiueros took art and used it for politics while Orozco
took politics and rendered it into art.”

Jaime de Guzman’s large works, together with a then romantically-viewed Spoliarium, were
among the pivotal single pieces that shaped an ethos. Interestingly though, Edades’s The
Builders had a clear impact only on Delotavo. It may have been that the work was viewed
as modern in a formal rather than contextual sense and did not evoke a sense of contradic-
tion in context beyond its challenging of formal norms of distortion. I found excitement in
the social tableaux of American Edward Keinholz and later Leon Golub. Golub also touched
Al Manrique, but he recalls that his face to face discussions with fellow printmaker Orlando
Castillo were more crucial. Personal encounters with sculptor Jerry Araos also brought
new insights into our practice, specifically the elegant reclamation of discarded material
and the thoughtful re-awakening of such into a higher plane of formal/contextual tension.
Interestingly enough, even the formal subversions of Roberto Chabet, Ray Albano, Johnny
Manahan, and Joe Bautista, cordoned off as they were in the CCP, had a thing to say about
strategizing. Delotavo also cites Ely Gajo’s early realist, Wyeth-inspired watercolors as a
template from which he would craft his own mirrorings of local conditions.

Also very contributory was the entire counter-culture of groups that exchanged fora, dis-
cussions, lectures, debates, symposia, film/slide showings, and workshops. Accompany-
ing these were low-cost pamphlets, handouts, newsletters, books that forged a culture of
praxis, documenting actual conditions and reflections thereof immediately after the situa-
tion came up.

The mosquito press, its hardy and near quixotic publishers/editors: Malaya, We Forum,
Signs of the Times, Ibon, Who Magazine, later National Midweek, and independent book
publishers like New Day and Asphodel were instrumental. It would take the late ‘80s and
‘90s to come up with a prolific university-based publication wave as demonstrated by Uni-
versity of the Philippines (UP) Press, Ateneo University Press, De La Salle, and University
of Santo Tomas (and commercially, Anvil), although most of these would have been after-
the-fact summations.

Inasmuch as radio and television were generally co-opted by Marcos’s views, theatre
supplied a forum of resistance and examination of conditions. The Philippine Educational
Theater Association (PETA) and Tambisan, as well as earlier ensembles such as Panday
Sining and Kamanyang were memorable references.

31
 Additional insights came from informal quarters. Habulan found insights from the writings
of Yukio Mishima, Emil Zola, Sartre, Albert Camus, and Friedriche Nietzsche. Delotavo
found Tom Wolfe’s description of the New York art scene in The Painted Word to be indica-
tive. Roldan cites Benito Vergara’s Displaying Filipinos, an account of the campaign to
present Filipinos to the American public after the treaty of Paris as instructive. Readings
form Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Orianna Fallacci, Solzhenitsyn, Leon Uris, Feodor Dotoesvsky, even
Jerzy Kozinsky gave this author workable scenarios of culture, domination, and resistance.

Suffice it to say, the interviews provided material enough for an entire separate tract and we are
going to take these indicators, hold off within our allotted speaking time, and propose to continue
further, deepening the concrete conditions of our theorizing.

To recap, may we stand in front of our excavations and purport, as in the early Fact Finding expedi-
tions, the following:

The practice of social realism from the ‘70s to the ‘90s was a moment, a defining one, to be sure,
but nevertheless a moment in a longer continuum -- not a condition that warranted fixity into historical
shelving. The applicable view of social realism would be to view it within the previously described
opportunities that resistance ebbed and flowed in the face of impositions and disequilibrium within
our national experience. It is imperative that the process be constantly re-evaluated and, most of all
adapted, to current post 9/11 scenarios.

That community interaction/interface must never be severed in favor of pure gallery endeavor, lest
the vital resource of lived antagonisms and reflections be cut off from the work presented as sum-
mations in our whitebox culture. Conversely, the whitebox culture must be constantly referenced as
a parameter of excellence in articulation, if not in the devising of strategies that capture imagina-
tions and compel strategies of self-definition, identity, and preservation in the light of globalization’s
homogenizing imperatives.

Lastly, one must take a hint from the personal accounts and seek to integrate both orthodox and
academic theoretical structures with those that have been lived and participated in, with inputs flow-
ing from a multitude of sources. It may not lie in the orthodoxy itself but rather in the agency that
has effectively been applied as a result of this process of critical evaluation that may be a key to
sustenance.

I take a paragraph from post-colonial theorist Homi Bhabha to close:

It is only when we understand that all cultural statements and systems are constructed in
this contradictory and ambivalent space of enunciation, that we begin to understand why
hierarchical claims to the inherent originality or purity of cultures are untenable, even before
we resort to empirical, historical instances that demonstrate their hybridity. Frantz Fanon’s
vision of revolutionary cultural and political change as a ‘fluctuating movement’ of occult

32
instability could not be articulated as cultural practice without an acknowledgement of this
indeterminate space of the subject(s) of enunciation. It is that Third Space, though unrepre-
sentable in itself, which constitutes the discursive conditions of enunciation that ensure that
the meaning and symbols of culture have no primordial unity or fixity; that even the same
signs can be appropriated, translated, rehistoricized, read anew. (1994, 37)

References

Benesa, Leonidas 2001. “The Social Uses of Art in Baens Santos”. In What is Philippine about
Philippine Art and Other Essays (pp.102-103). Manila: National Commission for Culture and the
Arts.

Bhabha, Hommi K. 1994. “The Commitment to Theory”. In The Location of Culture (pp. 19-39).
London/New York: Routledge Books.

Flores, Patrick D. 1998a. Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Art. Quezon City:
University of the Philippines Press.

_______________. 1998b. “The Art of the ‘70s: Missing Links, Burned Bridges”. In M.F Datuin
(Ed.), Pananaw 2 (pp. 52-63. ). Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts/Pananaw
ng Sining Bayan.

Guillermo, Alice 2001. Protest/Revolutionary Art in the Philippines: 1970-1990. Quezon City:
University of the Philippines Press.

_______________. 1987. Social Realism in the Philippines. Quezon City: Asphodel Books.

IPASA. 1998. Muog: Ang Naratibo ng Kanayunan sa Matagalang Digmang Bayan sa

Pilipinas. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press.

Kalaw-Ledesma, Purita & Ma. Guerrero, Amadis 1974. The Struggle for Philippine Art. Quezon
City: Vera Reyes Press.

Mc Coy, Alfred & Roces, Alfredo 1985. Philippine Cartoons: Political Caricatures of the Ameri-
can Era: 1900-1941. Quezon City: Vera Reyes Press.

Pilar, Santiago A. & Cajipe-Endaya, Imelda 1993. Limbag Kamay: 400 years of Philippine Print-
making. Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Rafael, Vicente 2000. Contracting Colonialism. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University
Press.

Reyes, Cid 1989. Conversations on Philippine Art. Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines.

33
 Interviews

Interview with Ramon ‘Chitoy’ Zapata, Popular Bookstore Cafe, Morato Ave. QC, 03 Aug 2002

Interview with Alfred Manrique, Manrique residence, Biak na Bato QC, 31 July 2002

Interview with Norberto ‘Peewee’ Roldan, Roldan Residence, Mataimtim St., Teacher’s Village
QC, 29 July 2002

Interview with Renato Habulan, Press Cafe, Rockwell Mall, Makati, 26 July 2002

Interview with Edgar Talusan Fernandez, Elephant Square Cafe, Morato Ave. Quezon City, 25
July 2002

Interview with Antipas Delotavo, Sbarro Cafe, SM Megamall, 24 July 2002

Interview with Cesar ‘Cap’ Reyes, Tence Ruiz Residence, Tandang Sora, Quezon City, 23, July
2002

Interview with Pablo Baens Santos, Crowded House Cafe, UP Diliman, 23 July 2002

Interview with Leonilo Doloricon, UP College of Fine Arts/REDS Office Viscom Wing, 22 July
2002

Interview with Federico Sievert, Baesa, Novaliches, Quezon City, 21 July 2002

34
Protest Art: Through Years of Engaged Practice
Mideo Cruz

Social realism is permanently attached to the people’s struggle. This is our observation after years
of dialectical engagement with protest art and the national democratic struggle.

A discussion of social realism is not complete without touching on the artist’s involvement with his
or her surroundings, as well as the process involved in producing his or her other works -- call it pro-
paganda, or call it art. Through long years of being part of the national democratic struggle, UGAT
Lahi1 will share its experience. There were similar groups formed ahead of us under the national
democratic mass organization: the Nagkakaisang Progresibong Artista at Arkitekto (NPAA), Buklod
Sining, Kaisahan, Artista ng Bayan (Abay), Lupon ng Nagkakaisang Artista (LUNA), and others. We
virtually share a common conquest, predicament, and accomplishments. But UGAT Lahi has been
around longest, and still continues to exist with a new set of young and committed leaders. This
paper traces the growth of the organization from its humble beginnings in the early ‘90s up to the
construction of the biggest effigy2 the protest scene has ever produced. It will also reveal and exam-
ine the group’s core and collaborative efforts.

In this journey, we look at art simply as a creative process where communication takes place. Every-
body becomes part of this process. Participation ranges from one’s simple reaction to the artworks,
up to unconscious involvement in collective sentiments.

Birth

The P25 price per kilo of galunggong was the symbol of the country’s economic situation in the early
‘90s, while the price of gasoline continued to increase. Militarization was very prevalent in the coun-
tryside. After the paramilitary group CHDF (Citizens Home Defense Forces) was abolished, it was
replaced by more dreaded groups like the CAFGU (Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit) and
Manero’s vigilante group Tadtad, which killed father Tulio Favali3. This was well represented in Lino
Brocka’s banned film Ora Pro Nobis. This was the age of ST (sex trip) Queens, the manananggals in
Tondo, and Carlo Dianne, the man who became pregnant.

In the revolutionary movement, almost everyone was rushing to reach a stalemate situation with the
state. This was the period of urban partisan movement, bus-burning, and violent street protests. Ev-
erything was concentrated on efforts like these and some areas of the revolutionary machine were
forgotten.

At the time, the national democratic organization had ambiguous programs and was pursuing an
inappropriate course for cultural work. Cultural work was somehow interpreted as service work
and entertainment for the revolutionary cause. In the first sectoral forum of Bugkos4 on December
8, 1988, a representative from a major sectoral alliance said, “cultural work becomes important in

35
 approaching the audience para panghimas sa puso nila” (in Magtoto 1988, 24). Jun Zarate says
that “It was symptomatic of how the general mass movement views cultural work: “nakadikit lang
sila sa mass action.” Back then, cultural work was generally perceived as decoration by the national
democratic organization, this despite the productive activities of artists and writers. Thus Zarate em-
phasizes, “Hindi pa nakikita ang value ng art and literary work, that it enriches the cultural heritage
of a society like ours na may social struggle” (in Magtoto 1988, 24).

This was the condition under which UGAT Lahi was born. Whereas the national democratic organiza-
tion was suffering from its mistakes, most members had superficial ideological learning and close to
decadent and petit bourgeois attitudes. Inside the walls of a pontifical university, some activists saw
the need to supplement their aesthetic inclination despite the movement’s situation. We encountered
a lot of arguments with the campus’s national democratic leadership. However UGAT Lahi proved
how powerful cultural work was. The activists’ hang-out became a crowded place each time we met.
However, just as there was a debate inside the movement as to how the cultural organization would
function, the school administration suppressed our existence. We were playing hide-and-seek with
the administration during our room-to-room campaigns to encourage students to join our ranks. We
were frequent visitors to the Office for Student Affairs. But we continued to sponsor fora, discus-
sions, poetry readings, and even art competitions. We were able to use school facilities through
synchronization with groups that were recognized by the university. Just to give you a picture of how
conservative the situation was: when the group we coordinated with asked the Dean of the College
of Architecture and Fine Arts about inviting critic Alice Guillermo, the Dean did not allow it because
she was supposedly too radical for the school. But to the authorities’ surprise, we were able to invite
artists and writers whose works were banned from the school’s curriculum. Harassment was part
of our school life, and to lessen it, we worked with the Central Student Council as its Cultural Com-
mittee. The Office for Student Affairs argued that there was an existing committee within the central
board: the Student Organization Cultural Committee (SOCC). The argument regarding this issue
remained unresolved until the officers finished their term. After that, we continued to restructure the
organization.

Glimpse

The art competition is one means of knowing the latest trends among students of painting. In the
‘90s, images of social concern always appeared on everyone’s canvas. Almost everyone was en-
couraged to do such paintings. Ironically, the enthusiasm it created did not help the national demo-
cratic organization in mobilizing the students to be responsive to current social issues. Social con-
cern, as a form, escalated. But its context as protest art diminished. The popularization of “social
realism as standard formula” in some way suppressed aesthetic development. Although there was
a continuous exploration regarding its form, most audiences based their ideas about social realism
on this “standard form” where the usual beggars, inang bayan (mother country or native land), grim-
faced men and women, and squatters dominated the canvas. As a result, people from the art scene
called it cliché, kili-kili art (raised arm with clenched fist), paintings of doom, and so on. This is what
usually happens to philosophies on art which explore an object to best transcend its idea, but which
sadly end up as stereotypes of the given idea, losing the real essence of the object. This occurrence

36
was very similar to the myopic observation of surrealism, where surrealism was based only on the
form of Salvador Dali’s works. Amidst this situation, UGAT Lahi tried to explore and articulate the
idea of social concern not only as an academic form but as an integral part of our daily lives and the
people’s struggle in general.

Conduct

Based on UGAT Lahi’s experience since we started working with bigger sectors in the last quarter
of 1998, the program of every broad alliance mobilization is ideally planned during a forum with
all leaders, consisting of representatives from different sectors, organizations, and regions. Then,
a cultural committee, made up of representatives from cultural organizations, is formed. Only then
can the conceptualization take place. This is what usually happens, unless the activity is a sectoral
mobilization where a certain sector will be responsible for the entire program. On the cultural aspect,
different ideas are raised even before the meeting. These will be presented and discussed to achieve
a common concept. Details regarding the execution of the achieved concept will be discussed by
the sponsoring organization and our group. Every decision is made within this process, unless there
is an urgent situation that calls for us to assume the responsibility.
In the process of constructing the artwork collectively, problems usually arise due to the collabora-
tion of so many individuals so much so that the consistency of our plans gets disrupted. Sometimes,
we have different ideas regarding the project’s execution. We resolve this issue by installing a
command person in whom all communication would be centralized. This is not the perfect setup,
for we still argue on different aspects of production, but somehow we are able to achieve a certain
chemistry.

During the actual program, each one of us must think fast since everything happens very fast. Con-
tingency plans must be ready, from construction of the artwork, up to techniques in sustaining audi-
ence momentum. During the first State of the Nation Address of former President Joseph Estrada,
policemen harassed us by towing our makeshift stage, a ten-wheeler truck, and tried to confiscate
our work, “the reclining Erap.” When the media rushed to the scene, the police left it, but the effigy
was already broken. The original plan was to set it up backstage. The artwork was supposed to be
wearing a worker’s suit and during the program, each of the speakers from the different sectors
would strip parts of “the reclining Erap” dress to reveal his tattoos. But as we were setting it up, we
already decided to take off the dress so passers-by could see the heavily-tattooed Erap. The harass-
ment did not stop there, because the police did not allow us to leave our place to proceed to the main
body of the rally. Leaders and lawyers came and we almost played patintero (a street game in which
the object is to cross boundary lines) along Commonwealth Avenue, but they still would not allow
us to pass. Luckily, a resident from a nearby subdivision helped us pass through their village so we
could join the rally. Some of the materials that we needed to set up were lost, including the “dress,”
which was on the truck. So we just decided to set it up again on top of a jeep, leaving all the screws
and support, and ended up working with nails and hammer instead. In a similar event, during a rally
by the Estrada Resign Movement on November 14, 2000, we were forced to do a fire-eating act after
an effigy had already been burned, but the energy level was still high. We planned everything earlier,
but the man who was supposed to do it was nowhere to be found. Anything can happen in an activity.
The people scheduled to perform may not arrive, the artwork may get smashed by agitated people

37
 before it is formally presented, and so on. So everyone must be ready for the unexpected. Work
on an artwork is not finished until the rally is over. During moments like these, the artist’s individual
function is not limited to merely visual artist nor agitator. He is also an engineer, a dancer, singer,
bouncer, writer, or even a magician.

Journals

During the organization’s early days, when we were starting to translate our ideas into form, there
were many sacrifices. The few pesos remaining in our pockets were pooled to buy the materials
we needed. We also found it difficult to have one common idea regarding form in our artworks. We
always ended up dissatisfied with our products. Nevertheless, our dialectic learning continued and
we had individual and collective explorations to improve our craft, resulting in heavy debates and
assessments that preceded every project. These debates seemed more complicated than the actual
production. But our persistence somehow started to bear fruit. We gained support and some groups
began to work with us.

In 1995, we were invited to make a big-scale painting for the workers of Silver Swan who were on
strike in Malabon. We mingled with the workers and conducted interviews, with some guidance from
the union leaders. We interpreted and imitated their faces on the canvas. But during the process,
we inadvertently ignited rivalry among the workers regarding the incentives from the administration.
Hidden jealousies surfaced. It is very difficult to represent a situation, especially on the micro level,
where personal issues among individuals are involved. We learned that before making any move,
one must first do a consultation and be well-informed about all aspects of a given situation. It was a
good thing that they brought up their hidden feelings, and that fortunately they were able to resolve
the issue later.

Collaboration with big sectoral organizations begins with a consultation and discussion of ideas re-
garding the issues concerned. Most of the time, the conceptualization starts a heavy debate where
several factors are considered. First, there is the nature of the group that we are working with: is it
an alliance with the middle forces, a militant group, an urban poor organization, and so on? This is
important because each group has its own character. Sometimes, because of time constraints, we
will agree on certain points, like the general idea of what the artwork will look like, but continue to
argue about different factors such as details about the symbols’ accessibility and clarity. This makes
our work more difficult, because it extends production time and disrupts our momentum. A case in
point: during the preparation for the first State of the Nation Address of former President Estrada,
the group was not satisfied with the tattoo (a symbol of poverty) drawn on the figure’s stomach. This
was conceptualized with leaders from BAYAN5, the sponsoring organization. Because the group
did not have time to consult with the leaders and to wait for them to convene, we changed it. This
created trouble and intense deliberation with the coordinator on what the tattoo should be. Finally,
we reached a common idea. We decided that it should be something that was easily understood, a
symbol that was commonly seen tattooed on the tummy.

38
One of the more common arguments has to do with the question of creating a new icon that is differ-
ent from the usual and established symbol, an image that can be recognized by the general audience.
This is a difficult task because common characters like Uncle Sam, Juan dela Cruz, and others are
already established in the people’s minds. However, we still try to explore and entertain other ideas
that will help us introduce new images. Time and budget are important considerations. Issues last
only a short period; thus, one cannot have a timetable that covers an extended time frame unless
the mobilization is a commemorative event, or an extended campaign for a sectoral organization, like
Labor Day or Bonifacio Day. In the end, it will still depend on recent and current social developments
in the country.

The first few times that we started burning the artworks, after we agreed with the sectoral leaders
to do this, were very difficult not only for us, but also for a lot of people. After we spent so many
sleepless nights working on the project, it was difficult to see it reduced to ashes. But later on, we
learned to acknowledge that it was part of the process. There were even times when it was us who
suggested the burning if we believed that it needed to be burned. However, it is still up to the overall
campaign of the mass movement, and up to their judgment if the general population would be ready
for a particular image.

Parallel Organizations

UGAT Lahi is not alone in this line of endeavor. Similar organizations exist within the same frame-
work, and almost every sector organizes their own groups. Most cultural organizations are born out
of the explosion of a social volcano. People’s resistance touches the artists’ sensibilities to group
themselves for a collective voice.

Tambisan sa Sining, the foremost cultural group of workers, just launched their fourth album in 2001.
This group is focused on singing and theatrical presentations. Sining-bugkos evolved from Sining,
a cultural alliance based in the National Capital Region, and Bugkos, a broad national alliance of
cultural groups and cultural workers around the archipelago. Concerned Artists of the Philippines
(CAP), an alliance of artists within the middle forces, is still active in their fight for artists’ welfare
and development. Musicians for Peace is somehow still playing its notes. KARATULA (Kabataang
Artista para sa Tunay na Kalayaan) is the national alliance of cultural groups and cultural workers of
the youth sector. They have an active literature and singing group, and they have produced powerful
musical renditions of poems written by the late union leader and poet Amado Hernandez. Alay Sin-
ing, a multi-disciplinary cultural group based in the University of the Philippines, and Kamanyang, a
theatre group based in Manila, are part of this alliance. Sinag Bayan, a national cultural alliance is
active in presenting multimedia productions during rallies.

In the Southern Tagalog Region, The Southern Tagalog Exposure is very active in producing video
documentaries. Bagsik, an all-children choir is well known for singing revolutionary songs. Teka
Muna, a multi-disciplinary group made up of peasants’ children, presents impressive compositions
every time it performs in rallies. Punlaan, an alliance of cultural organizations, presented a beauti-

39
 ful hanging mural during the Erap ouster rallies. There are also other groups in Mindanao, and in
Northern and Central Luzon. Some of these groups conduct summer workshops with help from
UGAT Lahi.

Most of the groups who have been in existence for quite a long time credit their stability to the na-
ture and composition of their membership, as well as the kind of leadership sustained by the mass
movement. Tambisan, for example, mostly consists of union members. Its leadership works closely
with KMU (May One Movement). Southern Tagalog Exposure consists of community and youth
organizers, some of whom are veterans in the field of video and film production, from the time of
Marcos’ regime. Bagsik members are children of peasants from Mindoro. Most of the members of
these groups come from the proletariat and the basic masses, which means that their ideologies
are deeply-rooted. It is important to acknowledge the nature of their class existence and ideological
biases, because it is something that makes them more consolidated.

Harvest and Transformation

After every project, we conduct an assessment of the activity. We gather reactions to help us gauge
the productivity and effectiveness of our work. Through this process, we will know where and when
to take off and advance, or when to take a step back. On February 25, 2001, after EDSA2, we ven-
tured to paint farmers, workers, and students with big arms and legs to symbolize an empowered
populace. We were happy and proud of the form, but when the delegation from the Southern Tagalog
region came, they told us that the characters looked as if they had elephantiasis. Apparently, there
were a lot of people stricken with the disease in their communities. And this was the reason they saw
it that way. We took it seriously and realized that it is indeed very hard to introduce new images with-
out thorough social research and direct communication with the audience for whom we are address-
ing our work. Our researches and imagery should be based more on integration rather than on books
and photographs. Mao Tse-tung said in Yenan, China on May 23, 1942: “’This question of for whom?’
is fundamental; it is a question of principle” (1960a, 14). However, our exploration on forms and
images continues, but with greater care. UGAT Lahi believes that art is a creative process, just like
the process of putting all your spices and ingredients in a sauce pan to achieve a magnificent aroma.
However, the food’s flavor will always depend on who will eat it. We don’t bring art to the masses so
that we may present them with strange images and ideas that may be unnecessary to them. Rather,
we must encourage them to create their own ideas and offer our creative services to them.

But how to serve? Mao Tse-tung also addresses this question: “Should we devote ourselves to the
raising of standards or should we devote ourselves to popularization?” For him, “popularization
means to popularize among the workers, peasants and soldiers, and raising of standards means
to advance from their present level” (1960a, 16-17). Considering this, it is not easy to develop the
exploration of form because we must consider its acceptance. Most cultural activists take advantage
of the images popularized by tradition and mass media and modify their content. A case in point is
the use of manananggal (a Filipino mythical character who has half of its body detached while hunt-
ing for prey) as a form to illustrate skyrocketing gasoline prices.6 Another example, one that was
presented during the second State of the Nation Address of President Gloria Arroyo, was the giant

40
insect and insecticide logo.7

Every activist within the national democratic organization swears upon the basic task of arousing,
organizing, and mobilizing the masses guided by the principles of a nationalist, mass-oriented, and
scientific culture. Being in the creative field doubles this task because an artist has to work these
principles into his/her art and life. However, amidst this heavy task, he or she must still pay much
attention to form. Mao Tse-tung states:

...works of art which lack artistic quality have no force, however progressive they are politi-
cally. Therefore, we oppose to produce (sic) works of art with a wrong political viewpoint and
the tendency towards the poster and slogan style, which is correct in political viewpoint but
lacking in artistic power. On the question of literature and art we must carry on a struggle on
two fronts. (1960a, 30).

Deliberation, arguments, and debates with the leaders are essential in order to deliver the precise
message that we want to convey. Every work is a political statement not only from the group itself, but
also from the whole national democratic movement. There is no standard form or style that should be
used in presenting society in general. We have proven that form evolves and is not stagnant. What is
important to our art practice is the general sentiment or individual statement that may represent the
collective voice. Mao Tse-tung says, “Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of
thought contend is the policy for promoting the progress of the arts and the sciences and a flourish-
ing socialist culture in our land. Different forms and styles in art should develop freely and different
schools in science should contend” (1960b, 134).

The circumstances we faced up to the latter period of Tita Cory’s8 magic in the ‘90s led to the con-
dition which caused the collapse of ABAY and other cultural groups within the national democratic
organization. In addition to these circumstances were the lapses in discipline, prevailing bourgeois
attitudes, and decadence among the individuals due to lack of ideological learning. However, cul-
tural organizations with clear ideologies continued to exist. To name a few: Tambisan sa Sining which
closely works with labor unions connected with Kilusang Mayo Uno (May One Movement), and Sin-
ing Bugkos mostly comprised of community and factory-based cultural groups.

The blurred images of cultural work in the whole picture of social change in the ‘90s are now becom-
ing clear. The direction and programs of cultural organizations within the national democratic orga-
nization are taking shape since the revolutionary movement began to reaffirm its basic principles,
and admit and correct its previous mistakes. In the National Capital Region, cultural organizations
formally produced an orientation paper in 1998, spearheaded by Sining Bugkos. UGAT Lahi has
survived since its founding in July 1992 through various initiatives to work with different sectors and
build up its ideological commitment. The group officially became a flag bearer of Sining Bugkos in
1995 after the group left the university. The debate on whether UGAT Lahi would be a mass organiza-
tion or an elite group immediately followed. How can an organization be a mass organization without
a mass base? The new leadership of UGAT Lahi now renews the commitment to revisit its mass base.
UGAT Lahi now has a chapter in the University of the Philippines and is currently trying to build more
chapters in other schools and universities.

41
 Let me close this discussion with a question: how important are the arts and literature in social
change? Let me again quote a great teacher of the revolution, Mao Tse-tung:

Literature and art are subordinate to politics, but in their turn exert a great influence on poli-
tics. Revolutionary literature and art are part of the whole revolutionary cause, they are cogs
and wheels in it, and though in comparison with certain other and more important parts they
may be less significant and less urgent and may occupy a secondary position, nevertheless,
they are indispensable cogs and wheels in the whole machine, an indispensable part of the
entire revolutionary cause. If we had no literature and art even in the broadest and most
ordinary sense, we could not carry on the revolutionary movement and win victory. (1960a,
25-26).

As long as there is a national democratic struggle--a resistance against the economic, political,
and cultural domination among the people--social realism, whether it is a conventional approach to
reality, protest art, or revolutionary art, will continue to exist and be an absolute part of people’s
struggle.

References

Mao, Tse-tung. 1960a. “Yenan Forum on Arts and Literature”. In Mao Tse-tung On Literature
and Arts, (pp.14-30, 134). Great Britain: Anglo-Chinese Educational Institute.

__________. 1960b. Let A Hundred Flowers Blossom, Let A Hundred Schools of Thought
Contend. In Mao Tse-tung On Literature and Arts, (p. 134). Great Britain: Anglo-Chinese Edu-
cational Institute.

Magtoto, Liza 1988. “BUGKOS Asserts Importance of Critical Work in Sectoral Forum”.
Makiisa: A Magazine on People’s Culture 1(4), 24+.

Notes

1 UGAT Lahi: Ugnayan at Galian ng mga Artistang Tanod ng Lahi, an artists’ collective established in the
University of Sto. Tomas in July 1992.

2 Erapzilla, the largest effigy ever made in the history of the Philippine protest movement, was produced in
the last week of November 2000. The effigy was put to flames on November 29, 2000. By December that
same year, the remaining part was exhibited in Surrounded by Water Art Space during their annual Dog
Show.

3 Father Tulio Favali was an Italian priest killed by the North Cotabato-based anti-insurgency vigilante group
Tadtad headed by Norberto Manero. It is believed that Father Tulio Favali’s brain was eaten by the amulet-
bearing Manero group.

4 BUGKOS, a national center for people’s culture.

5 BAYAN stands for Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (New Patriotic Alliance), which is a broad alliance of the
National Democratic Movement.

6 In a rally against the proposed charter change of former President Fidel Ramos in 1997, Ugat Lahi in col-
laboration with multi media group Tumbang Preso and community theatre group Balsa created a five-panel
painting depicting icons from local mythology as metaphors of the country’s current situation.

42
7 On July 22, 2002, during BAYAN’s rally (coinciding with the State of the Nation Address of Pres. Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo) along Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City, the text and logo of the popular insecticide
Baygon was transformed into Byeglo.

8 Referring to former President Corazon Aquino, who succeeded deposed dictator Marcos who was toppled
during the EDSA1 uprising.

43
 Session 1:
Social Realism: Histories and Hopes

THE discussion attempted a cross-generational summing up of efforts even as artists

continue to explore alternative strategies and consciously work alongside specific
sectors in the Filipino people’s movement. University of the Philippines Department
of Art Studies Professor Flaudette May Datuin served as moderator for this ses-
sion.

Only two questions were posed. These are followed by excerpts from the answers.

Jenny Cortes (Salakai): Do you have a critique of the art form itself,
like painting in particular as a form of imperialist culture? It is a form that is
prone to commodification and the influence of global culture or globalization.
Are you also developing alternative art forms?

Jose Tence Ruiz: That debate about form--especially the debate about
indigenous forms—runs alongside the debate on the embodiment of indig-
enous forms with certain backward ideas.

For example, backward ideas within tribal values that were held not to be very
much valid.

But definitely these need to be assessed as one…I suppose, one would still
have to explore further. And I think it is being done more deliberately now
particularly with regard to what we used to call craft…the idea of craft as a
lower form has to be totally reexamined.

It has to be totally reexamined, just like illustration is not a lower form. Ce-
ramics, carving, weaving--I think these are all very important forms.

The problem is that we have no good systematic training…I think there is no

way but to open, to broaden, to really encompass all the craftsmen…They
have to bring to us also a lot of their excellence.

Jerusalino Araos (Salakai): First I would like to quote the quotation

of Mideo Cruz which is: “ano ang magagawa ng tula sa rebolusyon (what can
poetry do for the revolution)?”

44
My question now is this, what will the revolution do to poetry and painting if it
has split into two: the rejectionists and the reaffirmists?

Mideo Cruz (New World Disorder): That quote actually came from
an activist from the youth sector. Actually the movement has already made
many reassessments to correct past mistakes.

Now it has particular programs which I think are clearer programs for cultural
work.

45
Session 2:
Art Collectives: Defying the Hermit Mindset
 Survival through Collective Action
Estela Ocampo-Fernandez

Introduction

Many people wonder about the existence of contemporary visual arts in Cebu. The prevailing per-
ception is that the visual arts in Cebu are conservative, if they exist at all.

Mainstream art in Cebu takes its roots, from, among others, Martino Abellana, a student of Fernando
Amorsolo. Abellana taught at the University of the Philippines and the Cebu Institute of Technology.
Most of his students now figure prominently in the Cebuano visual arts community. I represent a
generation that did not learn from Martino Abellana.

We want to contribute actively to the development of contemporary art in the Philippines in Cebu,
where we are based. To be able to do this, we have to empower ourselves and the institutions that
are supposed to support us. I would like to start with a narrative on how our group in Cebu came
into being and how we found collective work to be an effective model for asserting ourselves in the
community. This coming into being is a story that began more than a decade ago.

The UP Fine Arts Program and FASO (1976-present)

The Fine Arts program of the UP Cebu College opened in 1975, three years after martial law was
declared. Some students who later became instrumental in the founding of PUSOD and Luná were,
at that time, already active in organizing. They were involved in the regular student strikes that would
result in the establishment of the student council. They helped found the Fine Arts Students Organi-
zation in 1976. The UPFASO, through consistent student action, would help establish the stability of
the Fine Arts program.

In the late 1980s, the population of the Bachelor in Fine Arts program was dwindling. The annual
graduation rate was one half a person. The founding faculty members had either died or retired.
Younger faculty were handling the program. Suggestions to close down the Fine Arts program were
rife.

And so efforts to promote the program became imperative. Raymund Fernandez was, by then, a full-
time member of the faculty and a member of the Fine Arts Students Organization. I was a freshman
student when we decided at a meeting to launch an organized effort to identify the problems of the
program and help solve these and therefore reestablish the program’s strength.

It was decided that the program’s population problem was due mainly to the fact that only a few peo-
ple knew of the program’s existence. The priority effort was therefore the promotion of the program
in the city as well as in other urban centers of the Visayas. To do this, the organization strengthened
existing activities, and initiated strategic activities that would promote the program as well as raise

48
funds for a long-term promotion program.

The annual activities were highly advertised. The annual exhibit and Joya Awards were covered in the
papers with sponsored advertisements. Mini-exhibits were held in the surrounding cities. We linked
with local government units and conducted workshops for street children. Mindworks, an exhibition
series that offered contemporary arts including installations and performances, became a major pro-
duction. What used to be held in the classroom was now performed at the conference hall with light
and sound effects. Tickets were sold to help produce the show.

The first summer art workshop was offered in 1989. The students facilitated the workshops under
faculty supervision. Over 100 enrollees joined the workshops and the organization earned from this
enough money to launch other projects. Later on, students were assigned to teach in the neighboring
islands of Dumaguete, Ormoc, Bohol, and Cagayan.

All these had the effect of increasing the prestige of the Fine Arts program and the student popula-
tion. By 1991, two sections were opened in the first year level.

The VIVA Excon 1998 and PUSOD, Inc.

In the Visayas region, the Visayas Islands Visual Artists Exhibit and Conference (VIVA Excon) has
established itself as a major forum for the exchange of artistic ideas and practice which encouraged
alternative art-making. A sizeable delegation of students and alumni from UP attended the second
exhibit-conference and since then has provided the bulk of participation from Cebu in the succeeding
biennials. The VIVA Excon has been held every two years since 1990. It was first held in Mambucal,
Bacolod, then in Bacolod City (1992), Dumaguete City (1994), and Iloilo City (1996). Succeeding
venues are decided upon after choosing from among bids from various areas to host the event.

It is hoped that hosting an exhibit-conference will help strengthen the artists and help promote the vi-
sual arts in the area. During VIVA Excon Iloilo, Cebu made a bid to host the next event. To prepare for
the event, an informal group of regular VIVA Excon participants organized exhibits in various spaces
in the city to coincide with consultative meetings. These activities also prepared the organizers for
the difficult task of organizing a big conference.

The NCCA was a major sponsor of the 1998 VIVA Excon. In order to receive a grant, implementing
groups needed legal names and track records. In December 1997, PUSOD, Inc. was formalized and
registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as a non-government organization.

PUSOD, Inc. is the open organization of Cebu visual artists. It was organized by mostly UP Cebu
alumni and students to meet the need for a group that would advance non-traditional, socio-histori-
cally aware, and personally fulfilling art-making.

PUSOD proposes an alternative organizational structure. The core group relies on collective strength
and a cooperative spirit. It is run by a core group of volunteers who implement projects. There are

49
 neither membership fees nor a fixed list of members. Anyone is welcome to attend monthly meetings
and/or qualify to join activities.

As a group, PUSOD strives to instill in its members responsibility, transparency, and accountability.
Expenses of all projects are properly liquidated and documented.

For the past four years, PUSOD has organized open and juried exhibitions, workshops and discus-
sions. But because of its nature as a non-government and service-oriented organization, there were
activities that could not be done by PUSOD. And so there came about the need for a smaller and
more tightly knit parallel collective.

Luná Artspace and Collective (2000-2002)

In 2000, Roy Lumagbas, Raymund Fernandez, and I, joined Jon Unson to set-up Luná, an alterna-
tive art space, in what used to be a bakery turned photography studio. Jon needed help in meeting
the monthly rentals; we needed a space for producing and showing art. Luná is used as a space
for production and exhibition. It is also used for lectures and workshops and serves as a center for
meetings and networking.

This year, the group expanded into eight. The associate artists managing the space reflect diverse in-
terests: photography, art education, hotel promotions, journalism, events management, and graphic
design. Except for one, all were trained in the fine arts at UP in Cebu. All are active PUSOD vol-
unteers. All have a need to produce alternative art free from the constraints of mainstream institu-
tions.

The group pools resources and shares various responsibilities. Projects are conceptualized through
regular meetings and discussions. These projects are produced based on mutual suggestion and
support. Decision-making is democratic. There is strong interaction and collaboration within the
group as well as regular discussions. The group is able to implement projects by themselves.

Conclusion

The organization of the various collectives mentioned was a response to a felt need. It was necessary
to organize. In this way, large, otherwise unattainable, goals could be reached for the benefit of both
the individual artists and the larger collective.

This impacts the local production of art. By providing regular and consistent opportunities for group
shows, the collectives offer incentive for artists to keep on producing art. These set standards of
what group shows can and should be, and so local artists can challenge each other to work much
better. The collectives are able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of local art. Where weak-
nesses are concerned, they can provide solutions.

50
Cases in point are the activities to help develop institutions supporting the artists. The group has fa-
cilitated trainings in art writing and curating. The collectives are helping alternative and experimental
art survive. A market base for such art is slowly emerging in the city.

These experiences of collective-organizing are also providing us valuable lessons on the “craft” of
organizing groups for collective effort. These lessons we share regularly with the younger student
group, FASO.

We have gone a long way, but even so, we realize that we still have much to learn before we can re-
ally start dreaming bigger dreams.

51
 My Formative Years in Visual Arts
Federico Sievert

Maupay aga in Waray. Good morning. Ang gagawin ko ay magbabahagi tungkol sa aking mga
relationship doon sa past art organizations or art groupings na mayroong collaborative attitude ng
artmaking.

I am Federico Fua Sievert, born in Tacloban City, 1961. I studied in a Chinese Catholic Parochial
School for my primary and secondary education in Tacloban City. I took my Bachelor of Fine Arts
degree major in painting at the University of Santo Tomas. During my formative years in Tacloban,
being generally uninterested in academic subjects, I devoted most of my time to drawing airplanes,
rockets, machine guns and competed with my older brother who also acted as the sole judge of the
drawing contest so I was made to feel like the inferior one. In school, where I studied drawing, a
drawing contest was an annual event and on one occasion I won first prize. In high school, boredom
with academic subjects increased, so from pencil drawings I turned to oil pastels and watercolors.
In my third year, the rector of the school commissioned me to do a portrait of the bishop of the over-
seas Chinese Filipinos for which I was paid P150.00. It was
not planned that I would study Fine Arts. My mother wanted
me to take up commerce being a businesswoman herself.
She vehemently objected to my desire to take up fine arts but
when I came to Manila in 1979 for my summer vacation, I took
a chance and took the entrance exam in University of Santo
Tomas. I passed the exam and studying fine arts became a
reality.

During my college years, it wasn’t as colorful as I expected

it to be except for two national competitions that I won. Ito
iyong very significant thing sa akin, to convince my mother
na ang pag-aaral ko ng arts na ito ang magiging buhay ko.
Iyong una, iyong third prize for the Art Association of the Phil-
ippines (AAP)- and Manila Symphony-sponsored art competi-
tion for the 200th Concert at the Park, 1981 and a gold medal
from AAP in 1982. I was also fortunate in that while I was
still studying at UST under the professorship of Antonio Aus-
tria, I acquired skills in conventional and unconventional ways
of artmaking. In 1980, while in college, I joined Tambisan,
a very political, progressive and nationalist workers’ theater
group. My membership with Tambisan was the start of my
politicization during the latter years of the Marcos regime.
Fortunately, some of the members of Tambisan were social
realist (SR) practitioners like Renato Habulan and Egai Fer-
nandez. Egai introduced me to the rest of the SR painters
namely Adi Baens Santos, Biboy Delotavo, Neil Doloricon,
Papo de Asis and Al Manrique. Their paintings became my
inspiration which made me realize that I have to go back to

52
my field of discipline which is the visual arts. I left Tambisan and helped in the formation of Buklod
Sining led by Papo de Asis.

Buklod-Sining was composed of students from different fine arts schools in Metro Manila with some
coming from the Mabini artist communities. One of the activities of Buklod was regular exposure
and on-the-spot painting in the slum areas such as Libis and Tondo. The visits to the slum areas
helped shape my choice for my thesis which was a requirement in UST. Through Buklod-Sining I got
acquainted with other popular media such as effigies, comics, posters, publications, illustrations,
silk-screening, and most of all, the use of industrial paint as alternative to expensive oil and acrylic
paints. After college, my two friends and classmates, Emmanuel Gutierrez and Serge Maglalang
bonded together to form a small group. We initiated the use of a smaller scale canvas in contrast
to the bigger canvases used by Buklod Sining. It was the most practical thing to do since we were
the ones financing the production. It was less costly and less time-consuming in making the street
paintings. Mobility was also one of our considerations. Unlike the bigger paintings Buklod was pro-
ducing which were usually mounted on a jeepney or a 6x6 truck, the smaller paintings needed only
two people to carry them, and was mounted on two poles.

The formation of ABAY in the mid-eighties was in-

formed by the same political orientation as the other
artist organizations I mentioned earlier. Its members
consisted of social realist painters and fine arts gradu-
ates. ABAY catered to the visual needs of cause-ori-
ented organizations. It was here that I learned graphic
designing from Jose Tence Ruiz or Bogie. This is a
skill I never learned in my stay at UST. It was ABAY
that carried on the responsibility of making the large
paintings and other visual materials needed to ac-
company rallies and mass actions. It was also ABAY
that reintroduced instant painting—iyong mga instant
paintings na ginagawa along the walls sa Quezon Bou-
levard heading towards Mendiola or Luneta. These in-
stant paintings were actually made popular in the early
‘70s by the NPAA or Nagkakaisang Progresibong Ar-
tista at Arkitekto. A little later came Sanggawa-- the
name Sanggawa is a contraction of isang gawa. To
me, Sanggawa was the culmination of my experiences in my past art groupings. Though political in
our editorialized collaborative depiction of Philippine society, we were no longer associated with any
political organization. The group members were Mark Justiniani, Karen Flores, Elmer Borlongan,
Joy Mallari and myself.

This gathering is a very fortunate moment for me to thank first of all, my artist-wife Grace, my son,
Gabby, the countless people and artists I encountered during my formative years in the visual arts. I
thank most especially Antonio Austria, Egai Fernandez, Jose Tence Ruiz, Cap Reyes and lastly, Bobi
Valenzuela for the valuable interactions. The early years are well remembered. Maraming salamat
po.

53
 Lesbianarama
Irma Lacorte

Ako si Irma, magsasalita ako ngayon tungkol sa Lesbianarama.

Ang Lesbianarama ay cultural arm ng WSWC or Women Supporting Women Center, isang organiza-
tion ng mga lesbyanang aktibista. Simula noong 1996 kung kailan idinaos ang first National Lesbian
Rights Conference dito sa Pilipinas, naging bahagi ang visual art exhibits sa mga cultural activities
namin. Nagkataon rin na sa mga sumunod na taon, naging aktibo rin si Maita Beltran sa pagpapaki-
lala ng kanyang sarili bilang miyembro ng WSWC at pagiging isang lesbian artist. Malimit na naging
pagkakataon para sa mga impormal na ugnayan ng lesbian community ang mga exhibit ni Maita at
mga exhibit ko. Noong 1998, naging co-host ang WSWC ng Asian Lesbian Conference dito sa
Pilipinas, at ang ilang mga lesbyanang gumagawa ng visual arts kasama kami ni Maita, ay naging ba-
hagi ng exhibit para sa conference na ito. Wala akong listahan ng kumpletong mga pangalan, pero
marami kaming nagbigay ng works dito. Ito ay inisiyatiba ni Roselle Pineda. Ang isa pang miyembro
ng WSWC na si Bing Concepcion ay nagkaroon ng photo exhibit ng kanyang paglalarawan ng mga
kaibigang lesbyana. Ito ang nagsilbing daan kaya naging tatlo na kami sa grupo na nag-uusap tung-
kol sa sining.

Nagkaroon uli ng pagtitipon ng mga lesbian artists sa Kasali Kami, Kasali Ninyo, isang exhibit para
sa Women’s month noong March 2000. Ang nag-organize nito ay si JJ Joseph, isa siya sa mga
founding members ng WSWC. Nakita namin iyong pagiging epektibo ng sining sa paghahayag ng
lesbian issues kung kaya’t noong June 2000, naisipang isang lesbian exhibit ulit ang idaos para
sa Pride Month. Binigyan kami ng espasyo para rito ng Surrounded by Water noong nasa EDSA
pa sila. Ang pamagat nito ay Lesbianarama 2K. Naulit ito noong 2001. Medyo nahirapan kaming
maghanap ng space, subalit matagumpay naman namin itong ginanap sa Faculty Center sa Universi-
ty of the Philippines. Tapos, marami nang naidagdag na mga bagong miyembro: sina Aster Delgado,
Eloi Hernandez, at Vivian Limpin. Pormal na kinilala ng general assembly ang mga miyembro nitong
artists bilang cultural arm ng organization. Pagkatapos ay ginamit na ang pangalang Lesbianarama.

Sa ginanap na dalawang group shows, sa aking pananaw, iisa ang paniwala namin na sa sining
maaaring makapagbigay ng puna sa lipunan tungkol sa gender issue. Sa tingin ko, nakatuon ang
karamihan ng miyembro ng Lesbianarama sa marginalization ng mga lesbyana at kababaihan sa
lipunan, may lesbian content man ang aming likha o wala. Ang pagsali o pag-ambag sa isang
eksibisyon na pinamagatang Lesbianarama ay maituturing na isang paghamon sa tinatawag nating
estado o nakapangyayari. Sa ngayon, wala pang pormal na pag-uusap o pagtatasa ang grupo tung-
kol dito. Ito ay marahil dahil sa labas ng sining-biswal, karamihan sa mga miyembro ay kumikilos
sa kani-kanyang gawain at organisasyon. Sa ilang impormal na pag-uusap, sumasang-ayon naman
ang marami o ang karamihan na kailangan mag-focus sa output o body of works. Tanggap din ng
lahat na kailangan pang pag-igihin ang mga ginagawang trabaho sa kani-kanyang medium. Gaya ng
nabanggit na, lumabas sa mga impormal na pag-uusap o kuwentuhan na kailangan ang pagpapaun-
lad pa sa kani-kanyang sining. Kamakailan lamang ay nabanggit na magkaroon ng art sessions ang
mga miyembro. Hindi pa kami umaabot doon sa punto ng pagsasadireksiyon bilang grupo.

54
Editor’s note:

Two alternative accounts of the origins of Lesbianarama are contained in the following texts: “History of
the Filipina Lesbian Struggle” by Roselle V. Pineda (A Philippine Journal of Third World Studies, Gender
and Sexuality, Kasarinlan Vol. 16 No. 1, 2001, University of the Philippines) and “Ang Sining-Lesbiana sa
Pilipinas: Ang Lesbianarama” by Eloisa May P. Hernandez (Tabi-tabi sa Pagsasantabi: Kritikal na Tala ng mga
Lesbiana at Bakla sa Sining, Kultura at Wika, 2003, University of the Philippines Press). These texts pose
an alternative chronology wherein Lesbianarama is constituted as an earlier, initiative independent of Women
Supporting Women Center.

55
 Anting-Anting Art Collective
Alfredo Esquillo

Anting-Anting is roughly translated as amulet,

or the gayuma in most of us. It alludes to po-
tency and makes a mark in the imagination of
the one in quest for power or salvation. But
Anting-Anting as an art group is not meant to
acquire power through its art-making, although
it does inquire about the idea that art may pro-
vide salvation. While believing that the pro-
cess of artistic collaboration can be a potent
force in providing possibilities for transforma-
tion and enrichment, Anting-Anting demystifies
the notion that art and its practice are exclusive
and personal. It is not always our intent to fight
or purge demons when we create large-scale
murals, but there may be some works we have
made that confront certain fears or even probe
issues and realities that are relevant these
days.

Anting-Anting may refer to our affinity with the

province of Cavite, where most of us live and work, and to the town’s more popularly known symbol
successfully portrayed by another popular art media: the cinema. Remember Ramon Revilla and his
powerful anting-anting?

Anting-Anting as a “collective” is not the usual convergence of artists whose individual artistic vi-
sions unite in a collaborative work. The dynamics of Anting-Anting is quite the opposite: the conver-
gence of diversified visions and artistic pursuits seeking to find harmony in a collaborative work.
The complexity and strain even out in this artistic challenge, because we have allowed and encour-
aged ourselves to pursue divergent artistic styles and temperaments in our solo exhibitions. But
as a group, Anting-Anting creates a canvas of multi-layered meanings of one theme. Sometimes
complexities create tension in the production, but members prefer to transcend or temper aesthetic
ideals by focusing on the artistic bonding enriched by activities outside of our art projects: hang-
ing out as a breather from long, solitary studio lifestyles. The group’s productions are attempts at
challenging creativity: probably in the logistical sphere of scale and space, tendencies, techniques,
and styles, the given theme and other distractions, and the discipline of working on deadlines and
finances. Yet, for each production, now numbering eleven (11 large-scale murals) since our inception
in October of 1999, it is difficult to disregard the fun and pain of coming together and making our
intentions work.

Reinventing ourselves and our rituals of art-making must become part and parcel of our group’s
initiatives, if we believe that we ought to develop as a collective. We made attempts at acquiring a

56
sense of modernist tendency while producing our first three or four murals, but have since realized
its being outdated when it comes to being “contemporary.” In the past, when we accepted commis-
sions to do murals for the municipality of Dasmariñas, we executed strategies to make our pieces
easier for the common people to understand. After all, they were our intended audience. We made
these colorful, the content and form more familiar by adjusting compositions that otherwise would
remind someone of past masterpieces, like those made by Marc Chagall and the Cubists. Since
then, we have renewed our tendencies. We have applied techniques or approaches for more criti-
cal art-making. Not that the decorative or the entertainingly pleasant in art is below the criteria of
relevant or good art, it is just that the realities that confront us in Cavite cannot be ignored. We have
reacted to issues such as environmental degradation and contradictions of progress and made one
street protest mural for EDSA DOS.

And while making it our noble intention to bring art to the people, we have begun to question our-
selves: “But what kind of art do we want to bring to the people, if they must truly benefit from it and
enhance their knowledge of what is inherently good in art?” “How do we influence them to turn away
from decadent modes of living perpetuated by the evils of corruption in society and politics?” So
far, we have yet to learn the art of engaging our local politicians in Cavite to do more good than just
entertaining the people when it comes to cultural programs.

Anting-Anting has yet a long way to go. It is always a good excuse to meet and drink and play when
we meet. But our members must update themselves with new and advanced media and art practices
while still being rooted in effective though conventional means of producing art. There is a need for
powerful curatorial support that could help weave individual work into the collaborations. This sup-
port could provide the political will to reign in future Anting-Anting exhibitions so that these exhibi-
tions could eventually exclusively feature collaborative works instead of infusing individual works
that distract rather than complement. We also need a powerful network base that will provide us with
professional logistical support in terms of documentation, handling, and marketing, so that the group
can concentrate on group projects: a typical challenge for a group of artists. And lastly, to assure
ourselves, that in the end, what really matters in our group, is that we are together because we enjoy
each other’s company and we agree in making collaborative art.

57
 DIWA Arts: In the Spirit of Collaborative Practice
Rico Reyes

Collaboration with Artists

In the early ‘80s, DIWA Arts was a multidisciplinary arts organization. DIWA was revisiting the tra-
ditions of the “Salon,” creating a scene right out of Henry Murger’s Scènes de la Vie Bohème, a
seminal 19th century novel, coining the term “bohemian life.” Painters, sculptors, writers, actors,
filmmakers, musicians, actors who painted, painters who sang, dancers who wrote, all sorts of artists
with interdisciplinary notions gathered to support each other as Filipino/American Artists.

In true San Francisco fashion, “happenings” started to spring up, and the group was beginning to be
recognized. However, in true Filipino fashion, a lot of in-fighting and hurt feelings also arose to render
the group almost non-existent.

Visual artists from the original group reorganized DIWA Arts as a collective focusing on the disci-
pline and the practice of visual arts. Due to its past history and the pitfalls and obstacles in Filipino
organizing, DIWA Arts Collective adopted consensus and deference as the modus operandi for the
new group.

From this moment on, DIWA created a malleable hierarchy where positions changed per project; the
focus of the group also became exhibition-driven. This new structure promoted a growth spurt with
the group becoming very productive from 1990 to 2000.

The list of projects included an installation at the Richmond Art Center, a group piece at the McBean
Gallery at the San Francisco Art Institute, a one-“person” show at the New Langton Art Gallery, an
installation at the Bronx Museum and a two-year public art program at the Capp Street Project Gal-
lery. The list of artists at any one time was different, but these artists were principal participants in
most of these projects: Rene de Guzman, Agelio Batle, Johanna Poethig, Ileana Lee, Maria Medua,
Romel Padilla, Leo Bersamina, Terry Acebo-Davis, Jennifer Wofford, Eliza Barrios, Reanne Estrada,
and Rico Reyes.

With the group becoming bigger and a span of ideas expanding, a new wedge of contention was
driving itself into the group dividing it into two groups: the formalists and the conceptualists.

Collaboration with Media

Many of the artworks that were made by DIWA Arts Collective employed a fair division of labor using
each person’s strength in a particular media. The end product always was a spectacular panoply of
images culminating in a complex experiential installation piece. Objects, images, everyday items,
industrial products, handmade things -- all found themselves in a DIWA Arts installation.

Cohesion became a point of contention in the group. With the two sects already forming, the formal-

58
ists and the conceptualists, the priority of whether the art installation should be formally coherent or
conceptually succinct became a heated debate. Due to the current political atmosphere in art at that
time, the traditional ideas of formalism were seen as an oppressive structure on works addressing
ethnicity and race; therefore, the group always conceded to the conceptualist camp.

Collaboration with Community

One way the group was able to find a common ground in evaluating work was through working with
a third party: the Filipino community at-large. The reception of the non-artist Filipino community be-
came the gauge by which to measure the efficacy of the group.

The work not only directly addressed the local Filipino community but it also involved it. Interviews,
oral histories, indirect participation were utilized to get the people involved in art whether they liked it
or not. We resorted to a diluted form of reportage masked in aesthetic avant-gardism to create work
that could be evaluated by an outside party. Consequently, the art audience paid little attention to the
work and the Filipino community was suspect of our intentions.

Our two-year project with the Capp Street Project Gallery was one example where we really relied
on a third party to interpret, to appreciate, and to be subjects of our art. For two years, we visited
spots around the San Francisco area where there was a high population of Filipinos and interviewed
the inhabitants. We then chose a site in the neighborhood where an installation would be placed.
Interviews were transcribed into LED screens, and these screens became an element of the installa-
tion. Other objects were used depending on the specific site. This practice proved to be interesting,
but it may not have been all that effective in creating work that was both strongly artistic and socially
relevant.

This mode of evaluation evaded a practice inherent in intellectual ideals and emotional expression.
We, as a collective of artists, did not take care of our emotional health and had not maintained open-
ness to support differing thoughts. We relied solely on others to give us an evaluation that was full
of praise, yet empty of criticality and laced with ambivalent encouragement.

The group has been inactive for several years now. However, other groups have arisen from DIWA
Arts Collective, demonstrating the need for a social support network for Filipino artists that is both
intellectually satisfying and emotionally fulfilling.

59
 Session 2:
Art Collectives: Defying the Hermit Mindset

HOW would VIVA people see their deepening development as artists in terms
of output in art, influences or effectivity, or questions leading to that? Balay
Taliambong Director Kenneth Esguerra served as moderator for this session.

Estela Ocampo-Fernandez (UP Cebu/VIVA/Luná): It is a very

good time for the people who are very active with VIVA to meet among them-
selves and talk about the direction that we want to take as a group…We have
become aware that the growth of the artists have different paces. We have
first-timers, people who have been with VIVA since the beginning. I think the
gap is even widening…But as for re-assessment and revisioning--we plan to
do that in the 2002 exhibit-conference in Bohol, hopefully in November.

Jenny Cortes (Salakai): About the production structure for each indi-
vidual artist in your group, has the collective helped them challenge the pre-
vailing structure of being subject to patronage of the state, or of the market?

Ken Esguerra (Balay Taliambong): As far as painting is concerned,

it’s more of perhaps financing the show, buying art materials, booking with
the galleries…

Jerusalino Araos (Salakai): The essence of a collective is a group

address, a group addressing commonalities collectively. In the case of Sang-
gawa, they make one painting and split the income right? So, its making a
living. When you say collective, there has to be hanap-buhay (a means for
survival).

Estela Ocampo-Fernandez: We don’t produce art for hanap-buhay.

There is no market. We have a collective so we can help develop the mar-
ket and then maybe, hopefully eventually hanap-buhay, that is if that’s what
art-making is all about--to make hanap-buhay.…We organize the space. We
organize ourselves so that we can pool resources. We rented a space, we
share the rent equally, all the decisions that we make, we do democratically.
It’s all mutual support, mutual cooperation, mutual suggestion. Because we
organize exhibits, we organize conferences and workshops. Organizing an
exhibit in itself is giving venue for the artist to produce and show his work.

Federico Sievert (Sanggawa): Our primary concern, is to produce

work--from the topic, conceptualization of the topic, to the actualization of the
topic, to drawings, all the way through to the final painting.

60
Alfredo Esquillo (Anting-Anting): We occasionally get corporate
commissions…so basically Anting-Anting produces work within and outside
the gallery system…We bring art to the people and local government plays a
role in that. Because the group is made up of a mixture of artists with varying
levels of experience with the gallery system, we counsel the younger ones
and those who have yet to exhibit regarding the ins and outs of the circuit
since in reality, it really is quite complicated.

Unidentified participant: How do you welcome young artists who want

to join your group? How do you encourage people to support your projects?

Irma Lacorte (Lesbianarama): Everyone who approaches us and is

interested in what we do is welcome but of course you need to be self-iden-
tified lesbians. They need to be “out.” Transparency is required since any
non-disclosures would defeat the purpose of their joining Lesbianarama. As
for financial support for projects, we all make do individually.

Alfredo Esquillo: Anting-Anting members are basically Caviteño al-

though it is also possible that they originate from other places.

Estela Ocampo-Fernandez: We have annual exhibits which are open

to everybody. Because we hold these shows, we actually have people who
for example, participated in the drawing show at SM…, they helped us by
volunteering to watch the exhibit for the day. And because this is open, they
can join in.

Wilfredo Marbella (DLSU Art Gallery): What were the pros and
cons of being in a group and overall, what’s your assessment of it in terms of
your growth as an artist? What are the limitations of art collectives?

Federico Sievert: 1) Perhaps you tend to conform, to abide by the need

to belong to an organization to establish yourself; 2) there is also the problem
of egos being asserted.

Estela Ocampo-Fernandez: 1) With a collective, its group first and

self later actually. And then its…you have to be more selfless than you are.
Artists are known, are said to be selfish, individualistic. I think being part of
a collective will help you become a better person; 2) Of course its expected
that there would be different levels of experience, age, and individual contri-
butions, but I think for as long as you remain conscious, to not let unhealthy
competition get in the way, its okay.

61
Session 3:
Artist-Run Spaces
 Surrounded by Water
Lena Cobangbang

For the past four years in which Surrounded by Water (SBW) had plodded through the local art
scene, it had tried to be steadfast in its goal in showcasing “brave, new art,” extending even the
space to cover events that were not essentially of art shop nature such as talks, conventions, and
political advocacies. But survival concerns may seem to push such goal by the wayside at times,
and there the confusion may arise as to how an artist-run space should be run and maintained.
Compounding this is the common attachment of the term “alternative” to such a space. But then
“alternative” is so problematic a word: “alternative” to what? “Alternative” to what is current and
standard? “Alternative” to mainstream? On the other hand, mainstream when aligned with “alterna-
tive” connotes something impure and evil, such as commercial and sell-out, and is thus unacceptable
in the milieu of the so-called “alternative.”

For its own survival, SBW locates itself somewhere in between. SBW is neither a hard-sell com-
mercial venture nor a hardcore anarcho-bohemian underground hub professing pure artistic prin-
ciple above everything else. Yes, SBW may be run with a system adapted from or similar to those
practiced rigorously in art institutions like regular galleries and museums, but that is with an aim to
prepare its exhibiting artists for the larger scene ahead. Still, SBW can be stubbornly guilt-free and
unapologetic as to curatorial choices and design. But there is still much to be learned, and SBW, in
the course of its growth and survival, will have to live through them all together with the people who
come and go through its doors and see what is being offered by SBW.

This being said, SBW will remain an example unto itself.

Editor’s Note:

This presentation was accompanied by a video documenting interviews with SBW’s publics on what consti-
tutes the alternative.

64
Shifting Spaces
Ringo Bunoan

My paper aims to show the importance of artist-run spaces and their relevance to the development
of contemporary art and art practice. Although artist-run spaces have been criticized as not having
enough staying power, unstable, or simply just for the moment, artist-run spaces endure and contrib-
ute to the widening of art’s parameters.

Today, all over the world, artist-run spaces play a significant role in supporting artists and provide
the much-needed venue for non-commercial and non-institutional art practices and other alternative
thoughts.

Operating at a grass-roots level and often with very limited resources, artist-run spaces and initia-
tives attest to the fortitude and resiliency of the community, which it seeks to represent. Artist-run
spaces and initiatives are informed and sustained by countless individuals and loose networks, to-
gether articulating the needs and aspirations of their communities.

Artist-run spaces have also blurred the roles of artist, curator, writer, and administrator. In an artist-
run space, these identities are flexible and shifting, providing opportunities for people to broaden
their skills and test new ideas.

In 1999, big sky mind started organizing exhibitions on the second floor of a café in New Manila and
played a role in supporting young and less-established artists by providing them with a platform to
present their work to a wider public. By locating art in a non-traditional art context, big sky mind also
helped develop new audiences and ways to bring art closer to the people.

big sky mind expanded notions about art by introducing fresh ideas and alternatives to common art
practice. Encouraging innovation and diversity in art through cross-over and collaboration, big sky
mind presented works coming from different fields including visual arts, performance, sound, music,
video, and film.

As with other artist-initiated projects in the region and elsewhere, big sky mind constantly faces risk
and fragmentation. Given its rather transitory nature, artist-run spaces do indeed come and go. This
is not necessarily to be perceived in the negative sense. On the contrary, it can be seen as part of
a process and as an opportunity for further development and growth. To shift is not just to fall out of
place but also to change direction.

big sky mind’s move to a new address signals a new phase. Now in a different setting, a converted
warehouse in Cubao, we face new measures and challenges. It does not promise to be easy but we
look forward to all the possibilities as we engage in unmarked territories.

Editor’s Note:

This presentation was accompanied by two videos documenting exhibitions at big sky mind and
its participation at the Gwangju Biennale.

65
 Mariyah Gallery Experience:
An artist runs a gallery, a private venture
in a small community
Cristina Taniguchi

Mariyah Gallery, an art studio/art gallery cum pension house, was established in Dumaguete City in
November 1992, with the following objectives: 1) to provide a venue for artists; 2) to increase the
community’s consciousness on the arts and art-making; and 3) to engage in an exchange of dynamic
art activities among culturally-oriented individuals/organizations. Its art preference is contemporary.

Mariyah Gallery has now made a dent in the province of Negros Occidental and the city of Duma-
guete. This may be due to the fact that the gallery is owned by two progressive artists and offers
bigger spaces for arts works and a fine garden setting for outdoor art installations. However, it
remains that a professionally trained curator has never run Mariyah Gallery. The gallery is also not
technologically prepared to make its way to both national and international markets.

The following observations have been made by the curator/artist in the course of Mariyah Gallery’s
existence: 1) the community cannot really sustain a dynamic art gallery in terms of local collectors;
2) the collectors’/buyers’ art preferences run the range from tourist art to contemporary art; and 3)
collectors are either community-based/local residents or tourists. In light of these observations, the
curator/artist has the option of producing 1) art that can be possibly collected without sacrificing
aesthetic sense; 2) art that meets the holistic concept of the art gallery; and finally, 3) art that may
engage change and issues.

Several factors in curating/art practice must be considered in the case of Mariyah Gallery. The first
is preference, which involves the gallery/curator’s choice, the artist’s choice, and the collector’s
choice. The second is monetary consideration. The third is the cultural community or what we call in-
stitutional streams of thought coming from the fine arts schools, art visionaries, independent critics,
and other independent visual arts institutions. The fourth and final consideration, which has become
quite important in recent years, is the intrusion of technology.

In the end, the following vital questions need to be asked in reaching some generalizations about
interventions in art practice:

1. In terms of art selection/choice, how essential is monetary consideration for curators/gallery own-
ers/artists?
2. They say that curators/critics can make and unmake artists. How do artists deal with this?
3. How influential can a gallery be in making a community respond to its objectives (i.e. propagate
social consciousness on contemporary art/art-making)?
4. Can an art critic/curator fully dictate the direction of art-making? How do artists deal with this?
5. Can a cultural community influence the direction of art-making? How do artists deal with this?

66
Let me now respond to some of these questions. Being an artist and an art gallery owner, I must
admit that I have to look into the monetary reward of the gallery on the one hand and my well-being
as an artist on the other. It is so tempting once in a while to produce art types that are easily sal-
able. However, with respect to my concept of an
art gallery, I do manage to hold on to my principles,
even to my biases in art choices. My experience
in battling some collectors’ art preferences versus
my own aesthetic biases or choices is spiritually
rewarding, and for the community, challenging. I
must admit that I am caught between selling and
critiquing art, my art in particular. Most of the time
my aesthetic preference prevails. I would like to
consider this action reactionary in some ways on
my part. I say that this is reactionary because I am
battling not only the collectors’ choices but also
those of established and respected critics and
other curators in the capital who may have come
to observe my art choices. They may find these
choices unacceptable. Yet as an artist, I would like
to persist. As an art gallery owner, I would like to
persist in order to sell. In my mind, my works are
equally as important as those of the rest of the art-
ists in the country.

Of course, the presence of art galleries and other art spaces, and the line up of responsible and
committed curators/critics should be seen as a relevant factor for dynamic cultural progress. Artists
need spaces to share their creativity, and critics/curators are needed to qualify what is essential as
seen in contemporary art practice. In talking about the essentiality of art as well as the effectiveness
of the artist, we should ask certain questions: What boundaries are there to be transcended, and
what boundaries need not be transcended by an artist? Or, should an artist be talking about boundar-
ies in art practice? As an artist, I believe that essentiality and effectiveness in art have always been
rooted in the essentiality and effectiveness in life. Boundaries may be bravely transcended too to
initiate a dynamic change.

Bringing any community to the level of art consciousness, engaging social issues, moral issues, and
so on, through any art form is always possible, as history has proven it. The persistence of artists
and the valuable upholding of art concepts by art galleries always involve unexpected change in
any period of art-making. Mariyah Gallery has fully managed to persist, despite setbacks, through
its continuing contributions to contemporary art practice. Despite the balancing acts the artists of
Mariyah Gallery have to do once in a while in order to earn more from art-making, the preference
is always to invoke change and be aware of issues society is concerned with. Mariyah Gallery, for
instance, believes that artists’ presentations that entail personal experience, even to the point of
extreme eccentricity, are relevant matters that need to be studied. For these works, like any creative
writing written in whatever language, represent the artist’s mind and life, whatever milieu he/she be-

67
 longs to. These works are also reservoirs of subtle issues that are connected, directly or indirectly,
to the world where the artist moves.

Mariyah Gallery acknowledges the world trodden by any artist no matter how obscure this world
is. As an artist, I recognize the truth that no matter how dynamic an artist is and how he/she tries to
connect to the different active processes in art-making, there is some point at which he/she slips
into artistic subtlety, and this defines his/her profound aesthetics. Art scholars and critics should
recognize this. Art-making for me is a lonely struggle that is pummeled once in a while by a hurricane
of demands from all the corners where an artist moves. In this case, like perhaps any other artist
whose art [or artistic?] inclinations come anchored in some pivotal beliefs -- in terms of medium and
art-making processes -- the most problematic issue that can ever plague me is when I face my work
and cannot recognize myself and my milieu in it. When this occurs, critics and artists alike should
address the problem with an open mind. This I think requires discourses between critics/curators and
artists, for the essence and the effectiveness of art lie within the boundaries of life’s essence. Al-
though the challenge of belying what is unforeseen in life is something every artist must brave, I think
that transcending our own foreseen art dimension is also braving a new dimension in art practice.

68
Discussant’s Response: Looking for/at Spaces
Norberto Roldan

As a visual artist I have always been concerned with spaces. It is important because space is an
integral part of a work and a mitigating factor in creating the desired context for a particular art. Ac-
cording to Michel Foucault, “We do not live in a kind of void, inside of which we could place individu-
als and things. We do not live inside a void that could be colored with diverse shades of light, we
live inside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one another and absolutely
not superimposed on one another.”1

As we witness the breaking down of walls of different art disciplines, and artists crossing the line be-
tween plastic arts and contemporary dance (for example), we also see spaces assuming ambivalent
and sometimes multiple functions and characters, from being mainstream to marginal, from being
formal to informal, or from being institutional to communal. The reconfiguration and redefinition of
space is significant in light of two parallel developments: First, curators, critics, academicians, and
artists are rethinking the modes of production in relation to existing paradigms; second, the 21st cen-
tury has introduced and emphasized digital technology as the tool for the new-generation art forms.
The hybridity of processes and products is beginning to question the relevance of spaces established
according to existing systems and frameworks of galleries, museums, theaters, and cinemas.

These are the nagging thoughts that inform us when we think of artist-run-spaces. While these are
the same thoughts that confront us when we think of venues that try to command either institutional
or mainstream presence, these are also the thoughts that contributed to the setting up of Green Pa-
paya Art Projects. This project-based group works to promote trans/cross-disciplinary outputs from
among artists coming from diverse artistic backgrounds. The group also tackles the challenge to
explore a more artist/artwork-oriented art management policy, visual marketing, and curating/stag-
ing of projects inside and outside of Green Papaya facilities in collaboration/cooperation with other
groups and venues.

Reference

1 Foucalt, Michel. 1998. “Of Other Spaces”. In Part Three/Virtuality: Virtual Bodies, Virtual
Spaces, Visual Culture Reader, (Ed.) Nicholas Mirzoeff. London: Routledge.

69
 Session 3:
Artist-Run Spaces

ARTIST-run spaces are some of the most inventive catalysts that have creeped into
the art world system. They are sites, spaces, and platforms, which have been con-
sidered relevant and, perhaps at a future time, a very necessary location or locus for
the continuing invention, reinvention, critique, and quasi-critique of the ever-changing
dynamics of the art world. Lopez Memorial Museum curatorial consultant Joselina
Cruz served as moderator for this session.

Four presenters with their own artist-run spaces shared their experiences and chal-
lenges. Key moments in the discussion follow:

Wilfredo Marbella (DLSU Art Gallery): As artists yourselves,

you have a level of aesthetics; certain standards you espouse. How do you
handle an artist who comes to you and [his/her work] does not meet your
standards?

Ringo Bunoan (Big Sky Mind): It’s really a gut feel; whether you’re
going to take a risk or not. If it’s a good idea, why not? If there’s a little bit of
a problem, then we try to talk to the artist, work around the project and see
how to improve it. But we really don’t have criteria. We’re flexible, and it’s a
case-to-case basis.

Norberto Roldan (Green Papaya Art Projects): We do try to

establish our own standard. If artists interested to use our space meet the
standard, then all is well.

Flaudette May Datuin (UP Art Studies): Firstly, as artists who

also run galleries, how do you reconcile or balance the seemingly contending
roles of critic and artist? Secondly, are you continuing what older artist-run
spaces have done, or are you doing something different?

Ringo Bunoan: Artist-run spaces actually blur the roles of artist, writer,
curator, and administrator. You’re all in one. For the second question, we’re
trying to do our own thing without forgetting where we came from.

Cristina Taniguchi (Mariyah Gallery): I cannot separate spaces

from critiquing art. Once I hang a painting on the wall, it should be something
essential. It should be something intriguing or something to be studied histori-
cally, philosophically.

70
Joselina Cruz (Lopez Museum): What makes your spaces different
from other art-gallery-cum-café-cum-bars that are sprouting around?

Norbetro Roldan: There’s a difference between a business establish-

ment trying to serve art as a side dish to a muffin, and an alternative space
that also serves coffee. The core business of an alternative space is art.

Katya Guerrero (Big Sky Mind): An alternative space is more or-

ganic. Even after hours, it’s like continuing education. It’s a place where art-
ists can go, where things can be discussed; a nurturing environment for the
production of art, and not just the exhibition of art.

Unidentified Speaker: Why do you think there are so few artist-run

spaces in the country when we have so many artists?

Lena Cobangbang (Surrounded By Water): Obviously funding

and logistics. Although a lot [of artist-run spaces] spring up, a lot also close
down or move. Plus, with all the work, you can’t concentrate on your own art
production. Major commitment is required.

Ringo Bunoan: Artists think: “why bother when they can go to a gallery
and have their work shown there?” Running a space is really difficult, espe-
cially in this country where there’s no government funding or institutional sup-
port. A lot of the money that goes into running the space is the artists’ own
money. It takes up a lot of your time.

Unidentified Speaker: Why is the government always blamed—it’s not

their fault no one buys art.

Ringo Bunoan: I think the government should support endeavors like

these. In some countries, you don’t just have a national funding body, but you
also have local city councils which fund artist-run spaces.

Norberto Roldan: Putting up an artist-run space is taking matters into

your hands, not depending on the government, mapping your own direction,
and being empowered by your own resources.

Joselina Cruz: Why continue with your artist-run spaces if nobody comes,
you don’t sell, you don’t get support from the government, and you’re out in
the periphery?

71
 Ringo Bunoan: There’s a certain kind of fulfillment when you do things
your own way. Because we’re independent, we’re not answerable to any-
body.

Katya Guerrero: It’s about wanting to share with a larger audience; about
having a more informal environment to see and experience art because [tra-
ditional] galleries are rather formal and intimidating.

72
Session 4:
Cultural Work and Community Collaboration
 Art as Cultural Work and Community Collaboration:
The Hanao Hanao Experience
Brenda V. Fajardo

Background

Hanao Hanao is a small hacienda along the road to Ma-ao, Barangay Caridad, in Bago City, Negros
Occidental. Originally planted to sugar cane, the hacienda initiated a diversification program in 1992
through various workshops that were aimed at functional literacy for the community. The integrated
development program entailed transforming some areas for vegetables, fruit trees, medicinal herbs,
and other plants. It also included art initiatives such as folk dancing, folk songs and games, commu-
nity theater, working with clay, papermaking, storytelling, weaving, and other workshops in an effort
to enrich and enliven community life.

The experience of art and cultural work in Hanao Hanao is tied up with the author’s personal biogra-
phy. The land belonged to the author’s maternal family. From Manila, it is an hour away by plane but
would not be too accessible because of work in the city and the matter of budget. Discerning it as a
life’s mission though, the author took certain initiatives in 1992 as a response to filial obligation.

Art and community work in community development is not a simple matter. There is history to con-
tend with and attitudes honed by a life full of struggle and suffering as a result of a feudal agricultural
system inherited through time. Occidental Negros has always been known to have a great divide
between the rich and the poor. Therefore the hand-to-mouth existence of the farmers of Negros has
limited their cultural life, narrowing it down to a remedio general kind of existence. Often, the farmers
would rely on the landowner for what is known as consumo.

This situation challenged the main carrier of the initiative in thinking up possibilities for improving the
situation. If it cannot be improved economically, then perhaps providing a richer cultural experience
would help transform the being within the farmers into empowerment perhaps or at the very least
allow the participants to get in touch with themselves as beings who are part of a land that is rooted
in culture, and not only feudalism.

This was a difficult situation, since it would still constitute intervention no matter the intention. It was
a risk in social relationship especially because the carrier herself was one of the landowners. The
strength needed by the carrier of the initiative was provided by almost a lifelong experience with art
and art education. Having been part of several art experiences that have molded her very being, the
carrier of the initiative would draw its spirit from these experiences.

It was not a simple art initiative because it also meant dealing with people who were not awakened to
their own community due to a focused concern for what to eat from day to day. The initiative meant
immersing one’s self in the realities and problems of the community which included lack of water
source, lack of electricity, lack of sanitary toilets, absence of food security, and a perceived lack of
community life.

74
Cultural Work and Community Collaboration

The initiative was partly planned and mostly intuitive. Although it started with an inventory of re-
sources (friends who could help), future initiatives were born out of inspiration and intuition with
some imagination, since the outside world responded at certain points in time.

Several components came to being. Starting with organizational workshops, the first few years of
the initiative were focused on external needs such as water source and hygienic toilets. This was
achieved by a process called social mobilization, which meant interacting with other players in the
field. Water and toilets came with the help of the local government. So did the establishment and
maintenance of the day care center, which was done in cooperation with the Department of Social
Work and Development. Non-governmental organizations were also tapped to help implement work-
shops. These were the bio-intensive gardening, Primary Health Care, and Herbal Medicines work-
shops of the Family Food Production Foundation of the IIRR-UNICEF.

Moreover, there was the support that came from family and friends belonging to private organiza-
tions such as the Manila Waldorf School, the Anthroposophy Society of the Philippines, BAGLAN Art
Initiatives for Community Development, the Sisters of Rural Missions, a Buddhist group from Japan,
the Pacific-Asia Resource Center of Japan, Black Tent Theater of Japan, the Philippine Educational
Theater Association, the Philippine Art Educators Association, the National Research Council of
the Philippines, the Center for Alternative Development Initiatives, and countless artist-friends who
would time and again be with the community to create art with them.

Most important of all were the people from the community who were very enthusiastic in wanting to
improve their life situation. However, through time, most of the men became preoccupied with their
work, trying to earn a living. As a result, it was the women’s population, the children, and youth who
gained much in their participation in cultural development work. Their horizons were opened and
their life perspective became more alive and hopeful.

Integrated Initiatives

Several major projects came about that provided momentum to the impulse. These include infra-
structure for community building, agricultural initiatives, nutrition and health, integrated arts initiative,
cultural research, and the revitalization of folk culture: folk dance, folk songs, folk games, weaving,
and pottery.

(1) Infrastructure for Community Building

Structures were constructed to accommodate the activities of the community initiatives: the center
itself (Balay Katilingban), the day care center, the rest house (Balay Palahuwayan), the weaving house
(Balay Habol), and a concrete stage (Entablado Libertad).

75
 (2) Agricultural Initiatives

Several gardens have been started and are being developed: (a) the Herbal Garden, (b) the Fruit
Orchard, (c) the Vegetable Garden, and (d) Tree Lanes. Workshops were given, such as bio-intensive
gardening, bio-dynamic agriculture, tree care workshop, and so on.

(3) Nutrition and Health

Workshops in nutrition and primary health care were given several times including alternative medi-
cine.

(4) Integrated Art Initiatives: Community Theater

The workshops with the Pacific-Asia Resource Center in Japan were part of a five-year cultural
exchange program in which participants came from Japan and Hong Kong as part of a study tour.
They came to Hanao Hanao and interacted with the people through an integrated arts workshop.
This was mainly initiated by the author with Natsuko Kiritani of the Black Tent Theater, Japan, an ally
of PETA.

The theater program is now a continuing program under PETA’s Children’s Theater Program, which
means that there is now an annual community theater workshop in Hanao Hanao. Performances are
usually done during the Foundation Day or Recognition Day of the day care center.

(5) Cultural Research

The National Research Council of the Philippines gave a grant to the author on the Revitalization of
Folk Culture. This participatory research project enabled the members of the community themselves
to do cultural research. It came in two segments: first was a survey of the different art forms, and
second was a more involved phase where the weavers went to Miag-ao, Iloilo to interview weavers
in the area while those doing research in pottery lived for three days in the pottery village of Cadu-
lunan, Hinigaran. This experience allowed the community members to observe the lives of people in
another area and get a feel of how people living in another area produced art.

(6) Reviving Folk Dancing

For the family, this is a very important activity because the author’s mother and original owner of the
hacienda did research on Visayan folk dances. For this reason, it is only fitting that folk dancing be
revived in the community. When she was still alive, Libertad Fajardo was able to show the community
some basic steps. Meanwhile, her daughter, Mary Joan, who was with Bayanihan, would continue
teaching several folk dances each time she went to Bago for vacation.

(7) Folk Songs and Folk Games

Folk songs and folk games were part of the NRCP cultural research. These are included as

76
activities during Foundation Day celebrations.

(8) Weaving

The author’s admiration for local weaving led her to the market of Bacolod to buy patadyong from
Iloilo. One day she was shown the handiwork of a weaver from Tabao, which she found out was only
a 10-minute ride from Hanao Hanao. A visit to the late weaver Lucrecia Nacionales enabled the com-
munity to learn how to weave and develop this skill. Weaving is Lucring’s legacy to our community
since she has passed away. Since the initiative started, the community has grown to 10 looms with
about five families knowing how to weave (this includes the father, mother, and children).

The hand-woven products of Hanao Hanao are a major part of the effort to improve community life. It
has helped the people appreciate tradition since its revival. Weavers venture into creating their own
patterns and selecting their colors. By-products have been developed as well which include sablays
(shawls), panyo (handkerchiefs, scarves), dinner napkins, placemats, tablecloth, table runners, blank
books, and bags.

(9) Pottery

As in any of the initiatives, it started small. A one-day work-

shop with clay and cultural research in pottery opened the
venue for further engagement. When Nelfa Querubin came
for her vacation, she passed by Hanao Hanao and taught the
women how to make Black Pottery, a technique taken from
American Indian technology. This indigenous technology so
inspired the women that they continue to produce black ves-
sels using anthills, burnished with river stones.

Looking Back and Moving On

Gains have been evident in widening the cultural perspectives

of the people, but art and cultural work for communities are
difficult processes amidst the concerns of daily life. Neverthe-
less, it needs to be an ongoing process because there are
non-tangible values in the arts that need to be experienced by
as many people as possible. So far, the initiatives have been
sustained through time with networking and imagination.

Most of the initiatives began and continued because of sev-

eral factors. While in the beginning there was a trial-and-error
approach on whether the people would connect to the initia-
Dancing at Entablado Libertad.

77
 tive or not, it has been observed that the people themselves would continue the initiative if they see
any merit in it. There is interplay between the initiator and the initiated.

Personally, the approach is very much like art-making or writing this paper. Percept turns into con-
cept, and then it becomes action. However, there is less egotism when working for others. In fact,
when skeptics of the community criticize certain initiatives, it is an effort to contain disappointment,
disillusionment, and frustration and one simply goes on because of the premise that intentions are
for the good of the other.

The initiator needs to be open to criticism and must use her own sensitivity in such an endeavor, di-
recting her attention to whether what is being done is good and acceptable to the local community.

Art for cultural development is a need in most communities of the Philippines. The onslaught of
mass media, advancement in technology, information technology, and globalization has loosened our
bonds with tradition. Therefore, having programs that allow people to realize the concreteness of
a non-tangible heritage -- their cultural patrimony -- is a main goal of art programs for communities.
And the arts definitely have a place in this process, because they develop creativity through the use
of imagination and intuition which are major factors for human growth, opening the possibility of a
better life for everyone. The Hanao Hanao experience is really an experiment in art education and
rural sociology combined. To my mind, the best initiators for such a program are artists who are also
cultural workers. It is through endeavors such as this that the meaning of cultural worker becomes
truly defined.

78
The Intangibilities of the Kapampangan Movement
Norman Tiotuico

“Is there such as thing as Kapampangan art?” This was a question raised at the Kapampangan Festi-
val held at the University of the Philippines. This matter was of particular interest to individuals and
groups who had been working on the research and development of Kapampangan culture. In line
with this, the Pampanga Arts Guild, a group of artists with varying disciplines and expertise working
together toward the same objective for more than 20 years now, reviewed its mission, vision, and
goals to address the issue.

In the early ‘70s, still life, floral landscapes, and abstract paintings rendered neatly on well primed
canvases in amber-stained almaciga framing were most visible in the galleries that proliferated along
the stretch of the Clark Air Base perimeter road. Alongside countless versions of Leonardo da Vin-
ci’s Last Supper, the staple in the Angeles City art scene and its neighboring towns was paintings in
subtle colors and forms. Executed with considerable technical skills and craftsmanship, these paint-
ings copied Claude Monet’s serene-colored landscapes, simulated Jose Joya’s brush strokes, and
captured Fernando Amorsolo’s famous portraits to the detail. Just as ubiquitous were wood carvings
of the Ifugao bulul and the American “flying eagle,” which were but a few of the hot-selling items
in every souvenir shop around the province. Generating revenues for craftsmen and entrepreneurs
alike, this market, which flourished during the presence of the American military base, prompted the
artists to focus their creativity and production on Western standard art and crafts.

Though the struggle for a sustainable art profession lies in the flexibility of the artist to compromise
and consider the marketability and affordability of his works (of course to a certain extent), he is (per-
haps unknowingly) breaking faith with his purpose. Oftentimes what colors to paint and what colors
to use are dictated by the gallery owners so as to conform to the art dealer’s and the art collector’s
tastes. These lucrative transactions have contributed a surmountable percentage to the economics
of not only the art galleries concerned but also that of the bars, restaurants, and other enterprises
within the city. Given this, the artists have diverted their efforts and resources to exploring western
culture instead of their own so as to satisfy their client’s taste. On the other hand, these, in a way,
encouraged the viewers to assert their notion of acquisition, converting them into mere consumers.
The artists have become like food servers, so to speak, satisfying a customer who is always right.

Consequently, these interventions have created a priority of economics that totally disregarded cul-
tural relevance, addressing commercial considerations rather than cultivating the Kapampangan’s
own cultural significance. This in effect gave a scenario of cultural diaspora, bringing the Kapam-
pangan culture to a gloomy state needing recuperation. It is like a house on fire. If the upper level
is covered with smoke, you do not put out the smoke. You put out the flames that are causing the
smoke, because it is not the smoke that is causing the fire. In relation to this, to address the present
economic crisis, we have to determine first the cause of the crisis. To resolve it, we have to identify
who, what, and where we are first; then we identify our abilities and strengths. Later, we formulate
solutions based on these.

79
 Art and Culture – An Interaction
Rishab Tibon

Artists are an integral part of a progressive society. They may vary in their artistic practices and
sensibilities, political leanings, religious philosophy, consciously or unconsciously, but through their
art making and its by-products, they contribute in some ways to the awareness, if not the upliftment
of, the different aspects of the society they are in –arts education, economy, politics, religion and
culture.

My paper will focus specifically on how a few Baguio-based artists, by chance, contributed or linked
their art practices to cultural preservation and other art-related outreach projects.

In Tam-awan, Baguio City, nestled on a hill is a cluster of indigenous huts simulating a typical ethnic
village. It is some kind of a special-interest resort that features eight thatch-roofed Ifugao and Kalinga
huts. It is popularly known as Tam-awan Village and owned by Chanum Foundation, Inc. headed by
a well-known artist Bencab. It started in 1996 and with the help of some artists and a few profes-
sionals, the village evolved into what it is now, for some, a cultural legacy. “It just fell into my lap!”
as Bencab said. The idea of putting up a village just happened spontaneously, much like an artist
intuitively painting with no forethought whatsoever of what is to become of his final work.

We started with one hut. It was an abandoned baley an Ifugao hut sold by its owner to the group.
What is interesting in this particular architecture is that nails were not used to build it. Instead,
builders utilized dovetail joints, pegs and dowels, and rattan strip lashings. The cogon roofing was
bundled water-tight and tied to reed sticks. The hut was easily disassembled, brought down from
the mountain to the road where a truck was waiting to transport it to Baguio City. There, just like a
jigsaw puzzle, it was reassembled by skilled Ifugaos. The only purpose back then was to make it into
a tambayan of the artists.

With the advent of modernization, and for practical reasons, most Ifugaos abandoned their huts and
opted to live near the road in concrete houses or in huts with corrugated GI sheet roofing. And so,
another hut was offered to the group and was transported the same way. But more and more Ifugaos,
instead of letting their abandoned huts meet imminent destruction, wanted to sell them to the group.
It was at this point that the initial idea of cultural preservation came into existence.

Tam-awan Village is a work in progress and is still evolving up to now. Since the time it was opened
to the public in 1997, its programs keep adding, reconstructing, and refining. Aside from offering
it as a “living museum,” wherein one can have a direct contact with a simulated Ifugao village, we
also offer eco-walks which allow visitors to see interesting limestone formations, indigenous flora
and fauna, and an encompassing view of the whole Baguio City and its nearby mountain ranges and
the not-so-distant South China Sea. It is also an artist’s village which is a residence of the Tam-awan
Village Artists – a group of eight artists coming from diverse cultural backgrounds and aesthetic sen-
sibilities. They are: Alangui, Bay-an, Bencab, Elmeda, Mang-osan, Rishab, Sabado, and Tulas. These
volunteer artists are mostly the ones that carry out the village’s art-related projects.

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We have also a gallery that helps the local and young artist’s exhibit and sell their works. A coffee
shop cum craft shop shows interesting sculptures and woodcarvings, weavings, basketries, potter-
ies, and beadworks from different places in the Cordillera region. Thus, the village provides a venue
for these craftsmen – an opportunity not only to show and sell their works but, for them and for their
culture to be known and understood.

Every month of February, during the time of the Panagbenga flower festival celebration, we hold an
art festival that is a part of the National Arts Month. Part of the funding is from the National Commis-
sion for Culture and the Arts. In this event, we offer different art and crafts workshops to selected
groups like out-of-school youths, street children, the Department of Social Welfare and Develop-
ment, students, women’s and other interested groups. The workshops that we give them are: draw-
ing and painting, hand-made paper making, batik art, printmaking, solar drawing, theater, bamboo
crafts, book art, basket and textile weavings, indigenous musical instruments (making and playing),
traditional dances, mask making and arnis. We also invite local and foreign artists to take part in
installation arts, exhibits, performances, art fora and slide shows.

Through experience we realized how hard it is to organize a festival with lots of participants. Since
it was only we who grappled with all the fine details, the dirty work and logistics, there came many
times when people became physically, mentally, and emotionally challenged along the course, not to
speak of financial stress. Communication breakdown results. Things are overlooked. Schedules are
not followed and other things that should not happen happen.

Another project we have is “Adopt-a-Rice-Terrace Project.” Because of our continuous interaction

with the Ifugao people, we got to know of some abandoned rice terraces. The owner of these ter-
races was not able to maintain their crop because of many reasons, i.e. it is not profitable anymore
compared to modern planting machineries and fast-growing rice varieties of the lowlands; the farm-
ers themselves are too old to work on it; the younger generations are leaving their hometown to
find their luck in modern big cities or they go abroad. One such rice terrace in Lawigan, a sitio of
Bangaan in Ifugao, was offered to our group for purchase. From our own pockets, we bought the
land and came up with the adopt-a-rice-terrace project. We bought it but not to own it. We put it in
the name of the person who is going to take care of it, thus, perpetuating the traditional custom of
he who tills the land should own it. And it was the person from that village to whom we entrusted the
restoration of that particular land. We also employ other villagers to hasten the cleaning, stonewall-
ing, activate the irrigation and planting.

As of today, we have regular planting and harvest seasons during which some from our group visit
and participate. Aside from the print media articles, we invited the Lakbay TV crew there to docu-
ment and broadcast not only the disappearing harvest ritual but also to stir some awareness regard-
ing the ailing condition of one of our important ancient heritage –the reputed eighth wonder of the
world – the Banaue Rice Terraces. There were many favorable responses from concerned groups
and individuals who have shown interest in the said project. They were asking how to go about it and
how much does it cost to adopt a rice terrace.

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 People were saying--foreign and local tourists alike, as well as some of the Cordillera folks them-
selves, that the Tam-awan Village is extraordinary. A worthwhile effort of artists and professionals
that truly touch the lives of not only the people from the
Cordilleras, but the organizers and volunteers as well as those who come in contact with it. There
is always awe that you see in their faces. Tam-awan Village is just following its own desired course
–preservation of Cordillera culture and creating awareness of its practices – lifestyle, arts and crafts,
rituals and beliefs, and so on. Lakbay K-Tribu itself, an organization of indigenous people from all
over the country, in their countrywide tour, make Tam-awan Village one of their stops wherein they
interact with the Tam-awan Village artists, exchanging performances on each tribe’s dance and mu-
sic. This is also where they air their cultural and political sentiments and have discussions with some
NGOs and government representatives regarding cultural matters.

Yes, there is always that other side of the coin that cannot be ignored and always wanting to be seen.
There are negative comments and criticisms about the validity and sincerity of our intentions. Here
are some points that have been raised:

1) We were persuading the owners of the huts to sell them to us and forcing them to leave.-- In the
first place, all the huts that we got were abandoned and it was the owners themselves who sold
them to us. They moved near the road for easier access to transport and decided to live in a much
sturdier concrete and GI sheet house. It is more convenient for them and they free themselves from
occasional changing of rotten roofing and wooden walls. Who can blame them for making such a
choice to adopt a modern way of living and resort to modern conveniences? If no one will get those
abandoned huts, they will be left to rot in the mountains. What legacy then would we have to show
to the next generations in terms of Ifugao architecture? Together with it are the rituals, music and
dances, traditional musical and trade instruments of which all are gradually disappearing with the
invasion of modern lifestyle.

2) We are not authorities in cultural preservation. We should live with the pigs and the chickens, wear
G-strings, and adopt an ancient lifestyle and practices.--There may be some truth to that statement;
however, even the tribal elders nowadays hardly wear g-strings anymore. They are also, in some
ways, becoming comfortable in adopting modern lifestyles and practices. Many in our group are
pure Igorots. Some are half-blooded while some were just immigrants but have lived and immersed
themselves in Cordillera practices and participated in cañaos and other festivities, exchanged views
and cigars with the elders for a duration of time that they feel they are part of the culture already. It
is not our intention to pose as “authorities” of cultural preservation, rather, we are simply workers try-
ing to utilize our time and energy to be of some use to the culture that inspires us. The corresponding
consequences to our passion bear a favorable fruit no matter what it is called.

3) What makes Tam-Awan Village a living museum?--I think the term “living museum” should not be
technically explained. It should be taken as a context of the whole Tam-awan Village with its physi-
cal setup, its aim, and its programs. The whole physical structure of Tam-awan Village simulates a
typical Ifugao tribe – authentic huts of which some are more than a hundred years old (museum
pieces themselves) and situated in different elevations with terrain using stonewalling and with natu-

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ral springs running into ponds and into mini rice terraces. Inside the huts and galleries are antique
cultural artifacts. We employ Ifugaos and Kalinga to work with us, thus, the visitors can interact with
them and ask questions regarding their respective tribal practices. We hold traditional cañaos and
we invite mumbakis (tribal priests) to lead the rituals and ceremony. Likewise, cultural dancers and
musicians are invited and have an equal opportunity to present their art. Some of the huts are rented
for a fee for those who want to experience living and sleeping inside them. With the addition of an
outhouse/modern toilet and bath, futons and electricity, the huts are still authentic.

4) Tam-Awan Village is a profit-oriented, commercial business institution.-- Tam-awan Village is a

non-government establishment. It is a foundation. Although it helps in the tourism industry greatly, it
is not really a profit-making institution and a commercial business resort. Aside from private funding
from Bencab and some of its members, there are few individuals and institutions who donate in cash.
These are not enough to sustain the operation of the village. Somehow we have to generate steady
funding to make it self-sustaining. There are a lot of expenditures: employees’ monthly salaries, bills,
amusement taxes, maintenance, and so on. And so we manage to get money from charging entrance
fees; allocate certain percentages from arts and crafts sales; coffee shop sales; and from occasional
hut rentals. The cash inflow is just enough to pay for all those obligations. The aim is to make Tam-
awan Village a self-sustaining “living museum” cum artists’ village.

“Living museum,” artists’ village, cultural legacy, center for arts and culture, whatever the perception
may be, Tam-awan Village hopes to endure through time. As long as there are artists and profession-
als whose passion for art and culture still burns, “accidental” projects like this will be conceived, giv-
en birth, nurtured and hopefully will be worthwhile and be of help and inspiration to the community,
to those who come in contact with it, and to those who have similar artistic and cultural concerns.

Editor’s Note:

This section includes Tam-awan’s reply to points raised during the symposium via Santiago
Bose, this panel’s discussant and from the open forum following the panel presentation.

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 ANINO Shadowplay Collective

At present, the ANINO Shadowplay Collective is a group in search of its community. For now, with
the recent reorganization borne of lessons learned from past experiences, its community is its cur-
rent membership along with its universe of artist-friends and supporters. But the entire archipelago
(the world even) is its prospective audience. In fits and starts, whenever and wherever opportunity
presents itself, ANINO attempts to develop and propagate the art (or craft) of shadow play.

Its heyday dates back to its Philippine High School for the Arts years. That was a time of unbridled
creativity, for the group’s community was sustained by a supportive school administration, faculty,
staff, and art students and their families.

In 1992, the Cultural Center of the Philippines outreached ANINO’s art (or craft, if you will) to se-
lected towns and cities nationwide. That experience confirmed shadow play’s potential as a tool for
communication, education, and advocacy. Unfortunately, so far, it was the only time that the group

ever received government support.

Then by participating in Casa San Miguel’s annual arts festival and by conducting workshops, the
ANINO sa Zambales, composed of local youth, was born. Now, Mauban, Quezon through its annual
summer art workshops for its children and youth presented another possibility.

The two years in Diliman (first in the V. Luna area, then in Teacher’s Village) was a failed attempt to
develop a community base. ANINO did not succeed in engaging the community in which it main-
tained a studio.

For ten years, through performances, interactions, and workshops, ANINO has been seeking to
engage non-art audiences. And yet the question of whether the shadow play is art or craft remains
in many people’s minds, not excluding ANINO’s own members. Its present relationship with the
Museo Pambata has resulted in the perception of ANINO as little more than a group of party clowns
available cheaply and at a moment’s notice.

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Endorsements and/or support from cultural institutions like the CCP, Casa San Miguel, other art
groups as in the case of Mauban, and workshops are apparently the means by which ANINO and
shadow play are taken seriously as art.

As for empowerment, ANINO seeks first to empower its own members. It is hopeful, however, that
through its treatment of its repertoire of subjects (history, folklore, ecology, social justice, and oth-
ers), it contributes to the empowerment of its audience as well.

Editor’s Note:

This served as a collaboratively written script for a shadow play which stood in for the group’s paper pre-
sentation.

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 Discussant’s Response
Santiago Bose (former head of Baguio Arts Guild)

Well I would say that I’m a veteran in cultural organizing even during martial law. Noong panahon ng
martial law mahirap mag-organize dahil laging nandoon ang military at suspicious sila kung anong
ginagawa. In fact before Baguio Arts Guild, we had two organizations in Baguio that started but
failed because it ended up without a vision atsaka naging artists’ group lang na inuman ng inuman,
excuse para magka-nude sketching. So in 1986 when everyone was organizing NGOs we decided
to organize Baguio Arts Guild. Kasama ko sina Bencab (Benedicto Cabrera), sila Kidlat Tahimik
who are also now leaders in their own right sa mga art events sa city namin. But the problem got to
be more difficult when the Guild became big. It became unwieldy because of personal differences
of artists, differences of vision because what happens is that, when a leader who is an artist leads
an organization, his understanding of everything is based on his creative process. Kaya kung ang
creative process niya ay filmmaking, or spontaneous, gusto niya iyong process ng administration
spontaneous rin. At kung iyong isang artist naman pera iyong desired end ng paggawa niya ng art
parang nagiging emphasis iyong selling more than iyong vision ng guild. So the Guild went on like
that until 1993 when we held the biggest festival for 10 days and we invited many international art-
ists, about 70 artists. After that, kasi open iyong membership, pagnagkagulo walang punishment,
walang mga suspension. So pagka magulo iyong mga members--lasenggo, nagdadrugs--walang
maggawa kasi wala sa mga by-laws namin iyon. Because we think that as artists’ groups, artists
should be creative in their own situation, so for all those things we just let it be. But it got to be a
big problem for the Guild because there are a lot of members who were not destined to be artists.
It was just an excuse, because they had no jobs and because we hold free workshops, it became
an excuse for the people who had nothing to do to become artists. So humawak lang ng brush: “o
artist na raw.” And so without this critical discourse in their mind, without the dedication, without
the discipline, the idea of art becomes blurred. The idea of…the purity of, that service, the disci-
pline, gets blurred in the way of intrigues. Kaya ang nangyari dahil wala kang critical discourse,
the artists think na okay lang iyon. Kaya ang nangyari nawala na iyong vision. Pero nabago iyon
noong pagkatapos ng lindol . Naisip ng mga taga-Baguio: “buti pa iyong mga artists, pinapakain
kami” (laughs). Kaya ganoon ang nangyari. Anyway, ang pinakaimportante sigurong ididiscuss
ko dito, because I think na iyong indigenous artist, iyong organisasyon, iyong community nagig-
ing excuse for a ready audience. Laging sinasabing community, pero have we really ever gotten
a survey kung ilang Michaelangelo na ang naggawa namin? Have we gotten a survey kung ilang
artists na ang gumagawa ng art or have gone into the creative field? At isa pang nangyayari dahil
iyong mga artists kasi wala silang critical discourse, ang nangyayari para silang iyong mga Igorot
artists noong una. Iyong unang Igorot artist were indigenous artists na Filipino art ang ginagawa
pero noong bandang huli, they tried to cater to an audience, iyong tourist audience. Kaya iyong art
nila nabago na. Until now iyong carving na nakikita ninyo sa Baguio is a result of the artistic drive

86
ng mga craftsmen to become artists na walang critical discourse. Kasi ganoon ang nangyayaring
nakikita ko sa visual arts--hindi nila alam kung ano ang siniserve ng art nila, basta makabenta lang
kasi wala silang jobs so it becomes a good excuse to do something. Pero just making art na selling,
parang iyon na ang nagiging end, nagiging problematic. In fact, ang nangyayari, na-accuse iyong
mga artists sa Baguio of using indigenous symbols without returning the symbols to the rightful
owners in terms of economic help, without empowerment. For example, gamit ng gamit iyong mga
artists ng bulul. Pero sino ang nag-eenjoy ng economic gain noon? Iyong mga Baguio artists. Pero
napupunta ba iyong pera na iyon sa mga communities? Siguro. Siguro iyong ibang mga artists
mayroon silang in their own way, pero walang concerted effort to do it. Kaya malaking scam rin
iyan kung tutuusin mo dahil nagiging excuse lang talaga iyong paggamit ng community kung hindi
tama iyong vision ng mga artist at napapababa ang antas ng indigenous creativity because of the
lack of understanding of indigenous tribes. For example iyong Tam-awan, for me nagiging parang
Disneyland na pinupuntahan ng mga tao. “A ito ba iyong indigenous culture? Ito ba iyong mga
ano?” Actually the only way to understand indigenous culture is to live in the Igorot communities, to
live with the pigs, to see how they eat, work, and how they make a living. So naroromanticize iyong
idea ng indigeneity in places like Baguio kaya nagiging problematic rin iyon.

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 Session 4:
Cultural Work and Community Collaboration

As artists and cultural workers begin to work at the community level with local arti-
sans, the issue of the preservation of indigenous art and lifeways is raised alongside
the issue of a community’s prospect for a sustainable economy. This session looks
at existing collaborations between artists and communities and their efforts toward
making art a viable form of livelihood, a tool for community bridging, and a medium
for cultural sustainability and preservation. Metropolitan Museum of Manila Direc-
tor Victorino Manalo served as moderator of this session.

Four speakers shared their experiences and insights. These are the highlights of the
open forum:

Norbetro Roldan: The Tam-awan artists claim their village is a “living

museum.” How do they understand that claim?

Rishab Tibon (Tam-awan): The huts are museum pieces. Most of the
huts are authentic—more than 100 years old. For example, we recently took
an eight-sided hut called a binayon. So few of these huts remain that we only
found three. If we didn’t place them in Tam-awan, we wouldn’t be able to
preserve them. Now, when you go to Tam-awan, you’ll see an actual binayon
hut. In a way, it’s a [living] museum because you see [a living example of a
binayon hut].

Boyet de Mesa (Ugat-Lahi): How do you tackle livelihood issues in

the communities you work in? As for the issue of empowerment, has the land
been given back to them?

Brenda Fajardo (Hanao-Hanao): For me, land reform should be ac-

companied by community organization and development work. Because they
come from a feudal culture, they’ll probably imitate the landlords that came
before them. A lot of work has to be done in the political domain. In the case
of livelihood, we’re initiating biodynamic agriculture to address the issue of
food security.

Eloi Hernandez (Baglan): After buying [huts] for Tam-awan, do you feel
a deeper responsibility to the community that sold you the [huts]? Is there any
thought to improving their lives or is it simply about buying and preserving a
physical structure?

Rishab Tibon: It’s not our main concern to improve the lifestyle of the
people who sell their houses to us. But [by purchasing the huts], we help them

88
improve their houses by [giving them the means] to build stronger, concrete
houses.

Unidentified speaker: How necessary is it to establish an art com-

munity outside of Metro Manila? Isn’t it more accessible (sic) to have an art
community within Metro Manila?

Brenda Fajardo: I’m not establishing an art community in Negros. It’s [an
actual] community, and what I’m doing is revitalizing the cultural forms that
they have not been engaging in anymore. The call is for artists to work with
communities to make art part of the cultural life of the people. It will strength-
en the people. If you create art, you are enriching yourself as a person.

Santiago Bose (Baguio Arts Guild): As artists, it’s very important

to have a very definite understanding and respect for the community we’re
working with. It’s important to ask basic questions like: ‘Who are artists serv-
ing? Why are we doing this art? Who is our audience?’ If we are faithful to our
line of vision as creative people, things will work out fine.

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Session 5:
Art and Civil Society
 Locus: Art and Civil Society
Imelda Cajipe-Endaya

Case 1: KASIBULAN
Woman as Artist and Citizen:
Parallels between the personal and the collective

A harassed woman, her patriarch-husband cold and unfeeling, a bored dog -- this terracotta tableaux
called Philippine Gothic Julie Lluch was modeling was a narrative of the gender politics then inform-
ing her life. Bintana ni Ninay, a woman peering by a sawali window, wind blowing grandmother’s
torn laces, mother’s old crochet, and my curtains, was a reflection of my own isolation as woman
and those before me who had struggled for self-transformation. Mystical albeit sensuous intertwining
of foliage and woman’s torso functioned as Anna Fer’s visual diary as she confronted her feeling of
aloneness amidst caring for home and children. The baraha or tarot was Brenda Fajardo’s way of
ordering her views of woman’s role in society, revolution, and history, as she went about her tasks
as a teacher. Ida Bugayong was tooling and stitching hide, canvas, and ethnic weaves onto bags,
shoes, and belts, even as she questioned her role as artist and provider for a dozen craft workers
in her Garahe shop.

Civil society refers to the social framework of everyday life. State ideally refers to a disinterested
and humane political framework that regulates and provides direction to human affairs. Isolation,
rooted in woman’s reproductive biology and social mandate of care-giving -- whether in nursing our
offspring as in the cases of Julie, Anna, and myself, or in caring for dying parents as in the cases
of Ida and Brenda -- is our circumstance. In our own art, we are steeped in the situation of woman
as a subjugated being apropos husband or father. Yet fired up by the myth of nation and vision of
identity and liberation, our matter-of-fact experiences and day-to-day struggles thrust the course of
self-knowledge as pre-requisite to becoming initiators in the historical process.

The state’s neutral and selfless position ruling over human affairs is a delusion, as the state itself is
very much a result of conflicts of social life, not mediating but imposing domination of one class over
the rest of society, or of one political power over another, or of male over female. The post-Marcos
era witnessed the rise of many forms of popular initiatives then called cause-oriented groups, chal-
lenging the supremacy not only of the state but also of political parties. Recognizing the inequities
and insufficiency of both state and most organizations in addressing the woman question, we came
together as Kababaihan sa Sining at Bagong Sibol na Kamalayan or Kasibulan, a collective com-
mitment to art practice and exchange that would contribute to our own transformation as women, as
Filipinos, and as artists.

We lined up our goals: to provide members with opportunities for creativity, growth, and self-suf-
ficiency; to promote women’s arts and crafts; to expand the social, economic, political, and cultural
consciousness of women artists and Filipino women in general through the arts; to consciously work
for the development of distinct women’s expressions in language, symbols, imagery, values, and
beliefs; to nurture and sustain sisterhood among its members; and to link its members with the larger
community of artists and women’s groups here and abroad.

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In my work, I often criticized “straight in your face,” pointing out root causes existing within the social
and political structure. In Kasibulan’s first five years, we emphasized projects in partnership with
NG0s that criticized the conditions in women’s work, health, and overseas labor migration. On its
seventh year, members objected that Kasibulan was much too outward-looking, leaving behind the
inner development of its individual members. We were told that socio-political orientation was be-
coming a dictate of a few leaders rather than an initiative of its larger membership. What right or ef-
fectiveness could middle-class women artists speak for what she was not -- DH, Japayuki, or Japina?
Were we confusing art with social work? Did we actually help solve problems of those we purported
to benefit with our outreach? Baidy Men-
doza disagreed about focusing on nega-
tivity. She asked, “In so doing, were we
not encouraging victimization rather than
achieving self-redemption?” Flaudette
May Datuin, referring to my Hulagpos
cautioned that Inang Bayan, so popularly
used by male and female artists of the
anti-Marcos nationalist movement, was
entrapping woman in myth and traditional
mold. Yes, the woman in feudal bondage
should imaginatively free herself, use
fresh modes of resistance, and play more
productive roles.

Baidy, Lia Tayag, Myrna Arceo, Charito

Bitanga, Cecil de Leon, all avid terracotta
practitioners, willed Kasibulan’s departure
from its critical stance and high-profile ad-
vocacy. Their concern was to steer a direc-
tion of joy and celebration in women’s art.
Soon most every one of us was fashioning sculpture, jewelry, cups, dishes, and mobiles from clay.
Anonymous and childlike verve pervaded its ventures in luad and papier mache. Soon the Princesa
Urduja, Maria Makiling, Marcela Marcelo, Marcela Agoncillo heroes of legend and revelation took
shape as charming dolls that injected fun and familiarity into the national centennial celebrations.
Like these moves, the “Bai Art in Craft” exhibit in 2000 was a step toward the interchangeable func-
tion of art and craft, as these both meant technical skill, spontaneity, play, consciousness of design,
and practical use. Baidy underscores craft’s role in shaping us to become true artists instead of art
celebrities

Contradictions will continue to battle within an artist’s inner being. Art is my life, my vocation, my
meditation, my profession, and my social service. The burdens of such aesthetic attitude become
bearable as I take great pleasure in sensually delighting over the sights, color, and texture of every-
day things, magnifying simple situations, even moments of domestic drudgery into imagined social
history. Fetish for experimental, accidental nuances waiting for a “voila” is a reality for any true artist
of whatever persuasion. Often, work that spontaneously springs from the subconscious, as one’s

93
 spirituality blooms in isolation, is the most successful. My craft is my meditation -- a process of cen-
tering myself and clarifying the disorder in and around me.

The upside of depicting victimization and root causes is in its provoking a sense of urgency to solve
issues. Its downside is that these could be viewed with acquiescence and resignation. My criticism
has evolved, as I realize we must celebrate rather than flagellate. The upside of depicting joy and
celebration is that these affirm positive qualities. Its downside is that it could become escapist and
illusory. The upside of isolation is that it helps an artist focus and deepen her craft and outlook. Its
downside is that one could lose context and dialogue with audience. Thus we see the need to bal-
ance one with the other.

In her aloneness, Paz Abad Santos deliriously stitches and knots abaca fibers onto burlap with co-
conut shells, seeds, and painting. To break her seclusion, she welcomed Kasibulan to nest in her
home. Her hand-fashioned roof garden of vines, ponds, and hammocks was monthly setting for us
to recreate ourselves and strengthen our ties. Soon, anecdotes, great fun, and laughter substituted
the serious fora and artists’ talks we used to have. I thought Kasibulan was fast becoming an amity
sorority. Though looking back today, Lia defends this period as an effective medicine to Kasibulan’s
organizational woes. Once Brenda and I chuckled that the group was turning into a “sewing circle.”
In no time, we awakened to the fact that we found ourselves stitching, embroidering, and patching
images of ourselves and mementoes of our lives onto rags, shawls, dusters, curtains, and sheets
into the collective exhibit “Tahi-Tagning Talambuhay” of 1997. Like the kambay cloth of the babaylan,
Fe Mangahas likened our piecing together of tapestries to empowering acts of undoing patriarchal
myths.

In no time, Paz and Alma were literally establishing a trend of stitching and sewing art with Marge,
Maria, Aster, Tala, Tita, and the rest. Many remain reluctant about accepting an ideological feminist
structure. Yet developing distinct women’s expressions in language, symbols, and imagery within the
context of rediscovering indigenous spiritual values proved to be a unifying vision. The confluence
of clay, fiber, and textile was inevitable. Pottery as a function of women’s nourishing role and weav-
ing as a function of her duty to clothe and protect her family have made clay and textile the domain of
women, being in their private spaces, while men’s physical prowess hurled them to the public sphere
of economic and political conquest. Even if in truth, many women today do half or most of a family’s
earning, the woman continues to carry the double burden of prioritizing her home-keeping role, thus
is the shaping of her worldview and her art, says Thelma Kintanar (1999). John Ruskin’s thought that
“man’s power is active, progressive, defensive, speculative; Woman’s intellect is not for invention or
creation, but sweet ordering and praise” has long been rejected. And the special characterization of
women’s art being biologically determined or as an extension of her domesticity has been dismissed
as western, 19th century, and bourgeois (Pollock and Parker, 1981). Yet, the artists of Kasibulan, unaf-
fected by such articulations, seize materials and images of their own confinement only to use them
critically and creatively to their advantage.

Alma Quinto reclaims the bed from male hegemony as she sews the babaylan’s mattress. According
to her, “Ang aking likhang sining ay tungkol sa pagsanib ng itinuturing na hiwalay -- ang katawan at
kaluluwa -- at binigyan ko ito ng bagong kahulugan ayon sa aking karanasan bilang babae.” Nadi

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Xavier, on painting about clutter of clothes and sheets in her house, says: “Ang mga karanasan sa
buhay ng babae ay para bang mga damit na nagkasabit-sabit, nagkabuhul-buhol at nagkadikit-dikit.
Habang pinagpipilitan niyang makaluwag sa pagkakabuhol ay lalo naman siyang napapahigpit sa
pagkatali. Napapalala ito ng kanyang hangaring makawala at maging malaya.” Rhoda Recto, who
intensively worked and researched on indigo dyes on textiles, adds: “Ang paghanda ng tela para
sa pagkulay ay gaya ng paghihirap ng isang tao. Ang paghanda ng pangkulay na ‘nila’ ay parang
paraan ng pagpapalinis-sarili. Habang ipinakukulo ito ay patuloy na inihahalo at mas mamamasdan
ang pag-ikot ng alimpuyo.”

Alimpuyo, the spiral, is Kasibulan’s force, spirit, and symbol. It is about the cycle of birthing and dy-
ing, about stirring the soup in the pot, turning the threads at loom’s edge, about swirling magentas
with white and blue to make a lavender, whisking the white with the yolk, the moon appearing and dis-
appearing from sight, of the planet revolving on its axis around the sun. Kasibulan as an organization
is also a spiral, working in circles and clusters instead of hierarchies. It is a continuing pagsibol.

Outsiders comment that after 13 years, Kasibulan has gained mileage and popularity, yet no one re-
members a singularly strong collective art piece. Perhaps they are waiting for a dominant visual style
that would make public impact. But the impact of Kasibulan is precisely in its being a non-exclusive
organization open to all women in art across disciplines who are willing to work for its vision and
goals. Women painting flowers, still life, the feminine, graceful, delicate and decorative, and doing
printmaking -- these images and crafts which correspond so well to the role of abnegation and devo-
tion -- are accepted as members. The danger of retrogressing into women’s stereotyped values and
of her art sliding back into new versions of cute parlor paintings is real. Yet the true feminists among
us constantly and patiently keep us awake in gender consciousness-raising.

How has Kasibulan fared in providing its members with opportunities for creativity, growth, and self-
sufficiency? It has provided wide opportunities of sisterhood support and exposure, yes. But on
the level of aesthetic, the organization can be more determinate in self-critiquing in order to deepen
its discourse on women’s art practice. Jurying, curating, and excellence remain to be such feared
words among us, as though these ideas are antithesis of women empowerment and democracy.
Inheriting Antonio Gramsci’s Rx -- that class, in our case, gender, should develop its own “organic
intellectuals”--indeed women artists should synthesize their own actual experiences as women and
those of their fellow women in order to formulate ways of truly attaining their aspirations.

As Sandra Torrijos passed the torch to Edda Amonoy, Lorna Israel appraised the organization of
learning to value and quantify Kasibulan’s work in terms of the time, resources, and money that
individual members voluntarily put in. While we have come together for empowerment, such omis-
sion backfires on us as the woman/mother/housewife’s unrecognized and unpaid labor. Kasibulan’s
roster of members is an inventory of talent and resources and it could very well develop a profes-
sional group to further empower its individual members and the organization in economic and social
spheres.

The collective, like the person, is body and soul in one. Side by side, teen or 70, single, married,
separated, grandmother, mother, daughter, sister, straight, or lesbian, we link hands for acceptance
and equality. Kasibulan’s meaning and impact have been in the emergence and visibility of more and
more women artists and their work. Across diversity of outlook, approaches, and chosen media,

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 Kasibulan artists work to express the transforming and transformative worldview of Filipino women
in the spirit of openness, freedom, and solidarity to attain their fullest human potential. The dynamic
pursuit of feminist values and experimentation in feminist (or femaleist? womanist?) art is a continu-
ing challenge.

Case 2: The WOWB Project: Women and men in mutual gaze

Flattering or confronting?

The bovine woman was headless, its torso violently slashed open. Without viscera, it resembled
a giant vagina. Some perceived the mutilated body as sinking into its bed of black volcanic sand;
others saw the body as arising from it. Who said Agnes Arellano’s Red Carcass in red cement was
high art? Easily, this piece arrested the attention of men and women who came to the city hall and
alternative spaces (of Lipa in Batangas, Vigan in Ilocos Sur, and Cebu from 2000 to 2002) to view
the “Who Owns Women’s Bodies“ (WOWB) exhibit. Women exclaimed: “Trabahong kalabaw talaga
ang babae.” The men looked disturbed, as they heard women comment about being battered and
used inhumanly. On the other hand, the same work ambiguously asserted that woman could have
been entitled to the same bestiality/glory reserved only for the men.

Katti Sta. Ana’s Sex Curio Shop displayed a magenta panty, virginity soap, a bottle of pamparegla
(aborficient), condoms, a headless Barbie doll, cheap paper dolls of Rosalinda, a pap-smear report
revealing a monogamous woman acquiring a sexually transmitted disease, and a crushed anthurium.
The men were particularly enticed, but after a long gaze, they read the feminine disgust over macho
hegemony and the double standard of morality. Blushing high school and college boys and girls, and
their teachers were uncomfortably led into having to ask questions about sexual pleasure, reproduc-
tive health, and women’s rights to planned pregnancies.

Cecil de Leon’s Mga Susong Maalindog revealed milk glands, lumps, bumps, tumor, lesions, and
rot from cancer; some breasts were flaccid, another was a rubber teat. Families gazed at these with
familiarity. Many tried to recall when their last exam for breast cancer was. Cristina Taniguchi‘s Red
Banshee I was self-explanatory -- of how a beaten wife endured her battering until she finally decided
on a separation.

Such art by women do take exception to John Berger’s (1972) observation that in conventional art,
women are still “depicted in a different way to men -- because the ‘ideal’ spectator is assumed to be
male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him.” He adds that many paintings of female
nudes reflect woman’s submission to “the owner of both woman and the painting.” And that their
sexual imagery is frontal -- whether literally or metaphorically -- because the sexual protagonist is
the spectator-owner that beholds it. He was of course referring to art of the western renaissance,
but scholars of Bergerian influence say that this outlook in many paintings and advertising images
still do prevail up to today.

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The Gaze

This brings us to the much debated issue of the gaze. My daughter Trinka recently did a qualitative
market study (Lowe Inc.) among working wives and mothers of the C, D, and E economic-social
groups, from which I learned that women now see men as a source of anxiety rather than as provider,
that they matter-of-factly accept their multiple roles as worker, nurturer, and breadwinner; yet they
continue wanting to image themselves as women -- attractive and personable. Reluctant about be-
ing complimented by members of the opposite sex other than their husbands, their claim to looking
attractive is a source of esteem for her children, her family, and peers. I do not hesitate to add that
women of my peer group like to look good because it adds to woman’s own wholeness and self-
esteem. The sight of a personable person makes day-to-day affairs more pleasant and easy to deal
with. Any woman of course, through youth and age, enjoys being desired by her partner.

Theorists distinguish the gaze from the look. Look is a generic act of perceiving. Gaze implies a
gendered desire. It is said that the one who gazes seems to have power over the one gazed at. The
object of the gaze is like a commodity in a display case: desirable and obtainable. The eye of the
camera and the eye of the audience, according to this theory, are male. And in the act of looking,
and being looked upon, the male is active, the female is passive. Let us examine how this theory is
tested in more WOWB works.

Lena Cobangbang’s Blue Film Love is a light box of video stills where a young woman undresses,
bathes, and delights at examining herself, imaginably at a clandestine tryst with her lover in a seedy
Manila motel. With the male gaze already considered as a feminist cliché for referring to the voy-
euristic way in which men look at women as their possession, the reluctant artist cautions us about
overreading her work: “What you see is what you get” is all she says. A favorite among young view-
ers, Lena’s image, as read by them, shows that a woman’s value as person is no longer measured
by her virginity or sexual experience.

Still there are varying interpretations of the gaze. Psychoanalyst Joshua Meyrowitz states that a per-
son of high status normally has the right to look at a lower status person for a long time, even stare
him or her up and down, while the lower status person is expected to avert his or her eyes. On the
other hand, media, and broadcast practitioners say that the more powerful personages do not look
straight into the camera’s lens, but away, to a distant direction; and that it is mostly the weak, the chil-
dren, the naïve, those from isolated cultures, who stare into the camera or the beholder. In our own
culture, looking straight in the eye as one converses is a sign of sincerity and truthfulness. Ligaya
and Rosa in Norberto Roldan’s Around the World: Ongoing, though decorative objects of servility
during the Japanese occupation, do stare straight into the camera or the beholder’s eye. The artist
has transposed their image into a new setting -- an advertising banner and light box. The two brown
geishas’ presence as women is no longer passive as it first seems to be. Quietly evoking guilt and
invoking redress, Ligaya and Rosa stare to undo the hegemonic gaze.

Crowds at the Cebu City Hall gazed at the frontal nude in Brenda Fajardo’s Ang Sagot ay Ako which
seemed to gaze back at them, announcing that her spirituality and wholeness ruled over her sexual-
ity. Viewers exerted effort at reading the galactic symbols and texts around her body. My Katawan
Ko, Pasiya Ko is also a frontal nude. The blue, unabashed matron gazes back at its viewer to declare

97
 her right over her own sexual pleasure and reproductive faculty. Viewers tell me that gloves signified
to them a doctor’s or an outsider’s intrusion, although my intent was woman choosing protection.
What these works propose is not a staring down or a fighting back, but rather a shared gaze of un-
derstanding, equality, and responsibility.

Andres Barrioquinto’s Umbilical did engage the public successfully in spite of or because of its sheer
ugliness and foreboding. It was the womenfolk of Lipa who brought to us their interpretation that the
pusod was actually a giant IUD jutting from a haggard, aging abdomen. The battered desperation of
an overused torso says it all: a body owned by too many children.

When excellent art communicates, life responds

The mandate from the Creative Collective Center Inc. and the Ford Foundation was that the project
should provoke progressively oriented discussions on women’s sexual and reproductive health is-
sues and rights. My goal was to synthesize artistic excellence and advocacy. I knew that exhibiting
works by freethinking, outstanding artists, who were known for their art and not for social causes, put
my mandate at risk. But my confidence in the choice of artists proved me largely right. Contemporary
and “fine” arts are not the privilege of the rich few to understand. People who have never stepped
into art galleries nor taken an art appreciation course indeed are capable of dialogues on art. Their
everyday experiences, illuminated by sheer common sense, their folk values and folklore, enable
them to respond to art.

A janitor in Cebu approached me to say how deeply she and her co-workers were touched by the
WOWB exhibit, and that cleaning the exhibition area every day gave them the opportunity to ex-
change opinions about the art and the messages they conveyed. Full of enthrallment and empathy,
she tearfully related her painful life story as a battered wife and a single parent of two young kids.
To my surprise, she cited as favorite Genara Banzon’s Alagaan Kababaihan, a video-text-installation
done in avant-garde mode. It brought out the profundity of woman’s true being as her body was
compared to nature’s elements. She perceived that the work was fulfilling the mission which the title
stated.

Alfredo Esquillo’s Pagpapaiya, Julie Lluch’s Muslim Woman, Dan Raralio’s Encargada, and Geral-
dine Javier’s Little Girl Blue triptych never failed to convince the public that these were their idea
of what art is -- masterful in craftsmanship and evocative in their narrative of the woman’s dilemma
about her biology and social circumstance.

On the other hand, Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan’s Who’s Gonna Clean the Toilet validates my belief
in art as an effective advocacy tool. It succeeded in bringing the discourse of “what is art” and “what
is life” to the street level. In Cebu, it was a cordoned romper room in the middle of a public waiting
room where human traffic flowed and tambays lolled while waiting for official business. “Ah, kasama
pala sa art exhibit iyan? Akala ko may nagdala ng mga anak nila at nag-iwan ng kalat nila dito!” ex-
claimed Nonong (not his real name). And so Freddie Aquilizan and Nonong came to discuss men’s
and women’s roles in the family and art. Women easily related to the chaotic clutter in its charming
setting of pink. It elicited varied remarks such as: “Ang babae nga naman, habang buhay ba maglil-

98
igpit ng kalat sa bahay?” Or “Why does such chaos have to happen when woman leaves the home?”
Upon reading the scripted text “Kinsay maglimpyo sa kasilyas?” the woman janitor muttered: “Of
course it is all the same at home and at work -- it is me who will clean the toilet.” Thus the discourse
was not just textual or visual; it was about gender issues as lived in ordinary lives.

A conservative member of the Sangguniang Bayan in Lipa advised me against exhibiting Karen
Flores’s Sumalangit, Sumalupa, as she considered it sacrilegious and offensive. It showed the tra-
ditional image of the Mother of Perpetual Help, lace studded with amorseko and what looked like
drops of semen. It was placed on the floor together with a silken pillow and breakfast plate of two
fried eggs. I nevertheless installed it, qualifying that the artist is free to express how in her view the
church is unsympathetic to women’s call for self-decision on her reproductive faculties, and that a
mature audience could certainly take these debates in stride. I had to deal with similar apprehensions
in Bohol. On a first Friday in Lipa, city hall employees moved bulletin boards to screen off the exhibit
space so that the Red Carcass and Joel Alonday’s Lusong, a mortar phallus and pestle womb eas-
ily referred to as pinakabastos, would be out of sight. The priest would celebrate Mass and people
would venerate the image of the Blessed Virgin. After Mass or Rosary, the screens would be put
away and crowds would again queue around the sculptures and continue to discuss the WOWB art
pieces.

In Bangkok, 20 women from EMPOWER, a Thai NGO advocating sex workers’ rights, visited WOWB
and thoroughly discussed with Rochit Tañedo and Palmy Pe their own issues as incited by the WOWB
art works. National and cultural identity did not matter, nor did the artists’ celebrity status. What mat-
tered was the fact that here were art pieces that evoked feelings and experiences from their own
lives. Jose Tence Ruiz’s BalatKami-BalatKayo (Skin and Disguise) and Arellano’s Red Carcass
were their favorites. They easily saw in them their own physical/emotional pains and the social stigma
of being in their occupation. To feminists, Al Manrique’s Urban Legend No.80 epitomizes male hys-
teria over women’s fight for equal rights. To most, it was literally interpreted without value judgment
as either male or female seeking a sex change. Lesbian advocate Irma Lacorte’s Araling Panlipunan
is a series of jailed pad papers with text from the Scriptures and a lesbian almanac. Some thought
her approach too rigid and constricting. Others thought it was quietly and reflectively liberating. In-
terpretation worked both ways with some empathizing with the equal acceptance of lesbians, while
the fundamentalist others choosing to focus only on the passages of rebuke. These bring us to the
awareness of the multiplicity of interpretation vis-à-vis intention.

Each of the over 30 works in WOWB deserves rereading, examining, and commenting by popular
viewers who encountered and related each one to their own lives. That certainly deserve another
book. On the whole, for me, as artist and curator, WOWB was a fulfilling process. It included work-
shops among artists, doctors, and health workers. In the end, artists became more informed of
reproductive health issues and practices, while the doctors learned to make their lectures richer
with art as illustrations. In most places where the exhibit traveled, we reached out to local artists
and non-government organizations. The Burnay Collective Workshop on sexuality in Vigan and the
Production and Reproduction Workshop in Cebu are best remembered for the harvest of new works
on the theme -- notably those by Palmy Pe, Nelia Lungay, Raymund Fernandez, Cris Rollo, and Radel
Paredes. WOWB’s cultural gains may never translate into numbers. Yet, in spite of the freedom and
plurality in beliefs and approaches of the artists, their art did provoke debates on women’s reproduc-

99
 tive rights, eliciting opinions and viewpoints, and media promotions we never imagined. The ques-
tion “who owns women’s bodies?” was variedly answered: her husband, the doctor, the church, the
pharmaceutical companies, her children, nature, herself, her Maker. That art can stimulate people
into dialogue and spur men to open their minds to women’s thoughts and situation, is a success in
itself.

Is there a Way of Feminizing the Universe?

Some eight years ago, I ended an article I wrote on Filipino women’s art thus: Is there a way of femi-
nizing the universe? It was rhetorical then. Today, after two years of traveling the WOWB exhibit, I
find myself appreciating our gains, yet I continue to keep an open mind in trying to understand what
gender has meant and what it continues to mean to my life, my art practice, and our collectives.

I decided I was a feminist only after Sr. Mary John Mananzan defined feminism as consisting only of
two things: recognition that woman is the marginalized sex, and a willingness to work toward rectify-
ing this imbalance through one’s chosen work.

Today, even as law, governments, the United Nations, and civil society have institutionalized feminist
strategies, many women and men still resist or even fear feminism. Most men, whether in a joking
or threatening manner, simply dismiss it either as unimportant or as a reflection of distorted moral
values. Perhaps they think the women’s movement is a monolithic feminist ideology when actually
we should be referring to feminisms rather than feminism. Not even all art made by feminists is nec-
essarily feminist. Kasibulan itself is an illustration that feminism (womanism?) is all about a diverse
range of beliefs and practices.

Pecson Fernandez asks, “If women are the best men in the Philippines (said Gov-Gen. Leonard
Wood), why are they invisible in history?” My question is, “Is there a way of feminizing the universe?”
Our vision is to change the nature of art itself: constantly transforming culture in effective and new
ways where the previously suppressed perspective of women in these largely masculine histories of
republics, factors of production, and unfinished revolutions, will be made visible. For example, un-
derstanding that gender is a social construct rather than a natural given is one triumph of feminism.
The extensive validation today of craft as art, and the invalidation of the cult of genius, originality, and
greatness in world art are another. All these gains have contributed to the postmodern awareness
that behind the hegemonic hold of universality lie various shared knowledge and wisdoms of peculiar
viewpoints and particular biases. And these we have arrived at because feminists have established
a new leverage of thinking, looking, critiquing, and creating the female experience.

And so we must go on.

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References

Berger, John. (1972). Ways of Seeing. London: Pelican.

Chandler, David. (n.d.). Notes on “The Gaze.” Retrieved July 6, 2000, from www.aber.ac.uk.

David, Randy. (2002, July 14). “The Spirit of Civil Society.” Philippine Daily Inquirer p. A9.

Kasibulan. (2001). Alimpuyo [Exhibition Catalogue].

Kintanar, Thelma & Ventura, Sylvia M. (1999). Self Portraits: Twelve Filipina Artists Speak.
Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.

Parker, Roszika & Pollock, Griselda. (1981). Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.; Pantheon Books.

Pecson Fernandez, Albina. (1996). If women are the best men in the Philippines, why are they
invisible in history. Review of Women’s Studies, (5)2, (6)1, pp. 123-140.

Stillo, Monica & Gauntlett, David J. (n.d). Gramscianism in Communication Matters. Retrieved
July 6, 2000, from the Institute of Communication Studies, University of Leeds Web site: www.
theory.org.uk.

Tañedo, Rochit. (Ed.). (2002). Who Owns Women’s Bodies. Quezon City: Creative Collective
Center and Ford Foundation.

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 Art Esteem
Katti Sta. Ana

Art Esteem is a project of Arugaan ng Kalakasan in collaboration with the Women and Development
Program, College of Social Work and Community Development, University of the Philippines, Dili-
man, Quezon City, and supported by The British Council. It consisted of an art residency and touring
exhibition, the objective of which was to encourage young women -- through the medium of art -- to
communicate to their peer group the importance of developing self-esteem as a deterrent against
abuse in intimate relationships. I served as coordinator of the project.

The Pre-Art Residency Symposia

In order to draw in applicants into the residency, symposia on self-esteem and its connection to Vio-
lence Against Women (VAW) were held from November to December 1999 prior to the residency. It
was titled Babae, Sining at Pakikipagrelasyon. A total of six symposia were held in five schools. The
objectives of these symposia were to inspire young women about their own individual possibilities
through the work of established women artists, and to involve them in discussions about self-esteem,
its importance, and its relationship to the prevention of the abuse of women in intimate relationships.
Alma Quinto was the resource person for the symposia held at the College of Social Sciences and
Philosophy in UP Diliman where she talked about the role of art for the sexually abused child as
derived from her experiences in giving workshops at Cribbs. Staff from Arugaan ng Kalakasan gave
support on gender issues in the symposia. For the symposia in St. Scholastica’s College Manila,
Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Miriam College, Ateneo de Manila, and the UP College
of Fine Arts, I presented and talked about my artworks which have stark women’s issues in them.
Some of these were: May Pera sa Japan (about the japayuki and the mail-order bride), Ano Daw?
(about the sexualization of women’s breasts), and Boxed (about “Bing” -- a survivor of domestic
violence who sought help from Arugaan ng Kalakasan). The symposia were fulfilling experiences for
me. Students came expecting to attend a boring talk required by their teachers. They did not expect
to laugh, to be transfixed by the show of art via slides, and to learn about things so ingrained in our
lives -- things that bring women down and make less of men. The audience was stimulated. I was
stimulated as well by their interest. Talking also made me understand better.

The Residency

A total of ten young women were selected to attend the Art Esteem Residency held at a quaint
house perched atop a cliff in Reumax’s Place in Puerto Galera, Mindoro from January 27 to 31,
2000. Their ages ranged from 16 to 26 years old. They were selected based on their answers to
essay questions, samples of their artworks, their Art Esteem artwork proposal, and their interview.
Out of these ten young women, four attended the residency based upon high recommendations
given by teachers of the UP College of Fine Arts Studio Arts Department, the Ateneo Department of
Interdisciplinary Studies, and the St. Scholastica’s Fine Arts Department. Out of the ten, three were
non-Fine Arts students. Out of the ten, two came from the Ateneo, seven from UP, and one from St.

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Scholastica’s College. During the residency, among their first concerns were to present and polish
the concepts behind the works they intended to make. Each participant presented her proposed
artwork and its theme or message for open critique and discussion. The facilitators and other partici-
pants voiced out reactions, questions, and suggestions in carefully selected words and in a highly
constructive manner.

Lisa Cariño Ito, one of the ten young women-participants of the residency, wrote:

Personally, I appreciated this collective process of creating. Usually, the creative process is
regarded as a grossly individual method; the artist being the sole Maker, the first and final
arbiter of the finished work. What this view leaves out is the artist’s dependence on externali-
ties, on the world which she directly experiences and reacts to, and how such an environment
allows for the production of her art. Even the materials she uses are, in some way, controlled
by external forces. Nowadays, my personal sentiment is that the work isn’t mine entirely, but
a conglomeration of various inputs and reactions from everyone.

This process of art critiquing worked well for these young women. Being young and still somewhat
unsure of their own creative processes, they welcomed the suggestions and comments made by
their peers and the facilitators of the residency as part of their own creative process. As a result,
they were able to improve on their concepts, clarify their ideas, and select the best method and/or
material appropriate to their concept and technical abilities.

Art-making constituted half of the activities during the residency. The other half centered on sharing
and discussions on gender issues, violence against women, and self-esteem. Lisa further reflected:

However confined to the personal realm it seemed, our discussion eventually gave way to
the realization of self-esteem’s relation to economic and social contingencies. While our own
initial conceptions of self-esteem were coming from a relatively privileged standpoint, the
same cannot be said for women from other locations and of different ethnic backgrounds
and economic status, whose experiences differed from those of otherwise unperturbed col-
lege students. How does one advocate self-esteem then to those on the bottom side of the
triangle, how does one invoke the freedom to choose to those who do not have much of a
choice in the first place?

This same concern was raised by a young man from the Ateneo at one of the symposia prior to the
residency. He was seeking advice on how to encourage impoverished young teenage girls from his
outreach volunteer work to discover their individual possibilities as young women. It seemed to him
that unlike young women from privileged backgrounds, impoverished young women can not seem
to dream beyond the conditions of their own poverty. I searched my mind for a positive answer and
came up with the suggestion that he bring into his outreach a young woman who could serve as an
inspiration or role model for the teenagers.

During the residency, art books and readings were liberally stacked in the living area for everyone to
leaf through to help “inspire” the young artists in the creation of their artworks. Alma Quinto talked

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 about her own processes as an artist, what circumstances and motivations influenced the production
of her art. As the place generously offered it, the young artists also had the chance to create several
pieces of environmental art by the beach. Rituals and prayers were said in the morning and at the
end of each day. They were incantations to celebrate the power of women, to strengthen resolve,
commitment, and sisterhood.

The two rituals were set-off by the following texts:

Prayer by a Body of Water

A stone is thrown into the water

And the stone made waves
Spreading, reaching the edge
Let us throw stones into the dead calm water
No matter from which end
No matter how small the stone no matter how small the wave
The water is like the world
The water is like people’s minds
The water is like sisterhood
The water is like human bondage
The water is like chains of oppression and abuse
The water is like many others
The stone brings awakening
The wave is a movement
And the movement spreads
When all of us
Who stand together from different ends keep throwing our little stones
The wave will never cease
Til the water starts bubbling with life
Til the water makes its own spring… (adapted from an Asian Women’s Consultation ritual, from the book
Woman and Religion Send-Off)

We celebrate the power of women.

We celebrate ourselves.
Within each of us is life, light and love.
Within each of us lie the seeds of power and glory.
Our bodies can touch with love,
Our hands and hearts can heal;
Our minds can seek out faith, truth and justice.
Together we can make change.
Together we can make a difference.

We give you thanks for the gift of friendship in the women we have found and who have found us; for the
gift of expressing with our hands and minds that which affirms our power and humanity; for the gift of
revisioning the world with new and many eyes; and for the gift of creation in the earth that nourishes us
in the art that fulfills us in the struggle that unites us in the people we touch who will carry our weapons
and visions with them and enrich them with their own…. We feel the energy of all women who struggle
this day to rise from tradition and abuse. We affirm hope. We affirm our existence. We affirm our be-
ing…. (adapted from “A Litany of Women’s Power” from the book Rite of Naming by Ann M. Heidkamp
and from Kate Pravera)

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The Touring Exhibit and Fora

Twelve artworks came out of the project, eight of which were reproduced in postcards as part of
the advocacy with statements from the artists about self-esteem. The artworks were exhibited in UP
Mindanao, Baguio, Visayas, and Diliman from March to September 2000. The artists traveled with
the exhibit as the project’s budget allowed, and they spoke about their art and self-esteem with the
help of resource persons from Arugaan ng Kalakasan and the Women and Development Program of
the UP College of Social Work and Community Development (UP-CSWCD). Very interesting points
of discussion were raised not only by the young women in the audience but by the men as well. The
project brought to surface things so ingrained in our lives in relationships between women and men.
By working with the gender unit of each UP system where Art Esteem traveled, we got feedback
on the effect of the project on its various audiences. Dazzle K. Rivera, professor at the Women and
Development Program of the UP-CSWCD and founder of Arugaan ng Kalakasan sums up what Art
Esteem as a project was all about:

At the end of the day, what is important is that we, as a society and a culture, start opening
up to the issue of gender violence. We should be able to air our views about our experiences
when the opportunity presents itself without being ostracized, or worse, totally ignored. When
people realize that six in every ten women have experienced some form of violence in a rela-
tionship, they will start to see the urgency of protecting their own children this early on from
future abuse when they should be developing a healthy sense of self.

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 Discussant’s Response
Ferdie Isleta (NCCA/Sungdu-an)

Hello, magandang gabi po. Medyo kinakabahan ako, ako lang po iyong nasa govern-
ment agency ngayon. Simula kaninang umaga, there were a lot of concerns for govern-
ment agencies so I just hope hindi ninyo ko babatuhin ngayong gabi. But anyway, I will
discuss to you the Sungdu-an experience but before that allow me to give you a very
brief background about NCCA. Para lang po sa benefit doon ng mga hindi pa nakakak-
ilala sa NCCA kasi madalas natatawag kaming NCAA so parang palaging ganoon ang
tawag sa NCCA. NCCA sabi po nga kanina is a government agency. In 1992, a law was
signed creating the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, ito po iyong R.A. 7356.
NCCA is mandated to develop programs…It is the agency in charge of the development,
preservation, and promotion of Philippine culture and the arts. NCCA is composed of a
board of commissioners. Ang nasa board po ay iyong mga miyembro ng cultural agen-
cies, iyong CCP, NHI, National Museum, 13 po iyon, di ko na sasabihin lahat. At ito po
ay pinatatakbo ng NCCA secretariat, our office is located at Intramuros, malapit po sa
may San Agustin church. And then we have the private sector representatives composed
of, ito po iyong 22 committees. One of the committees is the NCCA Committee on Visual
Arts. So papaano po naimplement iyong project na Sungdu-an?

Noong 1995, iyong NCCA Committee on Visual Arts implemented a National Visual Arts
Congress na ginanap sa UP Diliman. Ang kongresong ito ay dinaluhan ng iba’t-ibang
representatives from the regions, nationwide po ito para magkaroon ng bahaginan tung-
kol sa kung anong mga nangyayaring cultural work sa kani-kanilang area, mag-share ng
experiences and at the same time siguro magbuo ng plano kung papaano pagtatagpuin
ang bawa’t isa, kung ano iyong mga puedeng maitulong ng bawa’t organisasyon para sa
isang magandang programa para sa visual arts sector. Noon pong pagtatagpo na iyon,
doon sa isa sa mga informal discussion yata ng Committee on Visual Arts kasama iyong
ibang mga delegado ng kongreso na iyon, ay napag-isipan nilang gumawa ng Sungdu-an
project para at least magkaroon kaagad ng follow-up iyong ginanap na unang kongreso.
Dahil sa unang Sungdu-an, umikot po iyong mga NCCA Committee on Visual Arts doon
sa areas. Kung sino po iyong ating representative doon sa region na iyon ay namili
ng artwork doon sa region. Tapos nagkaroon po ito ng exhibition na ginanap dito sa
Maynila. Iyon po iyong unang proyekto. Kung mapapansin po ninyo, sa unang proyekto,
kung baga nasentro iyong eksibisyon dito lang muna sa Maynila. Siguro po ang isang
dahilan noon ay dahil una nga iyon. Maraming mga eksperiyensiya na puedeng makuha
base doon sa unang Sungdu-an na iyon at siguro na rin dahil sa limitadong pondo, kung
ano ang mayroon na tayo, iyon lang po ang nangyari doon sa unang Sungdu-an.

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Ang ikalawang Sungdu-an po ay na-conceptualize ulit dahilan sa magandang eksperien-
siya noong una. Ang NCCA Sub-commission on the Arts po ay nagkaroon ng Sambayan
festival. Kung mapapansin ninyo po, ito pong mga programang ito ay nadedevelop base
doon sa mga ideas na lumalabas doon po sa mga artists natin atsaka mga cultural work-
ers sa private sector. Ito po iyong mga committee, sila iyong mga nakakaisip kung ano
iyong mga programang puedeng gawin doon sa sector dahil sila po kung baga iyong tala-
gang nakakahalubilo at nakakaalam kung ano iyong mga concerns at pangangailangan ng
sector specifically for visual arts. Kaya po ginanap iyong pangalawang Sungdu-an. Ma-
sasabi ko na itong pangalawang Sungdu-an, base sa eksperiyensiya sa unang Sungdu-
an, ay marami hong naimprove dito sa pangalawang Sungdu-an na katatapos pa lamang
nagawa. Doon sa una na Sungdu-an, ang unang-una pong pinakamagandang nangyari
ay naging requirement na magkaroon ng selection process sa bawa’t region para po sa
pagpili kung sino ang mga puedeng magparticipate doon sa national visual arts exhibi-
tion na ito. Nag-identify po ang NCCA Committee on Visual Arts noong Sungdu-an 2, ito
po iyong panahon na ang head po ng Committee ay si Dr. Brenda Fajardo at kasama po
iyong iba pang NCCA Committee on Visual Arts members, nag-identify po ng apat na cu-
rator. Isa si Dr. Patrick Flores para sa Luzon, si Ms. Corazon Alvina ng National Museum
para sa Mindanao, para sa Visayas si Mr. Bobi Valenzuela, at para po sa National Capital
Region ay si Mr. Jose Tence Ruiz. Ang pagpili po ng artwork dito sa Sungdu-an ay nagka-
roon po ng pamantayan na nagmula sa mga curator kasama iyong NCCA Committee on
Visual Arts patungkol sa kung ano iyong mapipiling mga artworks, so gusto pong ilabas
kung ano iyong contemporary trends doon sa region atsaka doon sa area na iyon. So
masasabi po natin na itong isang proyekto na ito ay nagagabayan ng tama dahilan sa ang
mga bahagi nito ay ito na pong mga kasama natin sa sektor, itong mga nakakaalam kung
ano iyong dapat na programang gagawin para sa visual arts. Dahil dito sigurado na po
tayo na mayroong isang magandang programa na national iyong scope. Kasi bihira rin
po, bagama’t maraming mga organisasyon na sumusuporta para sa mga ganitong klase
na proyekto, maganda rin po na nandidito rin ang NCCA. Kasi usually kanina sa mga
naunang mga binahagi, may mga kanya-kanyang organisasyon na nag-report tungkol
doon sa mga ginagawa nilang sariling trabaho. Ang isa sa pinakamagandang compo-
nent ng Sungdu-an ay iyong lecture component. Kasi kanina sa mg diskusyon ng mga
kasama natin dito, may mga lumalabas na concern katulad ng paano tayo makakareach
out sa civil society. At ito po iyong isa sa pinakamagandang component ng Sungdu-an
dahilan sa nagkaron ng pagkakataon iyong mga ordinaryong tao, ang maganda po rito ay
nagkaroon ng partisipasyon ang lahat kung baga iyong buo--the artists and the civil soci-
ety. Ang Sungdu-an po na umikot sa 13 sites ay nagkaroon ng parang linkage doon sa
mga local government units atsaka doon sa mga art organizations doon sa regions. Kung
baga, nagkaroon ng isang pagkakataon na makabuo ng isang magandang programa kasi

107
 po minsan nagkri-criticize tayo sa mga local government units na hindi nagsusuporta ng
magagandang programa. Ang isa ring maganda na paraan para mabigyan sila ng tamang
programa ay siguro kailangan din natin silang abutin. Kasi base po sa aming ekspiriyen-
siya, marami po naman sa kanila na willing na magsuporta ng ganitong programa pero
siguro hindi lang po natin sila napupuntahan. Ito iyong naging isang magandang paraan
na nakapagbigay ng isang magandang programa ang artists doon sa region na iyon
kung saan sinuportahan ito ng local government unit. At the same time, mayroon ding
representation from the arts council. At doon po sa pagtitipon na iyon, nagkaroon din
ng pagkakataon iyong mga local performing groups na maibahagi din naman nila kung
ano iyong mga cultural resources kaya nagkakaroon ng magandang linkages to develop
one art program for the region. Kaya iyon nga, naikot iyong exhibit at itong mga ganitong
lecture katulad ng ginagawa natin ngayon ay nagbubukas ng isipan ng mga ordinaryong
mamamayan tungkol dito sa mga ginagawa nating sining. Kasi bilang isang ordinaryong
tao nga na pupunta sa isang eksibisyon, usually pag pumupunta ako ng isang visual arts
exhibition, may nagtatanong…kunyari sa isang competition, “bakit nanalo iyan?” May
mga ganong tanong. Ibig sabihin, hindi nagkakaroon ng ganoong tamang oryentasyon
kung paano ia-appreciate iyong trabaho na iyon ng isang artist kasi sabi nga doon kanina
na sinabi ng ating kasama na si Mideo na ang tingin sa artwork ay isang decorative art-
work lang. Dahil siguro iyon lang ang naging oryentasyon nila. Kaya sa mga ginagawang
lecture na ganito sa regions, nabubuksan ang isipan ng mga tao kung paano i-appreciate
iyong mga gawa nating trabaho. Nabanggit din kanina iyong initiative doon sa Cebu na
maganda iyong reception ng tao doon sa ipinalabas na “Who Owns Women’s Bodies”
dahilan siguro sa naging aktibo iyong VIVA EXCON para gumawa ng patuloy na pro-
grama, lecture, workshop, seminar para i-orient sa tamang cultural work atsaka trabaho
iyong mga estudyante, iyong mga ordinaryong mamamayan. Kaya ito po’y isang malaki
na hamon sa ‘tin. Kaya ang ginawa po naming paraan sa NCCA para matugunan iyong
ganitong pangangailangan, kasi nakita nga namin na iyong mga ganitong lecture-forum
ay isang pagtitipon na hindi masyadong magastos, nagdevelop kami ng isang program,
base na rin ito, na inspired doon sa experience ng Sungdu-an na magdevelop kami sa
NCCA ng parang resource speakers bureau. Sa pamamagitan po ng resource speakers’
bureau na ito ay nagbibigay po kami ng mga qualified resource persons doon sa regions,
depende kung anong topic ang gusto ninyong pag-usapan, hindi lang visual pero cultural
lecture sa theater, dance o sa iba’t-ibang anyo ng sining. Nagbibigay po kami ng gani-
tong suporta para matugunan ang pangangailangan para at least iyong mga schools ay
maiorient natin sa tamang trabaho. At isa pa po na gusto kong ibahagi sa inyo, base din
sa experience ng mga artists at ng mga cultural workers, kasi ang artist po, sa tingin ko
personally, ay isa iyan sa isang magaling na manager para doon sa sector na iyon at para
doon sa pagbuo ng tinatawag nating sustainable cultural development dahilan sa tayo

108
po ang nakatampisaw doon sa tubig. Alam natin kung papaano natin kakapain, kung
papaano natin tutugunan ang mga pangangailangan ng mga kasama natin dahil bahagi
tayo ng trabaho na ito. Sa ganitong paraan, mayroon din pong programa ang NCCA,
iyong Institute for Arts and Cultural Management para po ito matugunan iyong mga pan-
gangailangan doon sa area kasi doon matatagpuan po iyong aktibong mga trabaho ng
mga cultural workers. Base po dito, itong pong ICAM ay isang collective experience ng
mga cultural workers natin na gustong ibahagi sa ating mga nagsisimula pa lamang kasi
continuous learning po ito.

109
 Discussant’s Response
Ma. Teodora Conde- Prieto

Art is the expression of the artist’s experiences, thoughts, perceptions, convictions. Art is vision,
and the artist, visionary. As such, the creative experience is not exclusive to the artist; it is inclu-
sive of inspiration and audience. Inspiration stems from wellsprings deeper than mere subject, in
the same manner that audience goes beyond art patrons; it emanates from the artist’s innermost
perceptions of the immediate reality, extending to address society as a whole, of which the artist is
inevitably and integrally part. It would be trite and utterly meaningless to posit art as an endeavor
of whim, whose end is solely for the artist’s mere fancy and self-satisfaction. It is never enough to
say an artwork exists just to be. It is a matter of fact that art is created with the intention of saying
something, and saying something presupposes that what is being said is addressed to somebody.
Surely one does not say something to nobody?

The inception of an artwork may be a personal experience as it is a vision formed in the artist’s mind
and soul, through to its actual creation when the artist devotes time, effort, thought, and talent. It is
here that the personal aspect ends. As soon as the artwork is released for viewing, for exhibition,
the artwork becomes public property, gaining a life of its own, subject to as many interpretations as
there are viewers, regardless of the artist’s own intention in creating it. Thus the ultimate challenge
of the artist is effective communication: How to say what you want to say in a manner that ensures
comprehension? The success of an artwork lies in its ability to communicate the artist’s thoughts,
the artist’s vision, by stirring the audience’s sensibilities, and spurring him to response and reac-
tion. Here another dilemma arises, a continuation and complication of the challenge to the artist:
Given the number of artists in one’s periphery, in one’s community, in one’s region, in one’s country,
let alone the whole world, how to say what you want to say in such manner as has never been said
before and still be understood?

I would dare presume that the predominant mode for artists is the creation of artworks with exhibiting
as the end in mind, whether exhibiting for purposes of sale, advocacy, or the endless open-ended
propositions of exhibit whys and wherefores. I have not been exempt from this. Until it occurred to
me that there is a vast entity of a society out there beyond the exhibit halls that I was not reaching.
And, given the minimal multitude of viewers of each exhibit I was part of, the assurance that I indeed
reached them was still a question I constantly wrestled with. Exhibit sales are great for the pocket
and perhaps the artist’s sense of accomplishment. Having sold artworks may be a tangible and con-
crete indication of audience appreciation of one’s effectivity and creativity, yet it still is no assurance
that such appreciation stems from a genuine understanding and connection of one’s audience/buyer
to what it is one has expressed. Further, granting the most ideal of scenarios, where your audience/
buyer does connect to what you have expressed, tragically, that expression is once again tucked
away for his private viewing, well away from that vast and as yet unconnected multitude of society.
The artist may then just as well talk to himself.

Herein lies the elitism of art; it is an elitism not solely and necessarily confined to the privileged few
who are afforded the opportunity to pride themselves as collectors. The elitism of art is not a social

110
issue; it is certainly not one confined to societal strata. The contention that art is elitist stems from
an essential, but nevertheless very real flaw not of art, but rather, of the practice of art exhibitions,
where exclusivity is defined not only by social strata, but also by the limited audience, the specific
advocacy, the particular issue, the definite subject the artist concerns himself with and therefore
chooses to address in his expression.

It is precisely because of this that I have chosen to practice my art in relation to my community,
bridging that chasm between art and audience, widening audience from art patrons to communities.
I have shifted my artwork from canvas to community, from painting my convictions to actually living
them. I practice my art in the way I live, in the work I do. Consistently, my growth has been a meta-
morphosis from artist to gallery owner, from exhibitor to organizer of workshops and festivals, from
private, non-government cultural worker to government worker for culture and the arts. I continue the
creation of my biggest artwork in the landscape that is Palawan.

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 Session 5:
Art and Civil Society

FOR the past decades, Filipino artists have sought to cross once thought to be ir-
reconcilable ideological, class, and aesthetic gaps by critically aligning themselves
with various civil society projects. This session attempts to examine the experiences
of artists and cultural workers involved in various initiatives. University of the Philip-
pines Department of Art Studies Chair Marilyn Canta served as moderator for this
session.

The open forum was preceded by talks of four presenters, each sharing about en-
deavors intended to bridge the gap between art and society.

Dinggot Prieto (Galerie Kamarikutan): I tend to believe that art is

quite removed from society in general. The biggest problem is to close that
great divide between the artist and society. As artists, we have to come down
from our ivory towers if we are to become effective messengers of and for
society. We can moan and whine and say that we don’t get support from the
government, but there are other ways of reaching our audience apart from
exhibits.

I believe there should be two sides of an artist: there’s the private side where
you create your artworks and address a small group. But then, there’s this
other side of you that’s painting this bigger canvas with the way you live. It’s
not enough to confine yourself to what you want to say through your canvas;
through your artwork. You have to be able to live out your convictions about
art if you want to be an effective tool for change in society.

Nunelucio Alvarado: This concerns Who Owns Women’s Bodies. I just

noticed from the works that women always seem to be depicted as the victim.
Where’s the fight? The defiance? It just seems that it’s all angst. The only thing
the [audience] takes away from it is: “Oh, poor woman”—the feeling of pity.

Imelda Cajipe-Endaya (Kasibulan/Who Owns Women’s Bod-

ies): Not everyone [who sees the exhibit] thinks the woman is depicted as
pitiable. That’s debatable. There are victims, but we also depict enlightenment
and victory. I think my work in [WOWB] is happy. [She’s] not a victim, because
[she’s] whole.

Unidentified speaker: The [WOWB] artists present the cultural con-

ditioning of women—what women have gone through in history. I think the
exhibit is trying to subvert the notion that women can only get so far, when in
fact, they are capable of so much more.

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LOCUS 2
114
LOCUS 2 Conference Outline

DAY 1: Critiquing Critical Art

Session 1:
Alternative Modes of Production

The materialist appreciation of critical art does not only advocate politically correct or even cogent rep-
resentations in art, but also insinuates a radical reimagination of the means of generating art itself. These
means or modes rethink the very status of art and its multiple relationships with agencies implicated in
its reception, from the artists themselves to the audience at large. Such radical requirement gestures
toward an alternative system of making art that creatively engages the established scheme, challenges
its limits, and reordains its premises beyond the traditional territories of the (nation)-state and the market:
shifting communities, cross-border collaborations, translocal curatorships, transdisciplinary initiatives,
virtual constituencies, and so on.

Session 2:
Interventions in Place

Critical art creates new places of art making. It intervenes in the creation of this new terrain: para/sites,
alternatives spaces, appropriated domains, flexible networks, and so on. The concept of intervention
also intimates an encroachment, a poaching on everyday life that is increasingly aestheticized by media,
transforming it into a lively forum of exchange, dialogue, and reciprocal critique. The very act of interven-
tion in a place constitutes some form of critical practice that in turn stakes out a place of intervention in a
reordered matrix of art making from which different subjectivities emerge to instantiate a more progres-
sive aesthetic dynamic.

Session 3:
Self and Solidarities

The artistic agency is contemplated as an intersection of selves that moves according to the logic of ad-
dress as contemplated in the multileveled sense of destination, discourse, and engagement. Its mobility
is motored by an “inclination outwards.” It is a selfhood or a personhood that is open to its others and not
suspended in the essence of a “humanist,” “liberal,” and “multicultural” identity. The self is engaged with
transformative conversations with forces that it shapes and shape it. The notion of “solidarity” aspires to
a more radically democratic ecology of responsibilities, complicities, encounters, accountabilities, and
extensities. It is an exposure to the risk of forging connections and a melancholic negotiation of the lack
and incompletion of the human project.

115
 DAY 2: Mediating Art

Session 4:
Sites of Independence

Artists, curators, cultural theorists, writers, etc., in response to the sometimes stultifying state of institu-
tions and validating agencies, have responded by creating situations and platforms upon which can be
incurred current concerns: transdisciplinary agencies, cross-cultural sites, new media, new forms of
practice and essentialising communities. Such responses have brought about new models of interven-
tionist practice within current modes as well as formed new alliances with other disciplines to explore
possibilities for projects.

Session 5:
Social Space: Society and Practice

The denseness of cities like Manila, demand that art placed in the public sphere should take on the
complex context of urban geography and demographics, rather than the unproblematized monument. The
operation between public and private agencies also brings the traditionally fraught relation between these
two entities to the front. Public space (also too a social space) constitutes a site with a multiplicity of en-
gagements, as well as a site that takes on a shared (and perhaps collective) memory, history, and experi-
ence of a particular social group. Public interventions too, have been created by both artists and curators,
suggesting its potential for exploring urban topography, of social history, psychogeography, etc.

Session 6:
Beyond the Gallery and Back

This session follows the path from independence to institutionalization. With many initiatives taking leave
of the traditional gallery system, whether through the creation of new ‘alternative’ or independent spaces,
there is the inevitable mechanism wherein such initiatives and persons are co-opted back into the main-
stream. Engendered in the hopes of undermining mainstream activity and production, such explorations,
usually among young artists and curators, have found themselves, sooner, than later, adopting main-
stream skin. The session will discuss the facility of institutions to co-opt peripheral actions, the efforts of
artists and curators at resistance, and possible platforms, sites and practice which attempt to occupy
both spaces at the same time.

116
DAY 1:
Critiquing Critical Art
 Lani Maestro and Jay Koh.

Standing L-R: Jose Tence Ruiz, Vincent Leow, Lee Wengchoy,

Eric Zamuco, Niranjan Rajah, Reuben Cañete.

Seated Mid-level L-R: Ringo Bunoan, Lani Maestro, Patrick

Flores, Imelda Cajipe-Endaya, Chu ChuYuan, Jay Koh, Katya
Guerrero, Gemo Tapales.

Seated Bottom-level L-R: Rochit Tañedo, Eileen Legaspi-

Ramirez, Ranjit Hoskote, Nguyen Minh Thanh, Ly Daravuth,
Thanom Chapakdee.

118
Motohisa Shimizu
Director, Japan Foundation Manila Office

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning to all of you and I’m very, very glad to be
with you today. The Japan Foundation is very, very pleased to support this project, which provides
the venue of exchange of concerns and ideas, with the resource persons from Cambodia, France,
India, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the United Kingdom, Vietnam and the Philippines.
This conference, “Locus: Interventions in Art Practice” is a milestone in bringing together leading
artists and speakers in Manila to discuss curating and criticism. In the next two days, you could all
be challenged to further examine the importance of these two disciplines in the development of con-
temporary art. We hope that the study of these two practices would bring about a transformation in
presenting and sharing art to the general public, so that it can be better appreciated.

Congratulations to the organizers, participants and co-sponsors of this project. Maraming salamat sa
inyong kooperasyon at isang mainit na pagbati sa inyong lahat.

119
 Mercedes Lopez-Vargas
Director, Lopez Museum

Good morning, Mr. Oscar Lopez, our chairman of the Lopez Memorial Museum is unable to join us
this morning. He’s off slaying dragons somewhere. So, on his behalf, allow me to welcome you all to
the Eugenio Lopez Development Center. For those of you who have come from far and away, whether
from other provinces or from other countries to be here this morning, a warm Manila welcome to the
hills of Antipolo. And finally to everyone, welcome to “Locus: Interventions in Art Practice”.

The conference is one of many initiatives of the Lopez Memorial Museum to reach out and to engage
with an ever increasing public in fulfillment of its commitment to provide opportunities for advanced
learning. The idea for this project came about after the museum’s initial conference offering two
years ago entitled, “Insite: Exhibiting in Particular Territories,” which brought together local practitio-
ners and invited discussions centering around the activity of curators, the fresh emergence of new
spaces, and the new sites that worked around it.

Now on a new level, today’s conference tries to be more ambitious, in that it allows the museum to
work hand in hand with the Pananaw ng Sining Bayan, Inc. represented today by Imelda Cajipe-En-
daya. Her group is known for its strong advocacy of the arts. And under the generous funding and
support of the Japan Foundation, we’d like to thank today Mr. Shimizu, without your support, this
conference would not have been possible. Thank you very much.

The alliance has focused its efforts on bringing together some of the more interesting practitioners
in the fields of curating and criticism, as well as artists from the regions, and added to that, an artist
whose roots are found in the Philippines but whose branches have sprouted fruit elsewhere has also
agreed to grace this conference. While the problems that beset these fields within the artworld are
many, and all of us here are aware of its many troughs and furrows, we have nevertheless come here
together today to share. And while a majority of conferences of this sort may have the aim of resolv-
ing current crises or concerns that continually vex our worlds, this particular conference hopes to at-
tain something more positively aspirational, in that it hopes to impart to those who attend it a greater
understanding of their position in the world to which they are active participants of. Rising above a
sometimes parochial view of the local scene, the conference also hopes to give its participants a bet-
ter sense of how art is engaged in a variety of levels and models across the world. This awareness,
which is a sort of opening up, gives all of us the chance to reevaluate the positions in which we find
ourselves. We trust that the conference will be a catalyst towards new and heightened learnings.

The conference speakers today come from contexts such as the United Kingdom, Cambodia, Ma-
laysia, Vietnam, Singapore, and India. The areas of their expertise are varied with academics, insti-
tutional directors, freelance and independent curators, artists and writers, coming together here in
Antipolo for two days of intense discussions. While our speakers span the globe, and we thank them
for their willingness to come over and share their knowledge, our participants come from across the
islands. This active interest from such areas as Davao, Samar, Cebu, and Sorsogon, is a positive
signal that art, and the love of it, is alive and well, thriving, and throbbing in the many regional centers
across the country. Along with their fellow participants from Manila, are artists, academics, writers,

120
curators, museum workers and students--they come, not only to listen but to participate actively,
contribute their experiences, and make the conference work for them.

It is hoped that the collaboration between a 40-year old institution like ours (we’re old ladies here),
the Lopez Memorial Museum, with another, which is barely a decade old, Pananaw ng Sining Bayan,
Inc. foretells the direction, which this museum wishes to pursue, that of engaging with the current
generation, giving our vision a continued and continual relevance to our country, and that of future
generations. Good day, and we wish you all a memorable and pleasurable learning experience.

121
 Imelda Cajipe-Endaya
Director, Pananaw ng Sining Bayan, Inc.

Magandang umaga and welcome. We’re lucky that serendipity brought Pananaw ng Sining Bayan’s
proposal on the table of Japan Foundation, and while meeting so many competitors, we had the luck
to receive some funds. And so we are together with this awesome museum, Lopez Museum, work-
ing with a very young group of artists. So that’s how we came about.

An initiative of artists founded in 1996, Pananaw was focused only on bringing out an annual Philip-
pine Journal of Visual Arts but we have expanded by going into discourse. That’s really one of our
aims, to bring discourse in the practice of art. And having conferences and artist talks were always
in our wishlist. And I should acknowledge our interchange with the IFIMA, International Forum on
Media and Arts represented here by Jay Koh, for provoking our minds and challenging us to organize
an international conference. And that was an immediate spark, so the idea of this developed, and of
course, we had Patrick Flores who was helping us conceive of a conference on art like this.

Before I go on, I’d like to thank, aside from Japan Foundation, the University of the Philippines
Department of Arts Studies, Prince Claus Fund of Netherlands, Balay Taliambong (the Cojuangco
Museum and Arts Center), Metrobank Foundation, Pilipinas Shell Corporation, Unilever Philippines,
San Miguel Corporation, and others who were very helpful in putting this together.

Here we are, a coming together of artists and curators, and critics, who lead in localities, translocali-
ties, and situations where art very much matters to a public outside of the art circle itself. I would
like to believe that we are all here because we recognize that we have a responsibility beyond using
our artistic process, as just meditation on our navels or as personal catharsis. As we weave poetic
images or inspired text examining the human condition, we insufferably hope that powers beyond
ourselves, be they within halls of legislature, or boardrooms of corporations would look out at what
art is trying to say. Utterly cosmopolitan, and undeniably privileged that we are, not so much eco-
nomically, but perhaps a few are, but in terms of capacities of the mind and the spirit, some like me,
may have visions that our art and its processes could at all matter, even to every streetchild selling
candies to pay his tuition, or Aling Nene sweeping the backstreet of the subdivision where we live.
We are here not simply to narrate artists’ personal histories, or critics’ experiences in exhibiting
and curating, but over and above that, to share an examination of the inner forces that drive our
acts of creation, production, collaboration, critiquing, perception and experience of our art. We will
look more deeply into motivations perhaps, intentionality, qualities of vision, attitudes, values and
conflicts that arise from these.

I am tasked to encapsulate the rationale and I should perhaps quote our co-directors, Dr. Patrick
Flores and Joselina Cruz: “Locus aims to enable artists, curators, critics, academics, architects,
designers, and allied curators within the Asian region and across the increasingly global artworld,
to situate their practices in the context of contemporary discourse sustained by a specific mode of
criticism and curation. It is a criticism and curation that is transdisciplinary, collaborative, respon-
sive to the well-being of communities, and willing to discuss social issues that lie at the heart of the
generation of art. While it is ideal that the arts, in general, be seen as playing a prominent role in

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social change, this ideal can only be realized if there is better understanding of the disciplines, which
increasingly frame the reception of contemporary art by a potentially engaged public. This being the
case locally and regionally, this proposal seeks to highlight two crucial areas that directly affect art
and its public: criticism and curation as practices in the remaking of art in a world ripe for revision.”

As I look around, I just hope that we will have a very engaging conference, and we can balance our
questions, and maybe we might, at some point, arrive at a war zone. I hope not, because I just saw
the war zone when we came up here. I also would like to request the speakers, I, being an artist
who’s so pragmatic, working more from my common sense rather than intellectualizing, I hope it will
not be so difficult to understand all of the scholars. You be patient with artists like me. So maybe
we should all be patient with one another and listen very well, and I hope this will be very enriching
for all of us. Thank you, and welcome!

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Session 1:
Alternative Modes of Production
 Alternative Economies/Alternatives to Economy
Patrick D. Flores, Philippines

In August 2002, Locus 1 was held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Main Gallery. From what
was envisioned as a roundtable discussion of around 25 paper presenters and discussants along
with several observers, it grew into a virtual congress of 300 participants from a cross-section of the
Philippine art world. This attendance sent a strong signal that a public sphere of art was ready and
poised to address the problematiques of intervention, of positing difference or differential. Locus
1 was contemplated as a forum to discuss the various modes by which certain practices and initia-
tives in the field were actively engaged in interventions within discrepant frameworks and settings.
In other words, the colloquium tried to discuss the competing and affiliative locutions of locus, or
the position and the predisposition of artistic practice to propose ways of critiquing, transgressing,
subverting, and changing enduring and dominative forms of art-making and its reception. The fun-
damental, if not foundational, assumption seems to be that something is wrong with the system, or
the fact that the “thing” has become a system makes it wrong, and that there is something amiss, or
lacking, or oppressive, and that something must be done about it. How to do it and the concomitant
expectations of the gesture inscribe the very thought as political -- and repoliticizing -- and constitute
a transformative moral practice at the very instance of the enunciation.

This paper reports on and probes the presentations made in Locus 1, the local context and its “social
thickness” that mediate Locus 2, a site of convergence that is reckoned not only from the perspec-
tive of locating the Philippines in a transnational or global context but of making sense of the said
context through the Philippine experience and its theoretical vernacular. After all, this event takes
place in Manila, which is a specific terrain of imperatives, and that locus implies locality, the politics
of location, and the process of producing the local. Locus is also path, or in the Philippine language,
daan. In Austronesian ethnography, which studies the cultures of the Pacific and Southeast Asia, path
is also precedence that coordinates a hierarchy. It is a crossroad where “journey and genealogy”
meet (Fox and Sather 1996). Surely, the north-south, east-west, center-periphery, metropolis-prov-
ince axis is remapped through the Philippines and its translocal vectors.

Locus 1 significantly foregrounded critical questions and proposals that grapple with the predica-
ment and tension between the agency of art and the structure of social production. It also pursued
the intersecting trajectories of art history, local knowledge, practice, and initiatives beyond the tra-
ditional territories and conceptions of art in the attempt to invest locus with translocality, an aware-
ness of the “constitutive outside” and a melancholic incommensurability that prompts an “inclination
outwards.”

Locus 1 was organized around five sessions that focused on the radical commitments of social real-
ism from its peak in the ‘70s within the dictatorial regime of Ferdinand Marcos to the current expres-
sion of committed art directly aligned with one of the few actually existing armed revolutions in the
world; the efforts at forging collectives; the formation of artist-run spaces; the interface between art
and cultural work in the grassroots; and the place of art in the political paradigms of civil society.
The key categories that informed the exchange were ideological program, collaboration, initiative,

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community, and engagement. The contentious issues were the appropriation of culture, the repre-
sentation of other people, the vexing discourse of identity, the micropolitics of personalities within
organizations of artists, the life force of youth and experimentation as well as their exhaustion, the
potentials of the interface between art and advocacy, and the necessity of context and a historical
outlook. Locus 1 was able to conjure a broad spectrum of interventions involving peasants and lesbi-
ans, social workers and conceptualists, revolutionaries and government functionaries, gallerists and
feminists and shadow puppeteers, from all over the islands.

How do we address our interventions? What is the context? In the phrase contemporary art or con-
temporary curation or contemporary theory and criticism, is contemporary the context? But what is
the contemporary? It is this question of naming, dating, radicalizing the contemporary that compels
us to speculate on the efficacy of the continuing modernity of art at a time when efforts to render art
interventive always fall short of the avant-garde expectation of making it unnecessary, of effacing the
conceit of its ascendancy as a self-reflexive discourse on a reality it endeavors not to repeat. It is,
therefore, urgent to confront the curse of this modernity and refunction options not from the salva-
tional promise of art – or the aesthetic -- to enlighten and set us free, but from the finite reiteration of
the irrepressibility of the instinct to intimate the necessity in a world highly contingent on commodity
and fated to reification.

Reference

Fox, James and Clifford Sather, Eds. 1996. Origins, ancestry and alliance: explorations in Aus-
tronesian ethnography. Canberra: Australian National University.

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 Liminality in Recent Malaysian Art:
A Critique of Political and Networking Interventions
in a Transnational Scenario
Niranjan Rajah, Malaysia

Introduction

This paper explores the ideas of “critique” and “liminality” that are central to the Critiquing Critical
Art stream of this conference. These ideas are discussed in the context of Malaysian art from the
1990s, a period of heightened political engagement and intense experimentation with computer and
communications technology. Part 1 of this paper critiques Malaysian political art in terms of its limin-
ality between national and global arenas. This writing is grounded in the author’s extensive curatorial
work in both national and international arenas in this period. Part 2 reviews and critiques the liminal
“spaces” explored by the first wave of Malaysian Internet art. Again the author’s reading derives
from practical engagement -- in this instance, as an artist, theorist, curator, and leading advocate
of media art in the Malaysian scene. While the paper is ostensibly a review of the late 20th century
Malaysian experience, it is also intended as a critique of the critical and liminal strategies that are
the driving modalities of 20th century art. This broader critique is precipitated in the Epilogue, albeit
obliquely, with a reflection on the popular art of Rock n’ Roll.

PART 1: The Liminality of Political Art in the Global Context

If traditional art was content to reflect the given values of its culture, modern art asserted a belief in
critique -- a belief in art’s capacity “to enable reflection upon the prevailing conventions, habits and
prejudices of that culture.” In the 1950s and 1960s, this critique was sublimated in concerns with the
categories of art and with the form of the art object.1 This concurrence of formal and critical concerns
was central to the art of the period. While the resulting austerity and reductionism has lost credence
today, “critique” continues to define art practice. In contemporary postmodernism, however, the
focus of critique has shifted once again. This time from the objects of art to the conditions of art’s
production and presentation. Indeed, postmodern installation and performance works extend into the
space and the context of presentation, encompassing thematic, architectural, social, political, histori-
cal, theoretical, institutional, and market system concerns.

It is within this new contextual paradigm that the critical idioms of contemporary Southeast Asian
Art have emerged. The ambiguity between some of the new modes of art like installation and per-
formance art2 and political activism has given them great potential as tools for social intervention.
Consequently, some authorities in the region have responded with licensing requirements and re-
strictions and, in the more authoritarian of Southeast Asian societies, practitioners run the risk of
being disciplined by the state. In a discussion at the conference of the 3rd International Ipoh Arts
Festival in 1998, Jim Supangkat (unpublished) commented on the role of political art in Indonesia’s
Refomasi movement - “the Indonesian artists’ political engagement was not based on any critical

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impetus from within art itself but from the simple moral obligation of all members of society to stand
up for themselves and for others in the face of injustice and oppression.” The point here is that the
political gestures that artists make are a part of a wider set of engagements within a given societal
framework. These engagements are moral and ethical and involve obligations that supercede the
imperatives of art.

The 1990s was a period in which Southeast Asian art gained unprecedented international exposure
and recognition. This happened in the context of a shift from national to regional art arenas. Before
this, in the Malaysian scene of the 1970s, artists had been able to gain international visibility only
via national recognition and projection. Amongst the biggest stars were Latiff Mohidin, Syed Ahmad
Jamal, and Sulaiman Esa. That these artists are all from the Malay community reflects the Malay
nationalism3 that dominated the national narrative at that time. In the 1990s, however, while national
culture was finding a more relaxed and multi-ethnic tone, the forces of globalization began undermin-
ing the authority of our national cultural institutions.

In the new international arenas based in Japan, Australia, and Korea, there has been a particular
interest in political interventions from artists who present themselves as marginal. A body of dis-
sident artists has emerged to occupy contexts within which local gestures of protest have come to
represent a universal democracy aesthetic. Malaysian Chinese artist Tan Chin Kuan has complained
in an exhibition catalogue, “As a Chinese in an Islamic state you are not predestined to become a top
artist” (in Anu 1999). While the accuracy of this statement leaves a lot to be desired (Malaysia is not
an Islamic state), the sentiment is not completely unreasonable in the light of the Malay dominance in
the 1970s. The point, however, is that in the 1990s, it was Chinese artists like Liew Kung Yu, Wong
Hoy Cheong, and Tan Chin Kuan himself who were becoming the darlings of the global arenas. While
the particular political import of their work was highlighted in these new arenas, they were ultimately
contextualized for an international audience. Specifically, Malaysian symbols of protest were “pack-
aged” for wider contexts that were defined and dominated by the values and agendas of others.

In 1994, Wong Hoy Cheong made a major break-through in Malaysian political art, when he present-
ed Lalang, with its critique of the oppressive Internal Security Act (ISA) – on the lawn of the national
art gallery in Kuala Lumpur. Since then, while establishing himself as one of the most prominent
Malaysian artists in the international scene, Hoy Cheong has been an engaged activist at the frontier
of culture and politics in Malaysia. The problematic nature of his negotiation of art and politics has
become apparent as his works enter the global arena. During the exhibition of works from his Of
Migrants and Rubber Trees series at the 2nd Asia Pacific Triennale in Brisbane in 1999, Hoy Cheong
had to call a press conference to rebut an inflammatory racial interpretation in the local media. The
problem has become more acute today as Hoy Cheong’s art has attained greater recognition in the
global arena. If the dignity and courage of his early work remain unsurpassed, it is because the cri-
tique of Malaysian democracy was delivered at home. Given his success in the global arenas, some
of Hoy Cheong’s later work was premiered outside the country and sometimes, not even shown in
Malaysia.

Globalization has, of course, impacted on much more than the contextualization of the region’s con-
temporary art - Southeast Asian economics and politics have also been transformed. In the 1990s,
the globalization of financial markets and currency speculation caused exchange rate instability on

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 a regional scale. This currency crisis led to an exodus of capital, economic downturn, and political
upheaval in the region. In Malaysia, the two most powerful politicians, the Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad and his Deputy Anwar Ibrahim, engaged in a power struggle that resulted in the ousting
and jailing of the latter. The savagery of this conflict caused deep wounds in the nation and many
previously complacent sections of society, including artists, began to engage in criticism, debate,
and political activism. In 1998, “Apa? Siapa? Kenapa?”, an exhibition curated by Wong Hoy Cheong
(1998) offered heated commentary, criticism, and resistance at the peak of the political crisis. In the
exhibition notes, Hoy Cheong states, “In this climate of fear and outrage, the act of participation be-
comes a statement and a theme…. It exerts our basic right to freedom of association and speech.”
Lee Weng Choy (1999) echoes Jim Supangkat’s point as he observes the following in a review of
this exhibition, “As a whole ‘Apa? Siapa? Kenapa?’ was not especially remarkable for its art. But that
wasn’t the point. What was at stake was participation, and asking questions.” One of the significant
aspects of this show was the large number of Malay artists who levied criticism against Dr. Mahathir
and his government.

Indeed, there has always been a body of reflective and critical work by Malay artists that has, unfor-
tunately, been slow in finding an audience in the global arena. As the indignant loyalties and strident
activism of “Apa? Siapa? Kenapa?” were left behind, there has emerged a more brooding critical-
ity in Malay art practice. Exemplifying the new attitude was the group show “MATAHATI PL” which
was held at the Petronas Gallery from September to October 1999. The MATAHATI group consists
of Bayu Utomo Radjikin, Ahmad Shukri Mohamed, Ahmad Fuad Osman, Masnor Ramli, and Hamir
Shoib. The exhibition featured installations which made social, political, and religious commentary. In
Ahmad Shukri’s installation Messenger, 25 wooden staffs were hung above stones. In an interview
with Salina Khalid, Shukri said: “The staff and stones represent prophets in the Quran. And I think we
should go back and observe why they were sent down by God and everything about them” (1999a).
In Study for Mat Jenin, Ahmad Fuad Osman presented a dummy in a hospital bed wired to a screen
above the bed on which video images of ‘the patient’s’ life were flashing.”There was a strong smell
of antiseptic and the sound of a heartbeat. A caption revealed that the work was inspired by Tolstoy’s
Death of Ivan Ilych in which the protagonist, just like Mat Jenin of Malay folklore, dwells on high
ambitions but dies without realizing his dream.” Salina Khalid (1999b) observes, “Perhaps the artist
wanted to remind those who are dreaming about all the glory and wealth about the reality of death.”
Such subliminal messages from the younger generation of Malay artists to the Malay ruling elite have
a much greater political significance than has been appreciated by the global scene.

Another artist who has developed a deeply critical approach is Tengku Sabri. In his Inside Series
installations of string and found objects, Sabri has developed a hybrid verbal/visual form. His con-
cerns and intuitions as a sculptor are inverted and applied to the envelope of the surrounding space.
While it is clear that there is an address to social and political matters, this is quite often veiled and
is combined with philosophical, cosmological, and cultural concerns. Nevertheless, the Inside Series
seems to be based on deeply critical concerns. Sabri’s practice must ultimately be seen as an open
inquiry into the role of art in society. In a work titled Inside Series: Mari Kita Berperang Lagi! (Let’s
Have Another War!) (2002), produced for the exhibition, “Bara Hati Bahang Jiwa,” Tengku Sabri ad-
dresses the post 9/11, post “War Against Terror” angst that pervades the world today, with reference
to Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Taliban, Afghanistan, World Trade Centre, Palestine, Arafat, Sharon,
Sam Huntington’s The Age of Muslim Wars, Abu Sayaff, MNLF, Nur Misuari, Al Maunah, and Kum-
pulan Mujahidin Malaysia.

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Zulkifli Yusof has also found ways to address the political anxieties of the Malays from within the
structures of patronage, privilege, and power that constrain and define them. His recent works:
Yang Arif (The Judge) (2001), Kebodohan (Stupidity) (2001), Pemerhati (The Witness) (2001), Sherif
Masuk Penjara (The Sheriff Goes to Jail) (2001), and Miang (Horney) (2001), are steel sculptures
which deal with the most scandalous and salacious episode in modern Malay politics -- the jailing,
assault, trial, conviction, and sentencing of Anwar Ibrahim on charges of corruption and sodomy.
Indeed, this work addresses all that is corrupt, festering, and waiting to erupt beneath the Malay
etiquette, the Islamic propriety, and the Asian values of our society, as some of the key players of this
drama are rendered as bitingly satirical figures. Nevertheless the work abides by the Malay sense of
decorum and discretion in the way it has been released into the Malaysian art scene. Although the
work only gains its intended meaning when apprehended as a set, it has been released into the art
scene discreetly as individual elements.

Indeed, Malaysia is a nation whose culture and politics are constituted on complex racial and re-
ligious distinctions and political subtleties that do not map easily on to the superficial notions of
“multiculturalism” and “democracy” that inform the international arenas. When our artists take on
difficult or “sensitive” domestic subject matter for their representations, surely, it is at home that their
meanings can be properly constructed. How do political messages find significance in the arenas
of global art? How are they read without national mediation and what do they come to represent?
Certainly, the platforms of global art have benefited Southeast Asian art by providing sites of “exile”
and enabling critical works that might not otherwise have found expression. There is, however, the
question of whether, in the globalization process, political art has become estranged from its home
context as artists have begun to respond to the imperatives of their hosts; and more critically, the
question of whether political art has, as a consequence, lost its potential as an instrument of social
transformation at home. Given the shift of power from national to international centers, any meaning-
ful evaluation of the criticality of political art in the 1990s must be cognizant of the implications of
liminality of this art with regard to its validating context and its audience of address.

PART 2: The Liminal Spaces of Internet Art

Between 1984 and 1988, Ismail Zain had produced his Digital Collage series. With this body of
digital prints and with the accompanying writings, he constructed a conceptual framework for the
absorption of computer technology into Malaysian contemporary art. It can be argued that it was
he who set the stage for the now burgeoning Southeast Asian New Media scene. Speaking of the
computer image in an interview with Noordin Hassan (1995), he said, “A computer is able to deliver
from almost infinite sources and manipulate a vast heterogeneous array of cultural images and arti-
facts (data, in computer parlance) that had not been compatible with the pictorial field of conventional
painting. And it’s very fast.” Asked by Sabri Zain (1995) what new forms he saw emerging from the
computer, he once said, “The important thing is to realise that the computer image is different and
the thing to go for is that difference. Although Ismail Zain was enthralled by the new digital medium,
he was also critical of it: “the kind of universalism which is the outcome of instant information calls
for a greater challenge, particularly for the consumers of this information like us, to adopt a more
critical and autocratic posture.” Taking care to indicate that he did not advocate a simple-minded pa-

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 rochialism, Ismail Zain proposed that new media practitioners in developing countries like Malaysia
adopt a “critical regionalism.” This notion might seem self evident today but to present these insights
in 1988, before the ubiquitous connectivity of the World Wide Web and its geopolitical implications,
was truly prescient.

Indeed, by the 1990s it had become the nation’s developmental agenda to leap from industrial
production into the burgeoning global knowledge economy. The government was developing a Mul-
timedia Super Corridor with the aim of becoming an important regional hub in the global information
economy, and, almost overnight, the Internet became a part of the everyday reality of the urban
middle classes. The national technology agenda was focused, quite predictably, on commercial and
administrative applications. In a series of artistic interventions and pedagogical initiatives from our
base in the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, my colleague,
Hasnul Jamal Saidon, and I tried to build a platform for critical art at the margins of this emerging
Corporate and Governmental domain. Indeed, we were committed to discovering and opening up
the interstitial, inter-media spaces that information technology seemed to promise -- between art,
industry, education, and governance. Our collaboration began with pedagogical matters within the
Faculty in 1995, and by 1997, when Hasnul and I co-curated the National Art Gallery’s 1st Electronic
Art Show,4 we were closely aligned within the national art scene.

The recognition given to Hasnul’s and my endeavors by Redza Piyadasa (2001) in his catalogue es-
say in the National Gallery retrospective exhibition, “Rupa Malaysia,” marked the mainstreaming of
what had been a fringe activity in the Malaysian scene.

The first major electronic show promoted by the younger generation artists was the ‘Ex-
plorasi’ electronic art show which was shown at the Petronas Art Gallery in early 1997. It was
organized by the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts of the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak or
UNIMAS … The roles played by two electronic artists, Hasnul Jamal Saidon and Niranjan Ra-
jah, both teaching at the UNIMAS, in articulating the need for experimenting in electronic art
in this country, have been most significant indeed. Their continuing efforts to champion elec-
tronic art or ‘E-Art’ have made the small UNIMAS art department notable for its contribution
to electronic art within the Southeast Asian region. … These two younger generation artists
have proved worthy successors to the late Ismail Zain … (Piyadasa 2001)

Indeed, Piyadasa reviewed our work in the light of Ismail Zain’s call “for artists to maintain an au-
tonomous or mediating position,”5 or in the terminology of this paper, to develop and occupy liminal
spaces.

While Hasnul developed video and computer installations, my own focus in this period was Internet
art. In 1996, with the aim of indexing the boundaries and the latent territoriality of the supposedly
unbounded Internet, I produced an online artwork titled The Failure of Marcel Duchamp/Japanese
Fetish Even!6 In this work, I investigated the ontology of the image in computer-mediated communica-
tions and addressed the problem of cultural constituencies in the Internet. The work involved content
that is unacceptable on Malaysian servers, and arrangements were made to locate the website on
a server in an art school in Leipzig, Germany. While the server was located physically in Germany,

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its contents were in a universal data-space. However, a text message on the site directly addressed
the Malaysian audience. When this work was presented in gallery situations7, the liminal geography
of the Internet was heightened by installing computer terminals in the public space, enabling surfers
to access “inappropriate” content and transgress cultural taboos and, possibly, national obscenity
legislation under public scrutiny.

Amongst the early Malaysian Internet works were student works from UNIMAS which explored and
critiqued the relation of the virtual to the real. In Ling Siew Woei’s Mondrian in Action!8 produced
in 1997, Mondrian’s Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue was extended into the third dimension
and rendered interactive in VRML. As viewers pan, rotate, and zoom in and out of the now sculp-
tural copy, they overcome the passivity with which they would have approached the original. The
“PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH” of the art museum is undermined in the “PLEASE INTERACT” connectiv-
ity of the Internet. Ting Ting Hook’s Tortoise Zone9 of 1998 invoked a slightly hallucinatory mode as
the viewers’ disembodied impressions of a virtual place, rendered in Viscape impinged on his or
her encounter with an analogous physical site in Sarawak. The differences between the outdoor site
and the online domain increased with time, as the intense tropical climate rapidly took its toll, while
the virtual site remained unweathered and unchanged. Documentation of the physical process was
uploaded to the web site as the event progressed.

In 2000, these works were included in the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts’ contribution to the
“Virtual Triennial/ Screen Culture” section of the 3rd Asia Pacific Triennial. Linda Carroli (2000) con-
cluded her review of Internet work from the Faculty as follows, in

works by the UNIMAS artists, including Tortoise Zone 1998 by Ting Ting Hook and Mondrian
in Action! 1997 by Ling Siew Woei, ideas about the virtual and physical are interrogated,
negotiated and spatialised. These online works have a fugitive quality which teases the per-
ceptual and sensory. Interaction and navigation of these Internet works is via point and click.
In chaos theory, a minor gesture like mouse clicking opens into complexity and the random
flows of the world. They are experienced haptically: we are in touch when the world is at our
fingertips. (Carroli 2000)

Also, in 2000, a video/internet/installation by Hasnul J. Saidon titled kipA.S.A.P.i. was exhibited in

the National gallery’s “ARUS: FLOW” exhibition. This work dealt with the problem of determining
“truth” in the intersticies between the new interactive media and the old broadcast media. Hasnul
used Malay proverbs “durian runtuh” (the fall of durians) and “menggengam bara api biar jadi arang”
(to grip embers till they turn to coal), which refer to “a sudden good fortune” and “the virtue of persis-
tence,” respectively, in an inter-media encounter. The video image of a burning candle projected onto
a translucent screen is “fanned” by the image of a turning fan on a TV monitor. The screen and TV
are set in a circle of durian leaves covering what appear to be glowing embers of coal. At the edge
of the circle, a computer notebook is set on a prayer mat with an Internet connection. The default
homepage is set as Hasnul’s Api10 web-site which links to Anwar Ibrahim’s Refomasi web sites, other
opposition sites and also to sites that are critical of Anwar. As time passes, one becomes aware that
the candle is actually burning down and eventually and impossibly, back up again! Dealing with the
indeterminacy of information in the new communications paradigm, kipA.S.A.P.i. raises the question:

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 How, in the excess of information and dis-information arising at the junction of mass and multi-media,
might the truth be ascertained?

This exhibition was also the occasion of the official launching of E-ART ASEAN ONLINE11 which has
been operational since mid-1999. This is an interactive resource for Southeast Asian media art de-
veloped by Hasnul and myself with research funding from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. This Project
extended the aims of the 1st Electronic Art Show to the Southeast Asian region as a whole. Although
in the first phase the contents are solely Malaysian, E-ART ASEAN ONLINE aims to be a regional
networking hub12, facilitating an on-line interaction involving research, information dissemination,
networking, and creative collaborations between the technology based artists, art organizations,
students, administrators, curators, writers, journalists, and critics in the region and beyond. Indeed,
E-ART ASEAN ONLINE attempts to exploit the virtual geography of the Internet to develop a “critical
regional” platform for media art - a liminal platform, between national and global arenas.

In the spirit of “critiquing critical art,” I end this paper with a biting critique of this purported liminality
of new media by artist, theorist, and friend Ray Langenbach:13
What is for me the most interesting theoretical problematic in your writing and in other re-
cent articles, is your missionary desire to romanticise or redeem digital communications - a
medium which has such strong historical ties with Taylorist and Fordist modes of modern
mass commodity fabrication and the development of American military communications. You
have pieced together a surprisingly ‘liberal” (in the most critical sense of that word) ideology
that supports your view of your own work as critical and anti-hegemonic, when in fact, it fits
snuggly with the main thrust of current global info-commodity production. You have chosen
to make use of the advanced modes of electronic R&D that capitalism has to offer - choos-
ing one of the most capital-intensive media of artistic production available. Is it due to your
niggling awareness of what this clear economic and academic privilege implies about your
own class status that makes you want to theorise the medium itself as structurally critical and
resistant? While a critique of the larger structures of global capitalism and continued West-
ern economic imperialism is proper and necessary, you attempt to make that critique from a
platform constructed just barely to the left of Bill Gates’ crotch. Perhaps you think that taking
such a position will save your own work from the onus of your own critique. Your arguments
curiously mimic Mahathir’s long-standing strategy of appropriating the rhetoric of the local
centre-left to criticise the very global capital markets in which his administration has histori-
cally been a committed player.

Epilogue

Oh I Wish I was a mole in the ground

Yes I wish I was a mole in the ground
Like a mole in the ground I would root that mountain down
And I wish I was a mole in the ground

In 1924, Bascom Lamar Lunford recorded this traditional ballad. In it, the wish to be delivered from
life, to be changed into a creature insignificant and despised, to destroy the world … and to survive
it! Greil Marcus (1989) sets this mix of fatalism and desire, acceptance and rage are at the very heart

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of Rock n’ Roll. But, as he goes on to note, with reference to Mystery Train14 recorded by Elvis Pre-
sley in 1955, Presley adopts the spirit of the mole but he tips “the balance to affirmation, concealing
the negative but never dissolving it, maintaining the negative as the principle of tension, of friction,
which always gave the Yes of rock n’ roll its kick.”

Train I ride, sixteen coaches long

Train I ride, sixteen coaches long
Well that long black train got my baby and gone
Train train, comin’ ‘round, ‘round the bend
Train train, comin’ ‘round the bend

The train comes back. For rock and roll, it comes back to an affirmation from the heart of negation.
Indeed, whether in Rock n’ Roll or in contemporary art, the desire to assault the centre, to negate
all that stands, has a dark seductive glamour. However, upon gaining recognition or “crossing-over”
from the margins, the “No” loses its potency and becomes confused with the “Yes” it purports to
deny.

Well it took my baby, but it never will again (no, not again)
Train train, comin’ down, down the line
Train train, comin’ down the line
Well it’s bringin’ my baby, ‘cause she’s mine all, all mine
(She’s mine, all, all mine).

Indeed, the Oedipal criticality and the liminal outsider strategies of avant-garde art are, ultimately,
“cross-over” phenomena. They are affirmations of the myth of progress and of the central thrust of
20th century history.

References

Anu, J. 1999. Tan Chin Kuan. In Beyond the future: third Asia-Pacific triennial. Brisbane:
Queensland Art Gallery.

Carroli, L. 2000. “A virtual region: MAAP99 and the virtual triannial”. In ART Asia Pacific, Spe-
cial Digital Issue 27. Sydney: Fine Art Press.

Hasnul, J. S. and Rajah, N. (1997) 1st Electronic Art Show, Kuala Lumpur, National Art Gallery.

_____________________ (2000) (Eds.) E-ART ASEAN ONLINE, Kuala Lumpur , National Art
Gallery.

_______ (2002) Bara Hati Bahang Jiwa, Exhibition Catalogue, Kuala Lumpur, National
Art Gallery.

Mystery Train: Elvis in the ‘50s. n.d. Retrieved [10th Jan 2002], from http://www.planetexe.
com/mysterytrain/gone.htm.

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 Piyadasa, R. 2001. Rupa Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: National Art Gallery.

Rajah, N. and J.S. Hasnul. 2000. “The evolution of electronic art in Malaysia”. In ART Asia
Pacific, Special Digital Issue 27. Sydney: Fine Art Press.

Sabapathy, T. K. 1991. Sculpture in Singapore. Singapore: National Museum.

Salina K. 1999. Metro KL News. Retrieved [10th Jan 2002] from Star Publications (Malaysia)
Berhad Web site: http://metro.thestar.com.my/news/

Wong H C. 1998. APA? SIAPA? KENAPA? [unpaginated leaflet]. Kuala Lumpur: Wong Hoy
Cheong.

Zain, S. 1995. “Computer pictures at an exhibition”. In Ismail Zain Retrospective Exhibition 1964
– 1991, ed. R. Piyadasa. Kuala Lumpur: National Art Gallery.

Notes

1 Clement Greenberg argued that each of the Modern arts was defined by the pursuit of its own
“inherent qualities,” critically refining them in a quest for a pure state of being. “Painting,” for
instance, was deemed “critically” worthy only when it pursued or interrogated “flatness.”

2 T. K. Sabapathy (1991) has observed that installation and performance art in Singapore are
“aimed at analyzing the process of art-making and systems of language, investigating the nature
of materials and conditions of things in the environment, and responding to issues related to
social identity and cultural values …. the viewer is immediately drawn into participatory, active
situations wherein decisions and choices have to be made.”

3 Malaysia owes its complex racial demography of Malays, Chinese, Indians, and others to
colonial economic and immigration policies. The establishment of Malay power at independence
and its consolidation in the wake of the tragic race riots of ‘May 13th’ 1969 has had repercus-
sions on identity and culture in our country. The Malays asserted their dominance and laid claim
to the fruits of nationhood, which their earlier, more liberal approach had failed to deliver. The
National Economic Policy (NEP) was put in place with the aim of restructuring wealth and oppor-
tunity for advancement of the Malays. Non-Malays accepted Malay hegemony as being neces-
sary for political stability, and communalism is practiced in all aspects of national life, in politics,
economics, and culture. In 1971, the National Cultural Congress was convened to reconstruct
the terms of ‘national culture’ for our newly reconstituted nation. The National Congress as-
serted the necessity for Malay prominence in the realm of culture. The Dasar Kebudayaan or
Foundations of Culture was drawn up asserting the preeminence of the indigenous culture of
the region and of Islam. Though this document never gained the force of law, its tenets have
permeated the official narrative of Malaysian culture including, of course, the visual arts.

4 The “1st Electronic Art Show” included video, video installation, computer print, computer
animation, CD-ROM projects, Smart Board/VRML “painting,” real-time computer animation/per-
formance, and Internet art. Up until this exhibition, references to works of video and computer
art were scattered across a historical narrative constructed in terms of the domestication of
European Modernism. The “1st Electronic Art Show” extracted and organized the fragments of
information that were dissipated in the wider narrative of Malaysian art, in order to construct a

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platform for new media art. More significantly, this exhibition was intended to be a catalyst for
the new media scene in Malaysia.

5 As the text is in the Malay language the citation is taken from Piyadasa’s unpublished English
manuscript.

6 See The Failure of Marcel Duchamp/Japanese Fetish Even! at http://www.hgb-leipzig.de/wa-

terfall. This was first presented at ISEA 1996 at Rotterdam.

7 The work was first presented as part of a paper titled “Locating the Image in an Age of Elec-
tronic Media” (Rajah, 1996) at the Conference of ISEA 1996 in Rotterdam. It was presented
again that year in an exhibition titled “Explorasi” at the Gallery Petronas, Kuala Lumpur and then
in 1997 in the “1st Electronic Art Show” at the National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur.

8 See Mondrian in Action! at http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Bistro/6268/index.htm.

9 See Tortoise Zone at http://westwood.fortunecity.com/gucci/369/index.html.

10 See Api at http://www.geocities.com/dongri1999/hasnul/api.html.

11 See E-ART ASEAN ONLINE at http://eartasean.unimas.my.

12 E-ART ASEAN ONLINE consists of a comprehensive database of new media art including
profiles of artists and samples of artworks, a journal dealing with the historical development of
electronic art in South East Asia, theoretical and critical issues related to the use of electronic
media in the visual arts as well as reviews and analysis of electronic artworks, a forum for on-
line discussion as well as links to related web sites worldwide. A space for developing and host-
ing Webart by Southeast Asian Artists is under construction.

13 This citation is from an email sent to E-ART ASEAN ONLINE in response to an article pub-
lished in the ART Asia Pacific journal (Rajah, N. & Hasnul J. S. 2000).

14 Mystery Train by Little Junior Parker and Sam Phillips was first recorded by Parker in 1953.
Elvis Presley turned Parker’s bluesy original into a fast energetic romp. Elvis’ chuckle of joy can
clearly be heard as the track fades out (Mystery Train website). The lyrics are from Elvismobile.
com.

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 No Choice but to Choose
Jose Tence Ruiz, Philippines

I will begin, in a fashion not incompatible with our media-suffused lives, with a sound bite. It is dated,
possibly, excruciating to hear, for sure, but proper, nonetheless, to this gathering: “One of the deli-
cious paradoxes and frustrations facing artists today is the inability of art to have an impact upon or
transform existing power structures and institutions”. (Langenbach 1996, 87)

To leave this enunciation in this form, unprocessed and under elaborated, is to re-create the daily
experience of the compression and disenfranchisement of imagination that, ironically, a profit-driven
global media would engender in favor of the very power structures that leave no choice but to be
accepted. Instead, let me continue the paragraph from which this tract emanated. Let me elaborate
on it. It was written in 1996 by American visual/performance/multimedia artist Ray Langenbach (who
resided and taught during the ‘90s in Malaysia and Singapore) as a preface to a review of the Chang-
mai Social Installation which took place in the same year. Consequently, the review appeared in an
Australian publication titled ART Asia Pacific also in the same year. To continue, Langenbach wrote:

The commodity markets of our late capitalist era are so all encompassing that the market for
art has been colonized with the massive movements of global capital. Artistic/Political agency
seems to be dying. Our roles as artists are predetermined, like the proverbial clothes laid out
on the bed by the butler, and in this film, the butler rules the house. All we can hope for is that
15 minutes of fame that Andy Warhol assigned us, in our well-rehearsed roles as propagan-
dists for the prevailing world order. For those who resist this flow, the most radical actions,
desires and pleasures are read as the small eccentric gestures appropriate to their respective
cameo roles. (Langenbach 1996, 87)

The next best thing might be, upon digestion of this candor, to adjourn to the nearest swimming pool
and salvage whatever useful moments are left to relax before returning to the race, or to contemplate
that it is primarily with necessary candor that one sets out to seek a livable project. It is important
to burn, whether in sheer pain or in transformative epiphany, with the realization that rhetoricizing
is always prone to trip on its own eloquence, unless our levels of attached activity are focused and
executed in a manner as unrelenting as that which would necessarily preoccupy the remainder of
our personal trajectories.

Prevailing critical notions in our peripheral territories (developing states, post-colonial nations, third
world countries, SICs or slowly industrializing countries) often carry on with this necessary candor in
short supply. Instead, there is vicarious projection beyond measured capacity to effectively ground
and implement proposed agencies. This is also a by-product of the historical alliance that our tradi-
tional elites have forged with hegemonic powers, wherein a projection of progress vicarious to that
of the dominant parties obfuscates the exploitation of majorities bred by these unilaterally profitable
historical conditions and exchanges.

Mine is a patently marginalized view. We are here, largely a conference of the marginalized, seeking,
as margin, to enclose and/or cross over into spaces initially conceived from outside our effective

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purview. These spaces emanate from highly secured, rarified power centers. Our response is a sur-
vivalist penchant for a scaled-down version, or the edgy and edge-wise strategy, resorting to our “as-
signed” options--migration, overseas posting, translocality, even a partial cyberconstituency to eke
out our space, compressed as it will be for a significant time, for assertion, enunciation, identity.

These projects will have been classified under the term alternative, as in a binarist complement to
a perceived mainstream. As shown in our earlier use of a sound bite to demonstrate tendencies to-
wards underprocessing, the notion of mainstream may not align into a half-to-half configuration with
the alternative. May we propose instead to slide another term in its place for the purposes of our
project: that of alternating, wherein the modes of production that artists take are allowed to cross the
margin back and forth in a search for responses to the contingencies that arise.

Alternating modes of production therefore produce interstitial pathways, conduits between center,
periphery, and even the liminal spaces of pioneering venture. The alternating demand more from
their practitioners, but then multi-tasking has surfaced as part of the formative paradigms of the
same culture that would push hegemonies forward. Hence, the response to such hegemonies may
be just as polyphonic.

I do not completely agree that agency among artists is dying. Rather, it is emerging from a binarist
mold and assuming a sense of complexity and/or purpose with more sophistication, a sophistication
occasioned by the complexities of the hegemonies that impinge upon beings or cultures caught up
in the transformative waves of 21st century technology. It is therefore also harder to romanticize,
harder to pin down, possibly becoming as chameleon as the very symptoms that challenge its emer-
gence. The question that may separate it from its converse is what it proposes to do with whatever
surpluses it has garnered, either by way of cultural influence, monetary power, or even prestige
within its chosen community.

I would propose standing aside on the path of dividing a cultural field into mainstream and alternative
and rather, use the skills, abilities, and talents yielded by continuous learning, updating, and shar-
ing to create more practice founded on the alternating mode. The next step would be to dedicate
such a polyphasic capacity to the re-establishment, if not the continuous assertion and creation of
ethical space: where dedicated standards of excellence are asserted relentlessly in the long term,
with a view to the constant possibility of frustration as leverage toward the reinforcement of cultural
practice. The trap in swallowing my proposed sound bite as a whole truism is the concept of an
essentially unacceptable monolithic social matrix which needs wholesale re-invention to be ideo-
logically acceptable or workable. Most matrices survive on their workability, not on sheer political
machination. Ethical spaces are a measurable trajectory that may be replicated and adapted also on
an inter-national scale, with the contingencies proportionate to their environment.

Strangely, applicable to either the most retrograde painting media all the way to the most ephemeral,
a notion of proportion is the key to the ethical environment.

It is the excesses of the social that are to be addressed and not the social in a monolithic rendi-
tion. The key to this is constant grounding in the lives, constituency, and the address of the specific

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 enunciations and assertion of this lived constituency. Artists are therefore no longer to look for an
audience, as this may now effectively extend beyond their purview or ultimate control, but rather a
context, a community, a constituency. We are left no choice, but to choose.

Reference

Langenbach, Ray. 1996. “Through the keyhole”. In ART Asia Pacific 3(3), ed. Dinah
Dystart. Sydney: Fine Art Press Pty.

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Discussant’s Response
Karen Flores, Philippines

Forgive me, this will be tagpi-tagpi, patches of notes which hopefully we can make sense of. Con-
templating the local and translocal art activities, art market, whatever you will call it, in addressing
these concerns and issues on whether it’s an existing global art economy already-- is it virtual or
simply vicarious or imagined for us here in the Philippines? There arises what I feel is an unneces-
sary dichotomy that crops up between a so-called parochial art practice and a global art practice,
which is previously the buzz word, for this will be the “avant-garde” as against the parochial, the
nativist. Now, but my question really is: is this so-called parochiality really a detriment to achieving
our place in the global schema? Our problem may not be so much the lack of having an inclination
outwards. I think its very strong here, our inclination to project ourselves outward. But basically,
we may be working at it prematurely, ahead of understanding our own internal inclinations--which of
these internal inclinations to harness and develop.

Participating in ARX (Artist Regional Exchange) back in 1995, we observed that even though we
came from various regions in the Philippines; one was from Mindanao, one was from Luzon, one
was from Rizal, and two of us were based in Metro Manila…because conferences like this were not
common back in the early ‘90s, I think we did not have the privilege of really conferring with each
other. Opportunities were not existing back then, for artists to get used to discussion, to discourse,
to critique themselves among themselves. Such that I think that that became the core of the problem,
that we were thrust into conflicts, unnecessary conflicts in fact, that also led us to imagined competi-
tions, frictions. At any rate, we are more fortunate now, because this is becoming more common.
You see, we emerged from a time when artists only thought that, because I was still part of that,
growing up and getting schooled in the ‘80s, and also starting out as an artist in the early ‘90s, we
were emerging from a situation that led artists to think that they just exist to create art, and the mat-
ter of criticism, the matter of contemplating the subject of art is something for other experts to take
care of. But more and more, we see that it’s become necessary for us artists to take this up--to see,
to study more about the critical side of our art. I’m saying these now because it has become more
clear to me. After more than ten years into my practice as a visual artist, I can say: yes, art is an
advocacy, and Meps (Imelda Cajipe-Endaya) said that very clearly in her biography, you will see that
in your kits. But the fact that even art can be a legitimate advocacy is sadly lost to many individu-
als and institutions. I realize that even the country’s premiere art and culture institution, namely the
National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) cannot seem to grasp this clearly. Perhaps
because of its bureaucratic make-up, it is only equipped and able only to see culture and art activi-
ties mostly in terms of either social welfare, to which greater good are we going to give this culture
and art activity, or else, earning the Philippines a place in the limelight, earning some limelight for
the country in the international arena. A case in point, going back to the atmosphere on discussion--a
case in point is that when the Committee on Visual Arts wanted to include amongst its goals an at-
tempt to formulate a new mission and vision and goals for the committee since we wanted to instill a
culture of discussion. And that was first, if we did not insist on it, the NCCA would have not allowed
it, because they said, “what is discussion for, discussion must lead to something, and you must state,
what is this ideal that you want to discuss things for”. But we insisted that it is in itself a struggle to

141
 promote a culture and a climate of discourse especially here in the Philippines. I think we would re-
ally be gaining much if we are, again, talking about that inclination outwards. Before we can even get
into that inclination outwards, I think we must really get into what’s basic: of being willing to educate
ourselves more effectively by joining that atmosphere of discourse.

Now, in critiquing critical art, I would still perhaps caution critics and curators regarding the powers
afforded them by the choosing and the categorizing intrinsic to their work. Well of course, there was
a bad habit before, I think, maybe I will not generalize, but it is of course a tendency from the old
school of Philippine criticism to regard criticism as something of a sorcerer’s act, making art appear
or disappear to the public, to public perception. So, we will only be knowledgeable of which art will
be given due attention by a certain critic. In effect, the art audience is fed through the critic’s efforts.
Now, I appreciate the critics’ and curators’ effort to clarify providence and placements but of course,
we must remember that it is against the grain of discourse to exclude indefinitely certain art outputs
or inclinations. There is an increasing demand for us artists to engage in these areas, which is previ-
ously the exclusive domain of critics and curators. This has come about not necessarily because of a
desire to move up, but sometimes what happens with the critic’s or the curator’s assessment of your
art--not that its inadequate but sometimes you fail to recognize what you do in what you read about.
So perhaps it becomes an encouragement for artists to articulate their art for themselves.

Likewise, these developments are also telling us that critics and creators are now also on a parallel,
talking about locus and the roads to take. Right now, I could see that we are more and more, get-
ting on the same road together. And this is good, because first, I think a spirit of collegiality would
be most welcome, a spirit of consultation between critics and artists would be very beneficial to the
art scene in general. Yet I still see a continuing struggle, for myself as artist basically, if we say that
the struggle for modernity is a constant struggle for radical reforms, and I believe that part of that
radicalism as an artist is to continue to assert and establish my autonomy amidst these local and
translocal developments. Maybe I’m saying this because I welcome this, but I’m also quite bewil-
dered by everything that’s happening right now. So how am I changing, how am I, as an artist I keep
asking-- sometimes you’re no longer just confined to the comforts of your studio. “Ok I’m just going
to do what I’m going to enjoy”, because there’s so much to... you already read so much about this
and you realize this. You’re very aware of this through media-- of these global developments. And
so, I think it’s a matter of us finding that, us artists still maintaining our autonomy. We may in effect,
collaborate with all these forces, but I hope that we still find that autonomy for ourselves.

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Session 1:
Alternative Modes of Production

THIS session deals with the re-imagination of the means of creating art. This segment
is part of the conference stream, Critiquing Critical Art which seeks an exchange
of experiences among artists whose art addresses power relations. The Cultural
Center of the Philippines Museum and Galleries Division head Sid Gomez Hildawa
served as moderator for this session.

Three local and international speakers presented their papers. Key moments of the
discussion follow:

Florina Capistrano-Baker (Ayala Museum): All three speakers

seem to have different interpretations regarding the relationship between art
and context. Patrick Flores states that art generates its own context. Niranjan
Rajah warns against dislocating context from a national to a global context.
Jose Tence Ruiz suggests that artists dispense with looking for an audience,
but instead look for context. Please clarify the differences in interpretation.

Niranjan Rajah (University Malaysia Sarawak): I feel that the

context determines the art. But we have a choice about how we determine the
context; the framework. I think it doesn’t begin with art. It doesn’t begin with
the work of the artist, although that is valid, independent, and pure. When we
started applying the word “art” to it, and then start engaging with the framing
of it, then the system we’re operating in comes into play.

Patrick Flores (UP Art Studies): It’s not very productive to drive a
wedge into the two categories of art and context. I don’t think it’s a question
of which comes first, art or context. I think it’s a tighter, intricate engagement
between the two because, although art is produced in a social context, the
production itself generates its own system of relations.

Paul Zafaralla (UP Los Baños): Where does criticism lead us con-
sidering the general adversarial relationship between art critics and art prac-
titioners?

Niranjan Rajah: That very relationship between artist and critic is becom-
ing increasingly irrelevant. It’s not adversarial anymore because it isn’t just
two parties. Even the relationships between artist and audience are changing.
I think critique just disappears for a while until the new art finds its form and
is packaged and marketed better.

143
 Reuben Cañete (UP Art Studies): Up to what extent can we view
[capitalist] production, without taking into context, for example, the translocal-
ity of the identity of the artist as both producer of surplus value and also as a
transgressor of meaning?

Niranjan Rajah: Something that bothers me about contemporary post-

modern art scenarios is that when things are moved from context to context,
especially from smaller to bigger contexts, some meaning from the original
context is lost. I think production has ceased to be the important model now.
It’s now pure exchange with our product. This is the big corruption in the
global scenario. It’s pure capital, and art is a symptom of that exchange, that
escalation of value.

Patrick Flores: I think the question has something to do with constru-

ing art as a mode of production. Reuben seems to define this production as
capitalist, which can only produce surplus or excess. My proposal is to find
the alternative economy that doesn’t produce surplus, and find art within that
economy.

Jose Tence Ruiz: What to do with the surplus is the critique that we have
to pose upon ourselves. Eventually, we are all working for surplus regardless
of the structure of capitalism.

Niranjan Rajah: There is something else I feel is relevant. A lot of recent,

big art extravaganzas have involved major artists who have had engagements
with folk producers. I think it’s very important to investigate the relationship
and the rewards. Who is laborer and who is capitalist when (for instance,
rickshaw) designs become part of someone else’s art? [Rickshaw design] is
folk and without signature. What happens when it is appropriated and signed,
collected and signed, and then institutionalized as belonging to a certain pro-
ducer?

Claro Ramirez: Since the clear trend is collaboration, crossover, and en-
gagement, how can you still manage enough detachment to critique your own
practice in terms of art production, curatorial direction, and validation?

Niranjan Rajah: Just rely on somebody else to do it for you.

Judy Freya Sibayan (De La Salle University): If we decide that

in the final analysis it may not be even necessary to produce the art object
because everything is discourse, do we sense that artists actually fear dis-
course? I sense that a lot of artists would rather not deal with discourse, and

144
yet it is discourse that they desire for [their work] to be validated. It is dis-
course that tells them that their art exists.

Jose Tence Ruiz: I think it’s not about discourse. It’s about affirmation
and negation within the discourse, that’s what we’re after. Eventually, you like
discourse that goes your way, and bloody hell, trash all the discourse that
doesn’t. But I agree, discourse is indispensable.

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Session 2:
Interventions in Place
 Within Sites
Joselina Cruz, Philippines

An exhibition would show something, something like a picture. A critical exhibition might find
some way of disrupting the scene so that we couldn’t walk around it without being reminded
of walking about it. But what would an installation in an exhibition be which constantly showed
a picture […] as a disruption of a settled scene? Would this be an extallation in an inhibition?
(Cousins 2001, 101)

An extallation in an inhibition, the disruption of a settled scene, interventions in place, the excavation
of rupture. Loaded in these phrases are the various desires sought when one employs strategies that
underlie work which seeks to intervene in areas claimed relevant by artistic discourse and practice.
Back in 1998 in Copenhagen, a conference, which is perhaps similar to this, discussed the areas of
interventive strategies of concerned practitioners similar to ourselves.

Among its proceedings was a most interesting exchange between Okwui Enwezor (this was before
he had ascended to Documenta curator) and Rasheed Araeen. The interchange was most interest-
ing as one could clearly see that their positions were at cross purposes with each other. Araeen was
advocating the disruption of art history by jostling bits of it to include those who had been excluded
from the annals of history due to the complex problematique that post-coloniality had presented to-
gether with the idea of these former colonizers’ mis-recognition of post-coloniality. He says that:

It [post-coloniality] is based on a mistaken view that it is only those who have been colonized
who are now facing or must face the specific conditions of post-coloniality; and that there
has been no need for the colonizer to change or go through its own liberation from a colonial
relationship [...] What I’m instead suggesting today is that post-coloniality is the condition of
both: those who were once the colonizer and the colonized, and only when we recognize this
can we establish a new relationship based on human equality…

On the other hand, Enwezor clearly thought that this position, though not unnecessary, could not
simply be a means of insertion or inclusion. He states:

The purpose of making exhibitions, or the challenge of an exhibition framework which is not
blind to the formation of many new and alternative narratives and emergent, social, political
and cultural norms [...] in a densely complex global information network, is the need to con-
sider history in all its sordid components.

While I found the exchange amusing -- reading it here in Manila, what with two big figures in contem-
porary art almost getting on each other’s nerves -- it was their conflicting vocabularies that rendered
the discussion, not only inconclusive (not that I advocate a necessarily clean conclusion to all discus-
sions), but worrisome. The inability to find a level platform, despite the already “democratic” frame
that the conference supported, made me feel as if something were amiss; at the same time, it felt
as if everything were also all there. The exchange was quite encompassing, running from historical
conclusions to the need for new narratives, from art history to exhibition history to translation. Lars

148
Bang Larsen, a critic and curator based in Copenhagen, in his concluding notes to the conference
assures us that “Rasheed Araeen and Okwui Enwezor, each in their own way, discussed an aware-
ness of hegemonic aspects of cultural texts, and propositions of counter practice or negotiation of
these structures.” Indeed, it was each in their own way.

I would not be surprised to find that, also each in our own way, we shall be discussing across each
other during this conference.

It is at this point that I would like to bring up “powerful singularities” as discussed by Hardt and Ne-
gri. In their chapter considering “Alternatives within Empire,” they write of the difficulty in translating
“singular struggles,” which they call biopolitical, these being all at once economic, political, and
cultural. These struggles are carried out in their particularities, and despite their intensity in each
location, such struggles are unable to spread out. Hardt and Negri theorize that these struggles
are unable to spread horizontally throughout the world due to the failure to communicate. These
struggles, they assume, have become incommunicable: “these struggles focused on their own local
and immediate circumstances, […] nonetheless posed problems of supranational relevance” (Hardt
and Negri, 2000, 55).

Further,

New figures of struggle and new subjectivities are produced in the conjecture of events, in
the universal nomadism, in the general mixture and miscegenation of individuals and popula-
tions, and in the technological metamorphoses of the imperial biopolitical machine. These
new figures and subjectivities are produced because, although the struggles are indeed anti-
systemic, they are not posed merely against the imperial system—they are not simply nega-
tive forces. They also express, nourish, and develop positively their own constituent projects;
they work toward the liberation of living labor, creating constellations of powerful singulari-
ties. (Hardt and Negri 2000, 61)

Interventive strategies are indeed such powerful singularities; in fact these concentrated struggles
seek to transform sites and situations by creating interferences (artificial or otherwise) among and
within fields. Such practice seeks to suture and evidence relationships that exist between ideas and
scholarship, politics and labor, corporate power and academe, etc. In the schema of the art world,
interventive strategies are popular agencies employed by artists, theorists, and curators to elabo-
rate, extend, and transgress canon, which may bridge or deepen divisions and other rifts present
within and between art and society. Such work hopes to render transformative values within areas
of struggle and resistance, whether within art, culture, or society. In Hardt and Negri’s original idea
that relationships among struggles within Empire should not be flattened, it is suggested that these
relationships must instead leap, to make connections straight up, vertically, to reach the heart of
Empire, much like the work by Russian artist Ilya Kabakov which projects an imaginary self through
the roof, not as a means of escape, but as connections between and among scattered efforts and
projects across geographies and above linear time.

My current work in a museum, a 19th century museum, places me in a context, which ordinarily would
not be open to strategies of contemporary art. In fact, the museum had been in a state of extended

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 inertness for the past 40 years. With the vision and dynamism of the past director, as well as the
continued encouragement and interest of the present director, the museum has begun to seek newer
ways of engagement. It has decided to come out of its shell. The projects I have undertaken toward
the building of an exhibitions programme for the museum have mostly been carried out to harness
the museum’s varied collection. Aside from the more than 500 pieces of artwork (in less than 1,000
square meters of space), the bulk of the collection is the Filipiniana library whose holdings have more
than 17,000 books on the subject of the Philippines, including a rare book section, old maps, and
French and Spanish lithographs. There is also a small collection of pottery, jars, and memorabilia of
the national hero Jose Rizal.

The most recent project that, once again, allowed for the entrance of contemporary art into the mu-
seum was an exhibition titled “Fixation: Notions of Obsession”. While premised as an exhibition that
would take on the idea of collecting as an obsessive act, the exhibition actually worked on several
levels regarding the museum framework, its site, and its collections. I invited a mix of artists whose
practice engaged ideas regarding collecting and obsessiveness, as well as two collectors. Using
the museum as framework for a show on collecting was meant to juxtapose, on one level, personal
collecting and public collecting, and on another, the obsessive quality of such an act. By inviting a
collector whose collection was that of vintage Action men toys, I wanted to highlight the issue of
aura and of reification to be considered for pop cultural icons within a museum known for its massive
collection of Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo paintings. It essentially asked the question:
what was worth collecting? It also threw up the legitimizing authority of the museum as a site for
contestation and investigation. The installation of the Action Figures within the first gallery as well as
its placement within a museological vitrine underlined the value and the aura accorded to Hasbro’s
plastic men. A short text in the room explored the development of museums from personal collec-
tions. Placing this as the first work to greet the public set up the visitor for a different experience of
the exhibition and the museum.

On another level, the exhibition also invited the audience to explore the museum. The Lopez Muse-
um’s architecture was built specifically to house the 19th century paintings and Filipiniana books col-
lected by its founder Eugenio Lopez Sr. Thus, central to the layout is the Library. From its small lobby
and one gallery, the hallway acts as the central artery which leads one straight into the collection.
There is a stop, a very brief one, when one reaches the circular node where the pottery collection
is housed in a specially-made vitrine; this vitrine is shaped to follow the node’s circular node. The
galleries can be accessed from middle openings from the hallway. The hallway was taken over by
artist Alfredo Juan Aquilizan, whose collaboration with communities renders his practice a collecting
act, bringing in ideas of the personal and of a community into his work. In the hallway, he places pho-
tographs of a popular summer vacation spot called Baguio. The photographs are uncollected sou-
venir snapshots from Baguio photographers. In each photograph, memories of a vacation vacillate
towards the same activity, the same photograph, a similar memory. A pony ride, Mine’s View Park,
Wright Park, the gardens. The exhibition continues into the Rizaliana memorabilia section where one
finds the collection of Jonathan Best’s post card and photographic collection of Baguio at the turn
of the century. Placed here as well was a work by Ikoy Ricio, a set of trump cards, a collector’s card
game, but for this set, instead of fast cars, he went around Manila and ‘collected’ through photo-
graphs, abandoned cars. He then took down their details: number of wheels left, number of seats
left, length of time abandoned, casualties.

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In the Map room, Alice and Lucinda, personas taken on by artists Lena Cobangbang and Yasmin
Sison, play detectives fascinated with finding the person responsible for recurring graffiti. They go
through the old part of Manila in search of the identity behind the graffiti. In the library, they inserted
a file under the heading of ‘Salenga,’ the person purporting to be responsible for the recurring graf-
fitti. In the library too one finds the last bit of work in the show. Annika Eriksson, a Swedish artist,
collects collectors. In this work (a loan from the Moderne Museet in Stockholm) entitled Collectors,
(1998), the artist asked collectors to talk about their collection. Recorded on video, each collector
expounded on their collection and collecting passion, whilst surrounded by their collection. The work
was situated within the library which was accessible to readers and researchers.

The exhibition hoped to exercise an internal critique of the practice of collecting as done within the
museum and as a reflection of accumulative practice. The exhibition also enabled visitors to take in
areas of the museum and library that would normally be given a cursory look without much consider-
ation. The exhibition, while not overtly antagonistic toward the idea of collecting, invited a re-reading
of motives for collecting on a personal and public level. Coincidentally the exhibition took place at
a time when the museum’s acquisitions program was put on hold.

Such strategies use existing institutions for the creation of critique and transformation, by working
within a site already much critiqued for its elitist stature and fraught relationship with its public. Cer-
tainly, such spaces cannot be challenged externally with much success, but instead can be worked
from within to transform the institution and achieve a reflexivity that could create a more responsive
and engaged stance regarding its public role and responsibility. But such possibilities of recovering
the site from itself, to spur it toward the articulation of ideas, concerns, and varying economies which
straddle both theory and practice, take a long time in the making. It remains to be seen whether the
Lopez Museum will continue to allow this slow negotiation of itself with the public to continue.

Most of the work that I have had the chance to do locally has been marked by the opportunity to
engage with collections. This is despite the fact that this was something I did not set out to do. From
2000 to 2001, I worked with the Museo ng Kalinangang Pilipino, part of the Cultural Center of the
Philippines. I was invited to come and look at the collection of textiles they had and asked to work
with it. It had recently undergone conservation and was ready to be shown to the public. The Museo
ng Kalinangang Pilpino, the ethnological museum of the CCP, is devoted to collecting and preserv-
ing the works of Filipino artists and artistic traditions, to studying and interpreting these in order to
highlight and provide a deeper understanding of Filipino creativity and aesthetic expressions, and to
promoting and enhancing people’s awareness of creativity and artistic expression as an integral and
dynamic aspect of our national life and culture. The museum is marked by two things: its exhibition
display using life-size mannequins in a tableaux to recreate specific rites and customs of particular
indigenous/ethnic groups, and secondly, that it was set up in the 1980s by Marian Pastor Roces
along very specific lines of exhibition display and theory; there was also the incorporation of pieces
by an artist as specific objects within the museum. By this, I speak of the glass etchings made by
Roberto Feleo. While these objects specify the artist’s contribution to the layout of the permanent
display, the work was not interventive, but rather, an aesthetic addition to the room which worked like
elaborate wall texts. This was the context for the exhibition of textiles, but the use of the space with
the tableaux was not an option. Instead a hallway was set aside as the space with which to place the
textiles for public viewing.

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 The collection had two major problems, despite its recent conservation. First, the pieces had not
been researched on; they had no catalogue entries except an accession number. Second, the space
was limited. Textile expert (Norma Respicio) was invited to be a part of the project and work on the
material prior to its being shown, an architect (Jose Yupangco) whose specialty was lighting, and a
graphic designer (Yodel Pe) to work out exhibition display were all brought together for the exhibition.
While the research on the textile was being carried out -- this was later to be published in full in a
modest publication -- and the exhibition display being worked on, artists were invited to engage with
the collection . They were to be invited to come and take a look at the collection and speak with the
textile expert. In the end, three artists carried out individual projects. All three used the textile collec-
tion as point of departure. The exhibition, which was to be called “SPIN” with its appendage “Cycle”
for the artists’ projects, sought to provide new ways of visual display for exhibitions, became a site
for the engagement between the public and the collection. It also encouraged a dynamic and more
critical relationship between contemporary artists, collections and institutions. Interest in develop-
ing such a practice came due to the inveterate lack of interest in continuing scholarship for objects
acquired into a collection. Research and curioisty seem to flag the moment an object enters a collec-
tion. Collections too seemed to acquire that air of suddenly entering a rarefied vacuum, a sphere of
untouchability, but worse than stepping into the realm where aura begins—and no one really knows
where this ends—is that of inaccessibility to the public. This is especially glaring in an institution like
the CCP whose mandate with the public is more clear-cut than those of private institutions.

The artists’ projects programmed within the exhibition negotiated the idea of textile and the act
of collecting. The artists invited to work with the collection did so using a variety of agencies and
very specific levels of engagement with the collection. The work that they undertook for the exhibi-
tion combined an interesting texture of social engagement involving specific communities outside
the institution while maintaining the collection as the pivot from where the projects swiveled. Alma
Quinto’s practice of using work traditionally done by women underwrites her comment on feminist
empowerment and her great interest in embroidery and stitchery as an empowering tool. She wove
her work within the exhibition display. For the exhibition, she created a tapestry that brought together
a collection of stories, sewn onto a length of cloth that was progressively filled as the project devel-
oped. Sewing sessions where held with the cloth working as tapestry to carry people’s stories. By
involving a group of traumatized children with whom she had been working for a time, she encour-
aged the children to sew their stories onto the cloth in a kind of art therapy, as they sought to face
and reclaim their experiences.

Katya Guerrero, on the other hand, used the collection as conceptual jump-off point, seeking to cri-
tique the institution and what it stood for. She chose a contemporary object, that is, a t-shirt on which
to silk screen to mark the objects as coming from the exhibition. She then placed these within the
exhibition display to become part of the collection, within the frame of the institution. Later, the shirts
were collected by their owners, after having gone through a process of marking and placing, to re-
turn to the original source and recover its function. I worked again with Alfredo Juan Aquilizan, whose
practice of collecting and setting up objects as installations relate the personal with public histories.
For this project, he collected blankets and dreams. By looking into the T’boli tradition of turning to
dreams for their blankets’ designs, Aquilizan crystallized these dreams within a wall of blankets col-
lected from across the country. Inserted within the blankets were speakers, and from these, people
narrated dreams that they had. The projects called for an active response from the audience using
the exhibition as a means for suturing social engagement broken off upon entry into the museum.

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The exhibitions are tiny incursions into creating spaces which engage contemporary practices, not
necessarily placing these within the canon, from where very few are able to release themselves.
Instead the site of art enables the thinking out of areas of crisis, and/or staticity to look beyond the
current. To quote from Lars Bang Larsen,

The cultural authority of the artistic field with its experts, institutions and formal affiliations is
used as a resource oriented to integrated cultural terms, in an attempt to counter the division
of intellectual labor into increasingly narrow cultural and professional niches. And perhaps
with the ideal and ultimate goal of helping (re)build ethically viable arrangements of enuncia-
tion. (2001, 196)

Indeed, such agencies continue Hardt and Negri’s thought that “The only strategy available to the
struggles is that of a constituent counterpower from within Empire.” And that perhaps alternatives
are not to be found solely outside but necessarily from within, as well, or at least among the many
constructions we find in ourselves and we find ourselves in. In a conversation with one of the speak-
ers of this current conference, we were both asking the question: where is contemporary art headed?
This question is much like the question thrown to a variety of curators present here by artist Jochen
Gerz, “What is in the context of contemporary art, your vision of a future of art?” in a project which
has continued to bring in an amazing variety of sites and spaces, ideas, and conjectures. After I con-
tinued to receive email after email of the anthology’s growing contribution—across practices, cities,
cultures, fields, races, and locations—I think the answer to his question is the project itself and within
itself. Spread throughout the world like a virus, Gerz has managed to use the Internet to bring to-
gether the greatest variety of positions I have ever encountered, whose product, if and when it does
come out (perhaps it should not and remain only on the Internet), could become a valuable resource
of meditations, thoughts, reflections, essays, and internal recollections that may resist time and
space. A veritable anthology of art and thought, it has become a task, a project of pure intervention
outside the strictures of institution, but well within the heart of a globally transnational imaginary.

References

Cousins, Marck and Moderato Cantabile. 2001. In Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and
Enquiry, issue 04.

Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. 2001, Empire, Massachusetts and London England: Cam-
bridge University Press.

Bang Larsen, Lars. 2001. “Economies”, in Remarks on Interventive Tendencies, Copenhagen:

The Danish Contemporary Art Foundation.

Exhibition catalogues for SpinCyle: Textile Collection of the Cultural Center of the Philippines,
2001 and Fixation: Notions of Obsession, 2003. Manila: Lopez Memorial Museum.

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 Nuts Society
Thanom Chapakdee, Thailand

So good Afternoon eVeryone. I thiNk everyone’s quit

sleepinG but THe next 45 mInuteS will wake you up
by nuts society1. so i come here to present as nuts
society, my mySelf is A lecturer anD art CRITIC,
more radIcal and quite Strong. i’M not a member
of nuts society but i’m presenting as nuts society
because everyone is of nuts society. now you
become a member of nuts socIety So i wANt
to talk About why its beCome nuTs socIety, be-
cause the grOup of Nuts society, the thinking
that thai society, mostly in the big city, thai
society’s become worse than anything because the
thai people, they’re proud OF their never being colonized to any country.
ANd they’re proud of their more strong IN the monarchy system. They’rE pRoud of
eVErythiNg. once They’re proud of everythIng, they lOse everythiNg right now. and
they colonize themselves from the western. that’s why nuts society, they organize
to PROVoke, to make a sense of thai people, to waking a nostalgIa of the olD
society. that’s why .
the way they are doING it is just provoke the society tHat, bEcause we aRE sucking
with the capitalist idea IN Thai society, 80% or 90% of people, they believE iN
buDdhism. its very sTrOng sense and just already 10% In other reLigions. i mean,
all of, many of my friends Like jay koh in a sense, and many who know aboUt bangkok
it’S a real posTmodeRn city. you cAn go To just onE corner, you can see the temple,
beside the temPle yOu is a maSSage, besIde massage is a school, BesIde schooL’s
universITY, beside university’s a park. and every inch of bangkok is a real
posTmodern�you can HAve jusT anything. they don’t have any zones of entertainment,
Or edUcation oR a temple bUt everythiNg is flux�you cAn ask patrick, he knoWs
About this. no, no, he went to bangkok but he neveR knows about thE thiNgs happEned. only me, So
Sorry to mention your name becauSe you’ve been to bangkok quIte often. but you can see what’s
happeneD therE. you’re a good guy i mean.
that’s why nuts society they are trying to bring back the mind OF the people to do
soMethINg gooD. but for me, for me, its none sense to do like thIS. this cAnnot
Bring back peopLE TO COMing back�with the capitalist idea. i mean, buddhist way and
caPitalist idea is very paRadox. oncE tHEy teach you to a sufficieNt moDe of living
but Capitalism just teaches yOu to eat, to be pressured with what you waNt to do.

154
you Can Eat, you can take, you can get the money, you cAn buy everything but
buddhist way just teLls you to Make sufficient, or just be patiEnt or tolerant or
kindneSS but capitalist idea is not that wAy. but nuts society they try to do, they
try to do by usinG art objEcts to Stamp on the people.

This sHows thEir work last year in abouT cafe, About nutS society2. i just provoKe
you about the THings that happEN in thai SociETy or most in bangkok. so i mean, iF
you go to thailand, mostly in bangkok, OR chaingmai or ____ city, you can see THat
society is very messy, fluxing TOgether. we are like a, it’s like a super
multicultural activity. you can take eveRything if you’vE got the money. you can
buy anything if you’VE got the money. money for me, i think in A big city Like
bangkok, you can buy, if you have the money. this is a Part Of nuts SocIety
acTIVity in bangkok in about cafÉ. i don’t know in manila because i just come, not
24 hours, but its come to the paradise lost in thE uphilL, in thE Mountain
(refErring to aNTipolo), juSt we see things that happen in downtown. THIS one is
very typical, ThaI when you MeEt at the First sight, they’re called wai (thai
greeting with bOwed head and clasped hands) but now wai is, cannot pRactical in the
society. sometime when YOU wai.....
but nuts society just tRy to CONvey to SoCIEty to be like this but for me, this is
Not really practiCal in our, not our, it’s not yours sociEty but in bangkok.
(referring to slide) tHey triEd the woRth in evEry product, like smiling, smileness
(sic), or kindness, or someTHing likE that. smiling is like that. before, i mean
in thailand, they’re just promoting to toUrists the laNd of smile. now it’s the
lAnd of smile but the smile foR money. if you give money, They smIle and take a
piCtUre. its Like A roboT, Everywhere, every cOrNEr you can give a Smile. smile is
the tourist ideA now, touRist idEa is very dAngeRous. That Is smile. and nuts
soCiety��they pUt the LAbel, ThE branD, to give a product. but for me, it’s just
really a sign but it doesn’t really work in their minds because they’re minds just
thinking how to get the money to buy the sign like us now. it’s the same, they
stamp on every product. they stamp on every product. this one (HONEST). i mean
“HONESTY” cannot wo....
this one is duty. yes, i mean, i’m quite quite sorry in thai society because
everyone, they say we have a duty to do, to preserve the people, to relying on the
people, what they want. the duty now, this means that you corrupt the town and you
corrupt the space. the duty, it doesn’t mean you have to do as like citizen of thai
people. the duty, it means money talk. that is just the same thing, it happens.
that’s why nuts society, they try to put DUTY, duty everywhere. yes, we have a duty
to do. okay next.
this one, kindness��are thought BE KIND or take CARE of�i’m not sure. i mean, to be
cared of in the capitalist society, nobody cares for anyone, just very selfish. i

155
 mean, very selfish. before, i mean 30 years ago, if you go up to the bus, i mean,
the man or woman or younger, they stand up and take old people to sit down but now,
everyone just�i DOn’t CARE. never are thought, never kindness, never care of, they
just care of themselves. this is cared of means. and this one, they put on the
sticker, and put on the bus are torn, “care of.” and once the people wilL rEad,
they jusT ha, ha, ha (laughs): “care of!” i care of mySelf. That is veRY rude way.
this one is like a tea or a water you can drink. its like a, you take in or��before
you do SOMETHING, drink water. i don’t know what they call, the ritual water for
the temple. you have to saCRifice. thEy sAy “oh I’m an honesT man. I haVE to be honest for my
country and to drink water” but now its like drinking whiskey, thIs hoNest water.
THis is part of An exhIbition in about café. this is KINDNESS or CARE OF.
yes, next. also they tattoo2 for young people or young generation. but theiR, i mEAn, the tattoo, it
Doesn’t mean to stAmp on tHere will be The same as yOu want to do.
they just okay, that’s veRy Nice one. can we stamp on you but you just�� this a sign,
it doesn’t mAke seNse to make a gooD thing like in NUTS SOCIETY
requIre you to do but they Need to. jusT like oh, wHen you stAmp on nuts socIety, oh it’s very very
smart. It doeSn’t make senSe�And nuts society’s everywhere but it doesn’t Mean NUts sociEty
worKing well.
this iS abOut café that we are, they’re making exhibitiOns about the word, the text, they’re
taking from the buddhiSt books, or the bUddhist ideology. it’s a kiNd of usinG text
to promote the idea of religion to the people in capitalist society. i mean, i don’t
Know, wHat do yOu think is can working together. but for Me, myself, it doesn’t, it
doesn’t make sense to the generation like us because we have to survive, We Have
to workIng hard, we have to many things to get the money to buy the produCts to
entertain ourselves. but tHis one, is very very opposite way in our mode of living.
yeah, this MEANS “NOT GREEDY.” but in the real thing, you are, not you, me is “very
greedy,” myself is very greedy. i need more. i need more, never enough. i get
100, i need 200, i need 500, i need 1,000��that is the way, but it doesn’t mean
enough for, to feed our soul and our physical��this one, it means “selfish.”
nuts SOCIETY put together. it’s the same: kindness, selfish or greedy, or
something like
that. i mean by, as an art object i mean it’s more, it’s quite minimalized.
it’s
very successful in the art itself but if yet talking about art and space, and
the
people can participate or can interact with, for me myself, it’s not really, what it,
well they just look at��well, it’s like a sign, or it’s like the brand name of the shop

156
in the department store. this is the same kind. somehow we are talking about art
and society, and people can combine by taking activity like this but for me, it’s
very far beyond in thai society. like this morning, we are talking about the thing
like this��but for me art itself is very creative, there’s still a big gap between
audience and artist and art object. we’re making art to put in the museum but the
people, they are living in the village. they’re living in the city. but all our
artists, we are proud to making art object to put in the museum but nobody knows
where ....
yes, this is same, this greedy but they just cross, it’s like the Sign of trAffic.
okay, yes, they put Whiskey on, they sAy ‘noT greeDy, not drink.’ okay, yEs, thEy
put in the window shop to satirize but it’s good to make art in many place, not just
so in the museum. THis is greedy As well aNd paid. in the building, some make��it’s
like��a chestnut or something like that��yes, same. so i mean, that is the crowd of
nuts society taking place in, everywhere in the big city by using the text form from buddhist book for
the people. they put the sticker in the bus, on the public toilet, in the park, everywhere. they try to be
like a promotion of the goodness, the good thing, the kindness. so��not so long, i’d like to read a
klon that they are asking me to read, that’s taken from the temple in the south of thailand��they say,
the key to, nature of truth.

Editor’s Note:

The above is a graphically altered transcription of Thanom Chapakdee’s talk during the conference. The
visual intervention is in keeping with Nuts Society’s work in exploring the performativity of language.

Notes:

1 Nuts Society (Sam-Nuek-Soo-Sung-Khom) is presently anybody (a citizen of the Planet Earth) who is
concerned about the existence of the world and tries to act so that it evolves in meaningful ways. With
its name and objectives initiated in Bangkok, Nuts Society has been organizing and exhibiting public art

157
 projects and activities since 1998. As a collabora-
tive group (uninterested in the self-promotion of its
members), the organization is committed to produc-
ing significant art that plays a role in the world’s
development and social consciousness.

Preoccupied with wider social contexts, Nuts

Society engages in cross-disciplinary practices,
adopting different means to communicate various
messages in order to achieve one main goal--to
inspire and heighten social conscience towards
responsible ways of living.

To learn more about Nuts Society, please visit

their web site: www.nuts-society.org.

2 Creative Positive Change and Commitment

Nuts Society’s concern for meaningful contemplation of perceived and actual social conscience moves
those involved/concerned to ask questions of the greater society. Creating a context for people to ask
those questions of themselves/their consciousness is primary to our purpose.

Our concept is that the body is the site where the ideas and object (word/symbol) meet. That is, where
the social world and the psyche intersect. Ideology is interpreted as a way in which society enters the
mind through signs within a particular context. The hope is that the “true” meaning of a word/symbol will
be affected by the varying influences of ongoing cultural and ideological conflicts. The true meaning, of
course, exists outside the words. Meaning is realized in the intersection of perception, the self-conscious
subject, and object (tattoo).

Moving beyond the context of decoration, class identification, power, or beauty, Nuts Society’s unique
tattoo designs combine various messages from all the previous projects in an attempt to communicate,
criticize, and remind people of what is missing in the urban, global, and consumerist society.

158
Reading each other
LEE Weng Choy, Singapore

My presentation is titled “Reading each other”, and I’ll be reading three texts by Patrick Flores. I
would not have chosen these texts if I did not have sympathies with what they say, though no doubt
my reading of Patrick will entail a certain “violation” upon his writing. But I hope that my misreadings
are productive and fair, or at least provocative or interesting. I should qualify that my presentation
today is but a series of gestures. My reading of Patrick isn’t an adequate engagement, just a prelimi-
nary encounter. A greater investment is required. It will have to be taken up elsewhere. All I can offer
here is this gesture, which aims to foreground the problem of how little we read and refer to each
other in forums and gatherings such as these. We talk in tangents too often, and there is not enough
critical dialogue. Reading each other is a necessary requirement for any criticality of “place” — even
if what we might mean by “other” and by “place” is not something given or settled.

However, the first gesture I want to open with is this: denouncing George W. Bush. Today it seems
almost necessary to start any intelligent discourse anywhere in the world by railing against W and his
cohorts, their recent policies and actions. Shouldn’t we be calling for UN Security Council sanctions
against the Bush government, with the aim of a non-violent regime change? Of course, we shouldn’t
just stop there. Closer to home, there are plenty of policies and actions to denounce as well — the
practice of detention without trial in Malaysia and Singapore, for starters.

Although it’s not like I dislike Americans per se. Allow me to detour before I commence my reading
of Patrick. From denouncing one American dyslexic, I now legitimate another dyslexic American.
Some of you may know Ray Langenbach, an American performance artist and theorist who has lived
in Malaysia and Singapore for over ten years. The performances I will describe here, however, were
done in the US in the Reagan years, from 1985 to 1987. Ray performed Christ in America about nine
times in different parts of the country. I’ve never seen the performances, but Ray has told me about
them, and I’ve seen some video documentation.1

In this work, Ray attempted to take on a belief system that was antithetical to his own — at the time,
he defined himself as a liberal performance artist in America. The point was to genuinely and sin-
cerely take on this other belief system.

The belief system he identified as antithetical to his own was the Mormon religion. Ray ap-
proached some Mormon missionaries, and studied with them, with the idea that trying to
become a Mormon was simultaneously a genuinely sincere effort as well as a performance
artwork. Incidentally, Ray tells me that an inordinate number of FBI (Federal Bureau of
Investigation) and CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) agents are Mormons. At first, Ray se-
cretly video-taped the meetings, not telling the two Mormon missionaries of his intentions.
After a few sessions, though, Ray became rather guilty, and confessed to them what he
was doing. Surprisingly, the Mormons did not object, and the two continued their attempts
to convert Ray for about a year, until the church elders decided that, ultimately, Ray was

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 a lost cause, and instructed the missionaries to stop wasting their efforts and desist from
giving Ray further lessons.

After a year of taking lessons, Ray began giving presentations of Mormon cosmology as
performance pieces. These performances attempted to introduce an absolutist belief sys-
tem into the relativist spaces of universities, art galleries and art colleges. Ray attempted
to convince the audiences of the legitimacy of Mormonism solely through the force of his
presentations. He gave a 30-minute lecture on the cosmology — he performed it “straight”,
without qualifying his presentation by any context, or any suggestion that his performance
was ironic or anything but sincere.

Ray would end each performance with a prayer, thanking God for “sharing information
with us today”. He would then thank the audience and walk out of the room. Ray tells me
he doesn’t recall anyone ever applauding these performances. In Tennessee the audience
threw objects, booed and catcalled. At the Lower East Side in New York City, they burned
the clothes he had left in the dressing room.

There are reasons to cite Ray’s Christ in America in relation to our theme. His is a perfor-
mance about the places and contexts of art, about belief systems, difference, relativism
and radical otherness, about ideological interpellation, the paradoxes of performativity,
irony and sincerity, and so forth. But the main reason I cite Ray is to paraphrase a particu-
lar gesture of his, which I have seen in the video documentation.

Ray began his performances by drawing on a blackboard a diagram of the “pre-life”, “life”,
and “afterlife” phases of Mormon cosmology, and then launching into a short explanation.
In the video clip Ray looks very stern and serious, and I imagine him to be mustering all his
concentration to actually believe in what he is saying, notwithstanding his total skepticism.
After explaining a few things, as if just completing the preface that is to be followed by the
main part of his lecture, Ray turns to the audience, folds his arms in the Mormon fashion, and
says: “Let us pray”.

And so, let me, in turn, make this invocation: Let us read.

What I show you now is an excerpt from Patrick’s essay, “Contexts of a New Contemporary”. He
presented it at a forum in Mumbai, in February this year. I must thank Patrick for emailing me the
texts that I’m talking about today. For all the money spent on art buildings, libraries and universi-
ties in Singapore, it’s shocking how little we have in our collections of the work that is done by our
neighbours.

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Without further delay, let us read:

At a time when the postmodern aestheticization of society has been linked

to the global mobility of late capital and when conceptualism in art has been
rendered effete in the face of the cooptation of reflexivity by a versatile simula-
crum of self-referential but hardly autocritical acts, what sort of contemporary
projects can be conceived to intimate ‘deep difference’ and enabling equiva-
lence in the context of a global conjuncture of critical art? ...

It is imperative ... that a context of the contemporary must be crafted and not
only discerned or intuited in situ. If the aestheticization of society has so pen-
etrated the entire realm of everyday life then it would be futile and politically
suspect to merely describe the aestheticization and to hold it out as context,
perhaps as in the superflat aesthetic of Japanese art that Hiroki Azuma con-
ceives as ‘the dysfunction of the gaze in the postmodern world’ in which ‘space
and the eye no longer serve a powerful role. Space has turned Superflat and
the eye is but a spectral, anime sign.’ The making of context must itself be a
productive process of creating a condition and potential for a new aesthetic of
a different contemporary.2

In this first citation, what Patrick is doing is not unlike what I did in denouncing Bush. Patrick is also
making a gesture, a call, an invocation — to get on with the work of thinking and constructing a
“context for a new contemporary”. As Ray might say, citing J. L. Austin, what we have here is a per-
formative gesture or speech act. The very utterance attempts to establish or aid in the development
of a state of affairs referred to by that utterance. A call for contextualisation. Patrick himself does not
adequately provide this context in his brief presentation in Mumbai. How could he? What he asks for
is something large and complex.

Significantly, this context is itself performative — that is, the constructing of this context is not simply
a description of a state of affairs, an acceptance of the status quo. It is an intervention into the very
practices of contemporary art-making and meaning.

Here, I would say that I am in strong agreement with Patrick, if what he is saying is that a certain
contextualising is necessary. There is the exhortation, offered by Fredric Jameson, to “always his-
toricise”. Is Patrick also saying this? And what would he mean by reiterating or repositioning or
reconstructing Jameson? Speaking for myself, when I join in the call “to historicise”, what comes to
mind is Walter Benjamin’s historiography: to imagine events not in a fixed sequence of past, present
and future, but as radically adjacent to each other. And I emphasise the word “imagine”. History is
not simply the narrative accumulation of news headlines, albeit with greater embellishment and con-
textualisation. History does not have the causality of the past progressing into the present, into the
future. To ascribe a telos to history is perhaps the opposite of the imperative to historicise.

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 Doubtless, history confronts us with burdens — the traumas and violence that happened in the past
haunt us today. But to confront the burdens of history is not to recognise it as distant or past, but
fully present. It is not to project ourselves in history, but history into our selves. Perhaps this is all to
say that the proper temporal and spatial arena of history is the NOW. Not the past as such, nor the
future as telos.

But what I read in Patrick is also a call for the NEW. He raises the question of “difference”, makes an
exhortation for “alternatives” — but how, in his discourse, are these framed by the call for the NEW.
And how does this compare with my own call for the NOW.

There is this web art project by Jochen Gerz, The Anthology of Art: Art and Theory in Dialogue,
where artists and arts writers are asked to respond to a question, and to nominate other people to
participate.3 The project aims to collect an anthology of responses from all over the world. Some of
us in the room, Patrick, Joselina Cruz, Sharmini Pereira, myself, for example, have already contrib-
uted. The question asked of me was somewhat different from the version Joselina mentioned earlier
today.

In the context of contemporary art, what is your vision of a yet unknown art?

My own response, at least the beginning of which, is as follows:

The question discomforts me. (And let me repeat the question: In the context of contemporary art,
what is your vision of a yet unknown art.) The “yet unknown” does not seem to refer to the present
moment, even though the “contemporary” is supposedly its context. Rather, the visioning invoked
appears future-oriented. So how different is this from asking what we would wish for in the “better
tomorrows” of our own design? I would like to think of myself as a proponent of change — there is
so much that is wrong in our world today. But if I am wary of the desire for the next new thing, it is
because often our imaginings of the future are predicated upon frozen images of the past.

These days when I hear the words “the future”, I do not think about the future so much as remember
people from the last century — white middle-class suburban Americans of the 1950s, for example
— all chirpy and a little smug, beaming with hopelessly naive good cheer. I imagine them captivated
by the latest advertisements in lifestyle magazines that illustrate “the modern style of the future”,
or sitting in front of brand new black and white television sets, watching with mouths slightly parted
as some gentleman in a grey suit declares: “in the future ... aeroplanes will be supersonic ... every
home will be fully automated ... and families will holiday in outer space”. The desire for “the future”
often strikes me as a peculiar form of nostalgia. As Jacques Derrida might say, the future is spectral:
it is a dreaming for what is to come that belies a dreaming of what is to come back.

True, a “yet unknown” suggests something radically open. But the way the question is structured,
whatever instability this unknown may have had seems domesticated by the query’s implicit and
overriding “futurism”.

What if this “yet unknown” did indeed refer to the full complexity of the present, or, as I want to sug-
gest, the Real? Here, I am referring to Jacques Lacan’s concept — that which resists representation

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— but also the word’s everyday uses: real life, real experience, reality. I would like to define the
“present” by its resistance to representation, by its “realness”. Only when the present moment be-
comes past, or projected as the future, can we pin it down and speak about it. But I should also say
that I firmly believe in the imperative to try to historicise both the present and the Real.

Let me turn to another text of Patrick’s. This rather long excerpt is from “Renewing the Contempo-
rary”, a text presented at the Japan Foundation Asia Center “First Working Seminar for Young Cura-
tors” in August 2000, in Tokyo.

One could think of the excerpt as having three parts. The first part is an encounter with a work of art
that triggers some theoretical questions.

When I went to Bali, Indonesia, for the research phase of the project Under
Construction, I got the chance to encounter a work at the Seniwati Gallery, an
art space run by women and their advocates, that was to prompt me as a cura-
tor to profoundly rethink the notion of contemporary art. It was a traditional
Balinese calendar painted by a very old woman ... The Gallery’s director, Mary
Northmore, told me that the woman painstakingly attends to the demands
of the process of realizing this calendar; to commit an error might trigger
some cataclysm, a disorder of the world around her and which her calendar
ordains. I asked myself: Is this contemporary art? Something that is unequivo-
cally rooted in custom, brooks no deviation under the auspice of original ge-
nius or unreplicable energy, and eschews any errance? Something that resists
critique, innovation, and is sacredly committed to a seemingly changeless and
unchanging world? Something that is made possible by an old woman who did
not study the fine arts and is not traded in the market as an artist?

But why not? Is it not made in the present and is, in fact, “before” me? Is its
presence not enough, evoked by the subjectivity of an ethnic and gendered
subject of an earlier generation? Does not its calendrical discourse ensure
passage and posterity for a history that so subtly turns in the long haul, a
movement in time to the degree that it indents transformation though not nec-
essarily progress or development, a reckoning of the inheritance of the past,
a renewal (and therefore modernizing but not modernist) of a culture’s life and
the furtherance of its moral world? ... these questions mattered greatly and
led me, who is by training an art historian and critic, to ponder the parameters
and politics of the contemporary — its radical edge and its deep heart of home
— and its time and place in Asian art, and, surely, the other way around as
well.4 (italics mine)

The second part is a preliminary mapping of some of the ways different writers have addressed the
question of the contemporary.

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 In coming to grips with the contemporary, we are moved to mark the contem-
porary in history. The idea of history itself, we realize, is a contested one, and
therefore renders our dilemma all the more vexing. The works of Ashis Nandy
have drawn our attention not to alternative histories, but ‘alternatives to his-
tory’. According to Nandy, the dominant, and therefore naturalized, estimation
of history is ‘derived from the links the idea of history has established with the
modern nation-state, the secular worldview, the Baconian concept of scientific
rationality, nineteenth-century theories of progress, and in recent decades,
development’. There ought to be other intuitions of movement, flux, velocity,
traffic, trace, and transformation.

The categories of time and space are instructive, nevertheless. Following ear-
lier attempts to posit context in history, we may ask the questions: When is the
contemporary? Where is the contemporary? To a great degree, these inquiries
have been addressed. Jim Supangkat, for instance, insists that it is impossible
to make sense of Indonesian contemporary art outside the purview of the
politically committed art of the ‘70s, an art historical programme that is sup-
ported by Alice Guillermo, who also situates Philippine contemporary art in
the upheavals of the same period in which social realism emerged as a cogent
alternative to the State-sponsored internationalist art. Another colleague, T.K.
Sabapathy, reviews Southeast Asian historiography to critique the discourse
of Asia as a Great Tradition and Southeast Asia as a tributary or a diffusion of
the said greatness.

A salient notion in this revaluation is the memory of modernity. John Clark has
extensively remarked on the politics of ‘transfer’ in the intervention of colonial-
ism in Asian art and the production of an alternative modernity that might, in
fact, prove to be inimical to the project itself. Geeta Kapur has also adequately
commented on the matter in her book that recalls Raymond Williams’s own
question about the time of the modern. If the contemporary proceeds from the
modern in a range of ways as a furtherance or a critique, a development or a
disavowal, how do we contemplate it and how do we contemplate the contem-
plation of this history? Several options have been raised. Some observers re-
solve to foreground a certain post-colonial modernity that views modernity as
a Derridean “critical inheritance” and a positive future. Homi Bhabha, Néstor
García Canclini, and Arjun Appadurai have theoretically weighed in through
this trajectory. In another register, feminists have aspired to a ‘posthumanist
future’...

With regard to the locus and address of the contemporary, the exhibition titled
Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin, 1950s-1980s organized by the Queens
Museum of Art in New York in 1999 refers to the plural instantiations and em-
placements of global conceptualism... In the introduction of the catalog, Ste-
phen Bann makes the case for a ‘contemporary’ that ‘breaks decisively with
the heritage of modernism... and... rejects the customary practice of plotting

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 out the topology of artistic connection in terms of center and periphery: Paris
or New York in relation to the various satellites that have come within their
sphere of influence’. In the exhibition’s alternative framework of the multiple
points of origin of conceptualist art, it surveys expressions from Japan, East-
ern Europe, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, North America, the former
Soviet Union, Africa, Korea, mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South and
Southeast Asia...5 (italics mine).

And the third part is where Patrick asks: “With these frameworks and perspectives on the table, how
do we craft Asia in the economy of curation?”

Patrick then proceeds to develop his arguments in what I take to be the main part of the essay.

Here, what is of interest to me are the intersections of geography, historiography and the contempo-
rary. My first textual encounter with Patrick led me to discuss the tension between the NEW and the
NOW — tensions that I have discussed perhaps entirely only on a temporal axis.

This second encounter demands a more thorough reckoning with the spatial dimensions of the im-
perative to historicise, and, in particular, to historicise our present place. But Patrick does not quite
take on these particular questions in the remainder of his essay “Renewing the Contemporary”
— or at least in my reading, he shifts focus and proceeds to map a somewhat different territory of
concerns, which I will not elaborate upon here. For a re-entry into these questions of geography,
historiography and the contemporary, let me turn to another text by Patrick: “‘Through the forest a
convoy of clamors’”.

This time, because I am running out of time, I won’t display excerpts from Patrick’s texts, but will just
summarise certain parts.

The essay begins in Manila, with Patrick watching cable television — “Bangkok Jam”, a programme
of Thai music videos. For Patrick, something unexpected occurs: what he finds on screen is not so
much a local version of a homogenised global form; instead, he notices a disruption by the vernacu-
lar.

Second episode: Thai artist Phaptawan Suwannakudt, who is trained in the tradition of Thai mural
painting, and continues to practice that craft. In a different context, in a series of acrylic paintings,
Phaptawan makes reference to the Nariphan myth, of the tree that bears girl-fruits for the taking. She
employs the traditional iconographic narrative forms to portray a contemporary event: the story of
a 12-year-old girl, the daughter of a noodle stall owner, being sold by her own parents to a brothel
agent.

Third episode: here let me quote Patrick: “Filipino artist Jose Legaspi ... deals with the proscription
of his sexuality by narrating almost obsessively — through drawing, installation, and performance
— the dreams of his tormented body and its ‘phantasmagoric biology’.... Legaspi’s seemingly ran-

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 dom images ... are not to be viewed as drifting across the traverse of the simulacrum like traces of
pastiche; neither should these be constructed solely in terms of a system of beliefs or a structure of
meanings. These images embody the artist’s very processes of making ‘selves’ and making them
material ...”6

Now, I haven’t seen much Thai MTV, although I am not entirely unfamiliar with the product. But I
would not doubt that the Thai vernacular disrupts what has become the signifier par excellence of
globalisation: the pop music video. But my first response is, so what? In Singapore television, local
flavour is not lacking, even if Singapore TV often rips-off American sources. The question of “local
flavour” isn’t the most interesting question for me in this case. What’s more interesting is how Sin-
gapore TV reproduces Singapore state ideology.

And why the comparison of Thai MTV with Phaptawan? Why the further comparison with Jose Le-
gaspi?

I have seen a painting by Phaptawan of the Nariphan series that Patrick talks about. While I can-
not “attest” to its rootedness in Thai mural painting — because I have no expertise concerning that
field — even my superficial acquaintance with Phaptawan’s work leads me to be persuaded of its
“authenticity” (said with quote marks firmly in place). But what does this authenticity mean? Thinking
very cursorily about her work, what strikes me is that the question of authenticity is not asked by
Phaptawan herself, or at least not asked with the anxiety that often accompanies a lot of contempo-
rary art. In my reading of Patrick’s discussion of Phaptawan, what he finds most compelling about the
Nariphan paintings is their intervention into what he calls a “local moral world”. The accent is less on
authenticity than on specific ethical scenarios.

As for Thai MTV, is self-authentication an issue? Are the video directors and the musicians con-
cerned with such questions? The first and foremost concern may be to increase popularity, to make
more money. But isn’t Thai authenticity what both the local and international markets want?

Since I do not know any works by Jose Legaspi, I am treading on very risky ground here. But I trust
I am not in error to read Patrick as implying Legaspi’s work is rooted in the artist’s biography. Again,
let me ask, is self-authentication an issue here? Even if in this case it is parodied, played with, com-
plexified, avowed and disavowed?

The essay “‘Through the forest a convoy of clamors’” seems haunted by the question of authenticity.
Perhaps precisely because Patrick does not make it particularly explicit. And I can appreciate why
he would want to avoid it — he mentions the word only once. Assertions of authenticity seem more
the domain of ideologues than of art critics. But we have to contend with this problem. It lurks, it
haunts so much contemporary art and art criticism. In the discourses of contemporary art, how does
the question of place become framed by the desire for authenticity? My last gesture is yet another
exhortation: our desires for authenticity must be historicised.

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Editor’s Note:

Patrick Flores’ texts as cited by Lee Weng Choy were manuscripts later modified into published
essays for various publications.

Notes:

1. For more about Ray Langenbach’s work, see, for instance, Lucy Davis’ essay on him, “In
Skepticism We Believe: Confessions of a Usual Suspect”, in Forum On Contemporary Art &
Society 5, Singapore: The Substation, 2004.

2. Patrick Flores, “Contexts of a New Contemporary”, In Undoing Europe in Southeast Asia:

Contexts of a New Contemporaneity. Filosofski Vestnik, Vol. XXIV, # 3, 2003.

3. Jochen Gerz , The Anthology of Art: Art and Theory in Dialogue, visit
<www.anthology-of-art.net>.

4. Patrick Flores, “Renewing the Contemporary”, text presented at the Japan Foundation Asia
Center “First Working Seminar for Young Curators” in August 2000, in Tokyo, Under Construc-
tion: New Dimensions of Asian Art. Japan Foundation Asia Center, 2002.

5. Ibid.

6. Patrick Flores, “‘Through the forest a convoy of clamors’”, El Poder de Narrar, Espai D’Art
Contemporani de Castello: Castellon. 2000.

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 Discussant’s Response
Chu ChuYuan, Malaysia/Singapore

I wish to touch on the difficulty of artists being in a situation of hard times and dealing with poverty.
And how do we you know, consider how to survive and as Bogie was saying that we can choose.
Actually I do think that, for me, contemporary art practice is very diverse and it does constitute a
central issue of choice. It’s what you choose to do and it’s a context that you choose to respond to
but you know, for example what Bogie was saying about context and constituency and, for me as an
artist, the constituency actually dictates my methodology. It’s actually something that I wanted to
ask Bogie--when the artist now no longer goes to look for an audience, but works with a community
or constituency, how does this constituency then dictate the methodology of the artist? Now, the
artist can choose to work in different ways. For example, as a mode of production, many artists
are choosing now not to create objects, and are focusing on processes, and focusing on dialogical
processes with your constituency and this is no longer regarded in the traditional sense of audience.
For example, I make work like in Nuts Society’s case, you know they make a work and they put it on
display. And this is still addressing this idea of the artist and the audience, but I would like to move
into another gear which is actually, to work in the way of direct engagement with the constituency,
and to create a space where there is possibility to imagine a certain sense of autonomy even if that
can not be realized immediately, but to begin to imagine this is important for my work and this also
dictates the form that the work takes. For example, whether we incorporate dialogue into our work
or whether it’s just a display.

I have recently been involved in a project in Poland, it’s called City Transformers. It has to do with
getting artists and architects together to consider the problems, the physical and social problems of
city transformation. And in the conference, we were actually deliberating together with developers
of a certain site. And in a way, the dynamics of the whole discussion made me think about art prac-
tice today as intervention, how it needs to cross disciplines, and what is the language that we use
when we cross disciplines. Because for example, as an artist myself, I had difficulty assessing the
language that Weng (Lee Weng Choy) was using. So you know, the language that the artists were
using to argue with was basically dismissed by the developers as too wishy-washy and philosophi-
cal. Even though the artists were actually dealing with very concrete problems of the city, that made
me realize the gap, the huge distance between the disciplines, and how the disciplines are actually
structures that are so jealously guarded, to watch out for the interests of certain parties. And that
also works for institutions, so I think that is another factor that should inform our art practice, the
language and accessibility. And as far as intervention goes, I think if we consider context as dictat-
ing our production, I think that we also need to take into consideration that in order to bring about
any kind of transformation or change, there has to be a certain timeframe that’s involved. And in
contemporary art practice today, how often is it that we can have the luxury of really giving a very
sustained timeframe to our work. So this is another factor that I think, should bear upon our choices
as I was saying, about how we choose to make our work.

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Discussant’s Response
Ly Daravuth, Cambodia

First of all, my reaction to the three presentations is immediate, I haven’t prepared it because I didn’t
have the materials before so I’m like you. It’s very dense so I’ll try to separate the three, and on each
presentation, I will pick up one main thing that struck me.

As for Yeyey’s presentation: I am very much interested in the idea of collecting, collection and what
you call engaging, when you asked the artist to engage with the collection of the museum. So this
idea of the collection as a property of a museum raised/brought up the issue for me of the role of
the museum and art institutions today. It seems that the work you have asked of the three artists, to
work, to engage the collection seems to me and it’s also sort of a question…seems like they didn’t
really engage the collection because there’s still the distance between the object as the ownership
of the museum and then the look of artists on the other. What I mean is that they just processed
from, they don’t intervene directly on the object. Put in a simpler way, we always want to touch
things in the museum but we’re never allowed to touch ‘coz there is a value in there. So I want to
stress this point because, I give you an example: in Cambodia, there was two years ago an exhibi-
tion on Buddha statues in the National Museum. It was a collection of Buddha statues that has been
stored in the basement of the museum and no inventory has been made. No one knows--the state,
the Ministry of Culture decided to exhibit that. And on the opening day, for the opening ceremony,
ministers, ambassadors and various people came. And some Khmer people walked in, they took off
their shoes, they lighted incense, and the police grabbed them and threw them out. And it is really
interesting for me because what seems to belong to people as a practice has been institutionalized
and somehow, the share of ownership that people have is gone for them. So I think it’s a problem,
the issue of what is the role of a museum. If you want to re-link it to the people, you have to rethink
the ownership of artifacts, of the collection, of what you own actually. But it is a very difficult issue
because these things have value, economical values or historical values. So this is something that
strikes me. I have other things to say but I will go on to the second intervention which is somehow
linked to this one.

I give my reaction according to what interests me. I’m interested in the idea of the relationship
between traditions and modernity, the transitions. In Thailand, first of all, the work you showed was
done by people? It was not manufacturing? It’s artists’ work right? Oh, it’s something that is in the
factory, it’s been produced en masse? (asking Thanom Chapakdee) But still it’s an artwork, right?
It’s an art intervention. The case of Thailand is interesting because Cambodia is close to Thailand
and shares a lot of cultural background. And I would pick up the idea of tradition, Buddhism and
ideology. I think that what Thailand, and especially through its monarchy tries to implement as a
cultural ideology, in order to promote the idea of a nation, is something that is happening more and
more from my perspective, is influencing Cambodia. Because Cambodia is building up a national
discourse, propaganda saying: “our great history, our culture, we Khmer.” But the Thai says the
same thing and the thing that the Thai says sometimes is common to the Khmer. So we are thinking
in terms of nations while the cultural background is regional, it doesn’t stop at the nation. So it’s
a problem, but what happens when a weak country like Cambodia doesn’t build up a discourse on
national culture and the national culture is really something interesting to look at, how ideologically,

169
 it is building up an idea of nation and how it is, maybe for me a lost nostalgia of the idea of value and
a country that holds onto values. I mean, it’s a sign of weakness. It would be interesting to study
that in the future. But to look at different signs of propaganda, of nationalization of symbol, of art.
For example, Angkor Wat is being publicized as our national soul but most of the Cambodian people
haven’t seen Angkor Wat. They don’t know what it is and this is interesting.

The last one would jump and link with the second one. I try to make it coherent. I’m very much
interested in the idea of authenticity and origin. I wrote here: purity, ideology, origin, authenticity.
Purity…I think this has something to do with, probably here also. I don’t know the Philippines. It’s
my first time. It seems that it is something back to the previous, hispanic, how do you say -- like a
trend? To look at what was before the Spanish? Like I think it’s interesting also because it is a gen-
eral trend from small, different nations or countries to define, to say: “We are specific in the face of
globalization.” So this idea of purity is more complex, and authenticity is complex but I don’t think
it’s a direction in which we should go. This is my opinion and sort of thinking. And this is why if I
understand well, Patrick only used one... and you’re right by saying: authenticity is more closed and
for an art critic, it needs to be open. So there’s a claim of authenticity which is for me, something
that should be criticized in Cambodia, in Thailand. So I just want to thank you for this event and I
think that this kind of event helps to reconsider, to think upon these different issues. But I wish there
were more discussions, so now I wish that we could discuss more and share.

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Session 2:
Interventions in Place

WHAT is an intervention? What are examples of interventions? How do these

affect artists, art objects and communities? These are the questions that dis-
cussants tried to answer in this session moderated by National Museum Di-
rector Corazon Alvina.

Prof. Paul Zafaralla presented working definitions of an intervention mid-way

through the discussion.

“My simple way of understanding intervention is this,” he said. “We have

ideatic interventions. When an artist thinks of something that he thinks ham-
pers his creative and mental growth, that is a form of intervention. Now if he
wants to triumph over that kind of ideatic intervention, then he has already
succeeded in going over the hump.”

Nonoy Narciso, an artist from Ateneo de Davao University, offered examples

of interventions among the Lumad artists in Davao. These were evangeliza-
tion; the display of the tribes’ items in a museum; the commercialization of
festivals; making tribes compete against each other in such festivals; and the
dominance of art from Manila in Davao.

National Museum Director Corazon Alvina re-stated Narciso’s comment

as “after all the interventions, will there be an identity, an art that identifies
Asians or Davaoeños or Mindanaoans?”

Ayala Museum Director Florina Capistrano-Baker said the former were ex-
amples of “negative aspects or the dangers of extreme intervention where
the outsider could transform traditional cultures so that it becomes completely
unrecognizable.”

Personal Intervention in Art

In answer to the question on the progress of their personal interventions in

art, artists in the panel discussion had these to say:

Chu ChuYuan: Intervention is when I go and I work within certain struc-

tures that confine the individual. I think that there are structures that confine
and act upon the self and determine the development of the self.

Ly Daravuth: I used to do artwork ten years ago… now I do publications

for children. I do puppet shows. I teach at university. I do all sort of things.

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 The only thing that made me feel that I intervene is, three months ago for
example, a kid came to our exhibition, opened a book and told me: ‘I have
saved for three months to buy the book but I am short of 50 cents. Can
you…?’ So that is an achievement.

Lee Weng Choy: What I do: I think about things that I like. I think about
things that I don’t like. I want to understand these things. I want to know what
I ask of them.

Thanom Chapakdee: For me, it’s creating the real enemy with the art-
ist.

Authenticity and Documentation

Prof. Madoline dela Rosa, a visual artist from the Philippines said that though
there may always be talk of preserving authenticity among academics and
museum people, “this idea of authenticity is only in terms of documentation
and records… Maintaining the identity of our culture, cultural specificity are
things we are always mentioning to our own people in Mindanao… Yet if you
go directly and immerse yourself in the communities, indigenous people also
want to experience the modern life, especially those who have already gone
for further education. And those who have not and remain are really suffer-
ing from extreme poverty and they are very much victims with regard to their
rights as human beings toward mobility and toward self-determination.”

Other Topics

Other topics brought up in the discussion were the transformation of objects

once they are put on exhibit in museums and clarifications on Tam-awan’s
intervention in Baguio. The following are excerpts:

Florina Capistrano-Baker: “Coming from a museological background,

there is a limit to how far one can take this in a museum environment… that an ob-
ject, once its transported into the museum-- begins a completely different life.”

Ly Daravuth: “I think that any form that is not relevant, even traditional
forms, will die eventually.”

Arthur Vito Cruz (University of Asia and the Pacific): “There

was this group from Baguio called Tam-Awan where, as an intervention, they

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went out into the mountains buying traditional Ifugao and Kalinga houses to
preserve the culture of the Ifugaos,. And because they had so many, they
began their own village to simulate how the Ifugaos lived before. Now, there
was one very, very strong critic, who also came from Baguio, who shared that
uprooting those art pieces, or those architectural pieces from their natural
environment does not necessarily preserve the culture of the people. In fact,
it may even destroy the culture of the people because many of these natives
are starting to sell their old houses in order to gain more money and to have
a concrete house and a tin roof over their head.”

Corazon Alvina: “The houses were not bought just for the sake of buying
them. They were in fact being torn down.”

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Session 3:
Self and Solidarities
 Untitled
Nguyen Minh Thanh, Vietnam

I’m really happy to be here, it’s my first time (to visit the Philippines) from Vietnam. On the topic
of self and solidarities, I guess that not so many people know a bit about the situation of Vietnam
today so I would present to you a little about the situation I come from and I have grown in, and
also talk about my own personal experience in making art, and also show some slides of some
contemporary artists in Hanoi.

So first I tell you about my own story, that I grew up right at the time that the country is opened. We
have been, from the war isolated just until 1986. It’s also the years that I was in high school, that’s
about grade 11. And just from that year that the country could have opportunity to see information
from outside and from the world. As teen-agers we were so excited to see from magazines or a
little bit from national TV but only if they got some support from some foreign embassy to give some
information. And from that, we could know more about the capitalist countries. So then I went to art
school. The art school is still the art academy founded by the French in 1925. During the war, they
still ran this art school but the revolution people were so clear to persuade all the artists to support

their policy for propaganda for the Communist Party. So, on one hand, the art school kept the charm
of traditional…which we imported from French impressionism. Then they yield this technique and
knowledge to apply to the proposal--to persuade people during the war, like making a lot of propa-
ganda poster or some painting which they call revolution romanticism or something like that. Even
until now it’s not changed a lot. They still keep the process for educating art students. And art in
Vietnam, the education in the art school system just means they will give you the skill and technique:
how to make the painting, sculpture or graphic in a conservative way, in a traditional way. And so I’m
like many, many young people from this generation who got the skill. Somehow we believe that it’s
very skillful to do some traditional technique but by the time we enter the third or the fourth year in

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the art academy, we, not most, of the young really are interested to look at what is happening outside
Vietnam. A few tourists come, a few business people come…like we first got an experience of a kind
of non-government organization as they came to Vietnam to work. Before in Vietnam, everything be-
longed to the government. Right now, we still exist. The Art Association belongs to the government
and they have a huge number of contemporary artists. It could be about more than 20. So to me,
it’s not such a big number. Later I will show you some examples of their work and of my own work.
At this moment, with respect to the artists from the other countries which I have seen, I feel that the
Vietnamese art contemporary exhibits may be much too innocent in a way to be compared with most
of the countries, specially with Philippine art which I have seen a bit. But it’s fine, its variety. So I’ll
continue with the story when I was in art school.

That I, from there also we learn about self. I mean the word “self”-- its having been repeated many
times—from the teacher, and from artists-- that every artist needs to look for their own style or some-
thing that must be different and must be special. And I did believe it then. That in studying or in
thought, in my mind, I did try to look for what you say would be: “really special” for me to compare
with the other people. But in the beginning, I really was almost like lost. I didn’t know what that was.
I tried to do anything but then everything had been done by other artists already, or some artist’s
works looked like someone else’s. I would like to explain a little more-- like in art school, what self
that people say is right but I mean, what they want for you is wrong. Maybe its right in the past but
today, it’s wrong. I mean that’s how it is in the art academy in Hanoi. So then I don’t know how to
paint or what to paint apart from painting reality. Drawing landscapes or portraits or still life I can
do, but I cannot find my own art. And so then I almost gave it up. I just tried to paint during the
time I was feeling bored. I just paint like it’s drawing without thinking. And then more and more, I
realize I’m drawing a face. I kept drawing this face without thinking of what it is, just for relaxation
sometimes. And one day, the face is like a repetition, so then its coming to me clearer and clearer.
And even when someone else looks at it, they say this face looks like yourself. And I also don’t care
if it looks like my self-portrait or not, but I keep painting for a while. And more and more, I realize
that people are right. It looks like me somehow. More and more, it becomes clear that I see myself,
that I’m drawing just a boy, portraits of my childhood. And then I remember in art school that they
advised students to look for themselves and this is a kind of, so-called self, own style. But also
there is one catch in that, at this time, to talk and to draw or to paint about myself in the painting,
specially about my childhood is maybe funny for people to look at, because everyone has their own
childhood and memory and beautiful or many sad stories. So why do I show to people--my private
childhood? But this is just a question and I can not answer it. But it gives me pain because I feel
like I need to paint a series of these portraits. And then I thought that if people laugh at it, I would
not care because I’ve found that’s the best thing I could do at this moment. And also that is, I could
see the difference between I and the other. And that’s also the only way I could, also see my beauty.
And people often say: “this is beautiful,” or “that is beautiful” but to see real beauty is not easy. All
our lives we look for beauty, and I think we live this life because of beauty, and also because of the
beauty we’re living.

So I just have a few words before I say goodbye. That honestly, we as artists, have the feeling today
in Vietnam that we’re always slower than the other countries. And because of this sometimes, we

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 feel ashamed. But on the other hand, I find the speed of life today too fast and many times I think that
we don’t need that fast a life. Like the Thailand artist just said, it’s just about the money that changes
people. I show you with my work and also the other work of other Vietnamese young artists today
that we have to run to get some image of what you see. And so as we run, we need sometimes to
get a break, to stop and to have rest as well. And with this world, I guess it’s, nobody waiting for any
other just pushing each other, going faster and faster, and I think the politicians never care about this
pace of life. Economic people make money--they would never care about speed, or even increase
the speed. Or scientists, they also will not care about it, so I think only in terms of culture… this
should be the role of artists. Is it possible to make the speed more slowly or not?

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Paradise Lost, Parodies Gained:
Boredom and the Business of Making Things Visible in Art
Judy Freya Sibayan

Five years ago, Lao Lianben, a leading painter in Philippine contemporary art, exhibited his works
at the Scapular Gallery Nomad, a portable art gallery I wore daily from 1997 to June of this year.
What was interesting about the event was Lao’s confession of a condition menacing his art practice.
He wondered whether there was something else he could do other than painting. I asked if he meant
to make some drastic formal changes in his paintings: two-and-a-half decades of exemplary toil of
quiet, persistent, subtle lines, circles, points rendered in textured whites, blacks, grays, silver, hints
of red and gold: “he knows only one art: that of theme and variations. On one side of the variations
will be found...his content; but on the side of the theme will be found the persistence of forms...”1

But it turns out he was bored with making paintings. His matter-of-fact attitude toward this sensi-
tive condition was admirable, for the very idea of boredom, to complain of boredom “violates the
Christian ethical imperative of faith and good works, which together fruitfully occupy mind and body
and improve the hope of salvation” (Spacks 1995, 33). With Lao claiming that painting no longer
interested him, no longer engaged him, it would seem he was giving up on the “discipline of faith and
the obligation of occupation” (Spacks 1995, 33)

Was he losing faith in this act of creation? Has painting become a mere obligation for having achieved
a certain enviable stature? An obligation of making a living perhaps? He hinted this much: “I feel
trapped,” he said. My Christian self looked for the usual saving grace -- the gift of renewal perhaps.
I asked if there is still the experience of joy when working on his art. He answered: “There is, at the
end of each painting.” More alert to his pain, I translated this to mean he is pleased when the tedium
of painting ends until he starts the next painting. Like Sisyphus, he is momentarily released from his
burden up there on the hill as he stares at the rock roll down again.

Lao’s circumstance reminded me of another artist I admired. The late Mars Galang was Lao’s friend.
He too had no choice but to make art every day. He too was bored. Lao recounted an incident dur-
ing an opening of a young artist’s exhibition. Lao wanted Mars’s opinion on the works on exhibit.
Mars’s comment had more to do with the life of an artist. “Poor artist,” Mars remarked, “he has a
whole lifetime of regret ahead of him.” Mars obviously believed in the artist’s life as a lifetime of
entitlement to inner fulfillment. Such notions, and, for instance, the right to the pursuit of happiness,
have their historical beginnings in the eighteenth century with the concept of subjectivity emerging
(Spacks 1995, 32). Patricia Meyer Spacks studying the

intricacies of boredom as bearer of cultural meaning sketches four hypothesis to explain the
new importance of boredom in the eighteenth century: the development of leisure as differ-
entiated psychic space; the decline of Christianity; the intensification of concern of individual
rights; and the increasing interest in inner experience. (Spacks 1995, 24)

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 Art too in the late eighteenth century evolved based on these last two events cited by Spacks. The
view of art as individual expression, for example, begins in the late eighteenth century. As Monroe
Beardsley put it: “Artistic production comes to be conceived as essentially an act of self-expression;
and the critic, as the century moves on, feels a growing concern with the artist’s sincerity, with the
details of his biography, with his inner spiritual life” (Burgin 1986, 148, emphasis mine). The book of
anecdotal writing on the lives of artists was published in 1764 by J. Winckelmann, and introduced
for the first time in its title the term history of art the way we understand it in modernist times. So
that late in our own century it has

become fashionable to stress the sheer subjectivity of all perception, including self-percep-
tion and to view the self as an evolving invention. In this view, to talk, to write about the self,
to paint it, to exhibit it in public or private, even to think about it is never simply to report
what is plainly already there, but to create a self through the very act of
recording. (Gay 1995, 8)

Lao’s art done in the expressive formalist tradition in fact has its histori-
cal roots from this view.

And with the rise of the French bourgeoisie as a dominant class in

the same century, the impetus of modern art criticism comes from the
“general assertion of the rights of good argument and individual entre-
preneurship against the dictates of sovereign law” (Burgin 1986, 149).
The artist now believing in having very specific rights as an individual,
gains a “personal sense of entitlement” (Spacks 1995, 23), as in the
privilege to realize one’s creative powers achieved with the maximum
of freedom, spontaneity, and pleasure all experienced to discover one-
self. And if these inner spiritual rewards were not enough, there was
still the promise of fame and fortune for leading such an exemplary
creative life, for the greatness of art is found in creative imagination or
inner truth, a construct rooted in the nineteenth century (Burgin 1986,
154), further defining the concept of subjectivity. But

paradoxically, the new stress on the dignity of individuals may have

implied increasing trivialization of experience. Keeping an eye on small
particularities has positive consequences but inviting constant evalua-
tion, also calls attention to the lack of emotional satisfaction in much of
ordinary experience. The inner life comes to be seen as consequential, therefore its inadequa-
cies invite attention. The concept of boredom serves as an all purpose register of inadequacy.
(Spacks 1995, 23)

The paradox of art on the other hand, has to do with its autonomy of the

cognitive, ethical and political spheres of activity. It became autonomous of them, curiously
enough, by being integrated into the capitalist mode of production. When art becomes a com-

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 modity, it is released from its traditional social functions within church, court and state into
anonymous freedom of the market place. Now it exists, not for any specific audience, but just
for anybody with the taste to appreciate it and the money to buy it. (Eagleton 1990, 368)

The above event is another practice that began in the eighteenth century. The French Academy “em-
phasizing rule and reason as the foundation of art inadvertently encouraged the conviction that any
lay person was qualified to arrive at a valid judgment of artwork through applying everyday morality
and rationality” (Burgin 1986, 149). So now that “it exists for nothing and nobody in particular, it can
be said to exist for itself” (Eagleton 1990, 368). Again a paradox: art’s particular autonomy (remem-
ber l’art pour l’art, the project to remove art from commodifying capitalist structures) “prevents its
potential subversive freedom from having much of an effect on other areas of social life” (Eagleton
1990, 369).

Consider therefore the conditions for being an artist in contemporary times. If it were only a situation
where a subject wills it, since it is possible that anyone these days who says he is an artist and that
what he does is art is an artist, then things would be very simple. But it so happens that regardless
of what the artist personally feels, what historically gets considered as Art is “the art that gets seen
(in galleries or museums, in magazines or books), the art which becomes counted as Art, has been
subjected to processes of selection and legitimation” (Burgin 1986, 188) by gatekeepers within the
culture industry making all critical information created by these people and institutions calibrate the
value of an artist’s work and eventually determine it as commodity. These processes are all “beyond
the control of the artist (albeit some artists are infinitely more attuned to these processes, and skillful
at negotiating them, than others)” (Burgin 1986, 189).

We come full circle. The only art that is free from the powers of the debasing system of commodity
production (Eagelton 1990, 2) is the art that is invisible (Burgin 1986, 190). But the art that never
gets seen within and processed by the power structures of the culture industry never gets counted
as art!

So what are artists up against in our pursuit of our inalienable rights to happiness as we practice
an art tradition inherited from the above particular art history? A practice reduced to the mere pro-
duction of commodity fetishes, a practice that can leave one to despair over the uselessness of the
solitary act, a desperation paralyzing us to ironically, go on “making art” based on the conviction,
actually the received idea, that it is what responsible artists do, no matter the boredom -- a condition
that menaces the very core of our “ethical energies” (Spacks 1995, 33).

There seems to be a great sense of futility and impotence in being an artist these days. And if we
are to accept the reality that on the average, we are mere producers of commodity fetishes par
excellence, the territory where we can gain validity the most is in the marketing of our works with
sales tags of super prices. An interesting local phenomenon attests to this. Many of the legitimate
galleries in Manila are now located in one mega shopping mall, a practice that shows the easy and
comfortable relationship of art and capitalism. The local art world need no longer have the pretext
that art is not a commodity. And since there is a great lack of critical spaces and publications uncom-
promised by commerce, these commercial galleries have been rendered the major arbiters of Philip-

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 pine contemporary art. So too “in a society where the commodification of art has progressed apace
with the aestheticization of the commodity there has evolved a universal rhetoric of the aesthetic in
which commerce and inspiration, profit and poetry, may rapturously entwine” (Burgin 1986, 174).
Both art and criticism have become marginal. Art critic Hal Foster has conceded to this:

indeed this is their function: ‘to represent humane marginality’. And so they are treated as
essential but superfluous, as luxuries or nuisances to indulge or dispense with...art...is today
the plaything of (corporate) patrons whose relation to culture is less one of noble obligation
than of overt manipulation -- of art as a sign of power, prestige, publicity (Foster 1985, 4).

Artists now seem to be members of a community lacking power and effective tradition (Spacks
1995, 219). What needs to be addressed here, therefore, is the problem of the artist’s critical role
in contemporary times. Perhaps it can be found in the project of undertaking art as a way of trans-
forming the subject or as a technology of the self. But here too, caution is necessary for we should
doubt deeply how an artist can possibly constitute and “decipher himself in regard to what” (Foucault
1985, 17) he or she has been permitted to produce as only that which is valorized when made visible
within exposing systems. It is a question of the relation between a delimited, dependent, precoded
aesthetic production and self-truth. Artists are no longer self-determining subjects able to have their
“own means with the help of others, to do certain number of operations on their own bodies, souls,
thoughts, conduct and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state
of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection and immortality” (Foucault 1985, 18). Aesthetic production,
now heavily determined, may no longer be a critical practice of the self.

For those few Filipino artists who wish to engage in a critical art practice, for I suspect the majority
does not recognize the crisis, sincerely believes in the system, and is more than willing to fuel it,
they must understand completely how the monolithic center works. The project I think is to define
where one wishes to be or needs to be authentically with regard to the production, reception, and
circulation of art, for in the astute observation of artist-theorist Victor Burgin, placed upon the artists’
shoulders are roles “handed down by a particular history, through particular institutions, and wheth-
er” we “choose to work within or without these given history or institutions, for or against them,” our
“relationship to them is inescapable.” (Burgin 1986, 158 ). Therefore, if we ambition to be a part of
the canon of art we must be aware that it is a “graveyard made up of masterpieces. To be admitted
to it is to be consigned to perpetual exhumation, to be denied entry is to be condemned to perpetual
oblivion” (Burgin 1986, 159).

Foster’s description of what he thought as the most provocative oppositional practice more than
a decade ago still has currency for the struggle continues only this time, “What is at stake is thus
not an ethics or a moral position but the very possibility of a critical practice within the terms of art
discourse” (Solomon-Godeau 1999, 231). To Foster, critical work is that which must not be primarily
concerned

with the traditional or modernist properties of art -- with refinement of style or innovation
of form, aesthetic sublimity or ontological reflection on art as such. And though it is aligned
with the critique of the institution of art based on the presentational strategies of the Duch-

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 ampian readymade, it is not involved, as its minimalists antecedents were, with an epistemo-
logical investigation of the object or a phenomenological inquiry into subjective response. In
short, this work does not bracket art for formal or perceptual experiment but rather seeks out
its affiliations with other practices... it also tends to conceive of its subject differently. (Foster
1995, 99)

In conceiving a series of projects which hopes to address these very same problematiques of power
structures and histories that co-opt the criticality of art, a friend, who is an artist and an independent
curator based in the UK2 and I have started to investigate certain strategies to critique the system.
And if we are to be truly critical of our practice as curators, we have to work with one very crucial
fact. Critic Abigail Solomon-Godeau observes that although the works of some postmodernist artists
(therefore artists critical of the art institution)

could only become visible -- or saleable -- in the wake of the success of their predecessors,
the shift from margin to center had multiple determinations ... the fact remains that in 1980,
their works were largely unsaleable and quite literally incomprehensible to all but a handful of
critics and a not much other larger group of artists. (Solomon-Godeau 1999, 233)

Art’s simple tautology seems to be thus: object proposed as art or even art whose object is to cri-
tique art will only become visible once comprehended by the gatekeepers (curators, critics, dealers,
collectors, and artists themselves) making it become highly saleable! More to the point, the market
now acts on its own as it has come to value such works independent of the influence of critics and
dealers (Solomon-Godeau 1999, 224-233). Foster too acknowledges this reality:

Not so long ago it was a political stand to refuse the role of tastemaker and value-producer
(i.e., an encoder of elitist commodity-signs). Now this refusal may be largely ceremonial, for
in a system mostly given over to a (manipulated) marketplace ‘critique’ is no longer needed;
the commodity is its own ideology (Adorno), the market is its own accreditation. (Foster 1985,
5)

Therefore, if my friend and I were to critique the system, we can only work within this particular tau-
tology. The first impulse is to withdraw the object. A strategy that is not entirely new, a lean lineage
of key events can be plotted here starting with Duchamp’s urinal “made” in 1917. Signed R. Mutt
and titled Fountain, he proposed that a “readymade,” a non-art object be the art object. In 1962,
Yves Klein by removing paintings from the walls of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris followed the
Wittgensteinian/Duchampian definition of art: if
placing an object in an art context or otherwise designating it as art makes it art, then it is
in the context or designation, and not in the object that the art essence resides, and it is the
context itself that should be exhibited, not an object within it. On the semantic level, The Void
was a derisive critique of the art object, the art business, and the role of the artist. (In fact
Klein also reduces the Duchampian example to absurdity by involving it in an infinite regress;
the context is put in a context). (McEvilley 1982, 46)

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 In 1984, Louise Lawler and Allan McCollum collaborated on For Presentation and Display: Ideal Set-
tings which exhibited 100 hydrocal pedestals (Foster 1985, 105), a variation on Klein’s work.

I myself have done art in the Duchampesque mode. In 1975, I installed wooden panels of different
sizes and colors in the Main Gallery of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. This work was intended
to articulate the spatial and structural features of the gallery so as to exhibit the gallery as the em-
bodying physical structure that endows any object placed in it with the privilege of being something
called art. In 1980, I used the white gallery pedestals of the Sining Kamalig, and again five years
later, those of the Pinaglabanan Galleries as the bases for “imagine” pieces -- typewritten instruc-
tions for the audience to imagine certain objects on these pedestals. In 1997, I exhibited From Rags
to Riches: Art after Duchamp or Revisiting the Fountain, a work consisting of some 40 doormats
signed and priced at US$5,000 and installed on the walls and floors of the Vienna Secession, with
another set unsigned deployed at the doorsteps of the other buildings around the museum.

In all the above cases, however, there still exists a place, a site that houses and circulates something
to be made visible and consumable, a spatial context that can render any thing to become art. Du-
champ proposed that an arbitrary object enter the exhibition site (pointing to the guardians of art as
embodying the canonizing power); Klein withdrew the art object to exhibit the site (the architectural
context of power); Lawler and McCollum offered no object on the museum furniture that “elevates”
an object to the level of art, ending up with these pedestals as the art objects themselves. Further,
Foster critiques works such as those of Lawler and McCollum as stressing

the economic manipulation of the art object -- its circulation and consumption as a commodity
sign -- more than its physical determination of its frame. And yet no less than the conceptual
artists, they too seek to reveal the definitional character of the supplements of art, only they
tend to foreground the institutionally insignificant (the overlooked) rather than the transpar-
ent (the unseen) -- functions like the arrangement of pictures in galleries, museums, offices,
homes, and forms like press releases and exhibition invitations which thought to be trivial to
the matters of art, in fact do much to position it, to determine its place, reception, meaning
(Foster 1985, 104).

Tony Bennett in The Birth of the Museum, in the chapter “Art and Theory, The Politics of the Invis-
ible,” frames this very same problematique within art theory itself. Bennett quotes Marxist Pierre
Bourdieu: “Theory is a particularly apt word because we are dealing with seeing -- theorein -- and of
making others see.” And Bennett:

It is...theory...a distinctive language of art -- which mediates the relations between the aes-
thete and the work of art offering through its categories (of art’s autonomy, of creativity, of
the irreducible individuality of the artist, etc.), a means whereby the works on display can be
construed and experienced as the manifestations of a higher order reality (‘art’) of which they
are but the tangible expressions. In this way, theory -- present just as much in the principles
governing the display of art works as in the aesthete’s head -- organizes a particular set of
relations between the visible (the works of art on show) and the invisible (‘art’) such that the
former isperceived and utilized as a route to communion with the latter. Yet this theoretical

184
 ordering of the relations between the visible and the invisible also plays a role in organizing
a distinction between those who can and those who cannot see; or more accurately, between
those who can only see what is visibly on display and those who are additionally able to see
the invisible realities (‘art’) which the theory posits as being accessible via the objects exhib-
ited (Bennet 1995, 163-164).

One day, dreaming with my eyes wide shut, I saw that what is not seen articulates/makes possible
what is seen -- a cantilever in fact. Therefore, what Foster refers to as the overlooked and the trans-
parent, my friend and I consider the cantilever of art. Arriving at our own logic, our discussion has
brought us only as far as to ask to what extent we have to remove the object from the art structures
and systems that make it comprehensible, thus visible, thus commodifiable. How much do we have to
deplete an object of its determinants as a visible object within the art system? Or taking our cue from
Yves Klein, do we not ever create a space to house any thing? Do we now lose the site altogether?
We have conceived MoMO or the Museum of Mental Objects, an entropic museum, a museum with
no objects, a museum of propositions, an invisible museum, a museum of mental implants. But we
have not done any thing beyond the idea of this museum. Perhaps the Museum of Mental Objects
should remain a proposition, a mere idea. For it to remain true to its objective, perhaps it should
remain itself a mental object.

As a mode of operation we have thought of inviting artists to whisper art ideas to us. We will keep
these ideas as mere memories. We and the artists will never document or represent these ideas in
any other shape or form. We will every now and then recite these ideas to an audience who will be
asked in turn to keep what they hear only as memories. No audio or video recordings will be made of
these recitations. No photographs will be taken. These ideas will exist wholly dependent on how well
we as curators keep these ideas in our memory and how memorable these ideas will be. Therefore,
as curators of this museum, my friend and I will act as mere keepers of mental objects.

But by having works that will never be seen, will we escape problems such as the eventual becoming
of works, into a look, an attitude, a style once theorized as a critical practice (Solomon-Godeau
1999, 233), once culturally processed? Does this mean there will never develop a look, a style, or
an attitude? No site that will reduce the works to mere objects of its own institutional discourse? No
object to be consumed and traded, thus commodified? Hopefully, we will arrive at our own tautology
as basis for a series of projects that will attempt “to clarify the nature of critical practice” focusing on
art’s ability “to question, to contest, or to denaturalize the very terms in which it is produced, recei-
ved and circulated” and possibly to “address those economic and discursive forces that perpetually
threaten to eradicate” (Solomon-Godeau 1999, 231) art’s criticality.

On my own, I have created works with these very same objectives. Scapular Gallery Nomad and
Sacred Sites in Secular Spaces explored and offered alternative “ecologies” of art. Another perfor-
mance, Into the He(Art) of Commodities, was merely announced through postcards. With this work,
I had planned to appropriate images, reproductions of works by known and lesser known artists.
Collages were to be created from these representations. Some were to be reproduced as found
through xerography. Some were to be used exactly as found. All were to be framed and traded as

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 mere commodities in non-art gallery and non-museum spaces. The success of this five-year perfor-
mance therefore was to be based on how well these objects performed as simple commodities. This
work operates within the recent tradition of artists appropriating images created by other artists and
reproduced tenfold by the mass media. Offering them as their own creations, through these images,
these artists aim to deconstruct representation and its modern problematiques. Those works of Sher-
rie Levine, which work along these lines,

made it clear that piracy, with it overtones of infringement and lack of authorization was the
point. Her appropriations were not to be perceived as some mousy homage. Nor was she
putting herself in a cult-kook exercise in self abnegation. By literally taking pictures she did,
and then showing them as hers, she wanted it understood that she was flatly questioning --
no, flatly undermining -- those most hallowed principles of art in the modern era: originality,
intention, expression (Marzorati 1986, 91).

Levine however “insisted that hers was an aesthetic practice that implied no particular quarrel with
the economic determinations of cultural production” (Solomon-Godeau 1999, 230). Levine: “I ne-
ver thought I wasn’t making art and I never thought of the art I was making as not a commodity” (in
Solomon-Godeau 1999, 231). She does not oppose art’s tautology. In fact, she affirms simply that
art-making is “commodity making” (Solomon-Godeau 1999, 231). To phrase my own project vis-a-vis
hers: I make no art objects for I offer no objects to be made visible, comprehensible, and thus com-
modifiable within and by the art system. What I do offer is the gesture of owning up to the crime that
art-making is commodity making but unlike Levine, this time without the pretext of the art system.

For the 2002 Gwangju Biennale, I created the Scapular Gallery Nomad Portable Archive-in-Pro-
gress. Like the gallery which was bodily worn for five years, this archive too was designed to be
worn in the form of a backpack. For the biennale exhibition hall, a very cold and huge architectural
structure, a perfect mausoleum in fact, I thought it most appropriate to exhibit the thousand and one
archival materials I had collected and generated -- the remains, so to speak, of my five-year-long
“performance art gallery.”

I was recently invited by one of the curators3 of the Museum of Modern Art, Paris to exhibit, or
more to the point sell, at the museum’s bookshop several editions of my DIY Art Gallery Kit. This
same work is also my contribution to the event Women Inspire Art Village to be held at one of the
exposition halls of Suntec City touted to be “the first shopping centre in Singapore and in Asia whe-
re shoppers can enjoy a cashless and card-less shopping experience.” Having recently ended my
performance of Scapular Gallery Nomad, I have decided to “encourage” others to create their own
art world by curating and performing their own art gallery. As proof of the product’s efficacy, I will
offer as my R and D, five years of my own success in having worn and curated the “product” itself. In
addition to the DIY Art Gallery Kit, I will perform at Suntec City an updated version of A Prayer Piece
for the Survival of Art and Artists in the Temple of Commodities, first performed in 1996 during the
opening event of some 20 supposed art galleries located in one of our own local shopping malls.
Unfortunately not a single one of the galleries has survived today.

Art-Mart/Art-Smart is a work for the First Women’s Art Festival in Taiwan in 2003, an event that plans
to “explore how local and international women artists rethink the definition, the practice and the aes-
thetics of art in an era of high technology.” One core idea I wish to address is how women artists

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“respond to the masquerade of identification” within the environment of cyberspace and through
digitally constructed self-promotional materials. Since in this paper, it has already been concluded
that much of contemporary art has nothing to do with the creation of a critical art object, I propose
to skip the making of an artwork and go directly to the selling of the artist. After all, what passes
for good art these days is all the marketing and selling of a name. Art-Mart/Art- Smart will take ad-
vantage of the long history of media evolving as art’s ultimate handmaiden. In marketing high end
products, the highly crafted and designed shopping bag has become the icon that carries the logo
of the product or the company that produces the product. I will liken this process of branding or the
creation of a logo to sell a product to the process of selling an artist in terms of the extreme media
exposure of her art and her name.

A Filipino artist once told me that much of the networking that has provided him many of the oppor-
tunities for travel and for making art all over the world was made through the website he himself
created about his own art practice. Thus, Art-Mart/Art Smart will consist of two things -- a shopping
bag printed with my name designed as a logo and the URL of the website on my art practice. The
shopping bag will contain the CD-ROM version of this website. I would like to make a work of self-
promotion, a work promoting myself as an artist of international/global reputation by taking advan-
tage of the print and digital media in the formation of a certain kind of represented highly mediated
subjectivity.

What is the performative mode of the works I have described here? All are “materialist critique of
art.” All parody the monolithic art system specifically with regard to its force to “disintegrate” art
and artists into mere commodities.4 Produced within or without the very same system they mock and
expose, the Museum of Mental Objects, Scapular Gallery Nomad and its portable archive, the DIY
Art Gallery Kit, Into the He(Art) of Commodities, A Prayer Piece for the Survival of Art and Artists
in the Temple of Commodities, Sacred Sites in Secular Spaces, Art-Mart/Art-Smart, are a body of
work I consider the work of the fool, the “trickster,” Hermes -- boundary dweller and all powerful psy-
chopompos that first guided me to die to the Center and brought me untethered into the unknown,
into the margins, where precisely I was able to gain complete autonomy and where like the trickster
I could now cross with great ease the thresholds of both the center and the periphery to playfully
upset applec-arts so to speak.

However, in the final analysis, I am fully aware of the near futility of taking pot shots at a black hole, of
art critiquing the art institution, and “of the very possibility of a critical practice within the terms of art
discourse” itself. As my good friend Marian Pastor Roces has written about my peripatetic gallery in
her keynote address “Are Artists Still Avant-Garde?” during the 2001 Congress of the International
Society for the Performing Arts Foundation in Sydney,

The limits of the circulation of art are the limits of her body movement.

Scapular Gallery Nomad -- this satire of the art market, this sustained comment or alternative
to the expensive art infrastructure -- is of course poised, ironically, as a will to exist within the
international avant-garde circuit. Again: the preposterous, farcical, playful, ludicrous. She is
aware of the contradictions she is playing out. Anti-art market, she nonetheless can only exist
as an artist within the international avant-garde circuits that depend so much on spectacular

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 and costly art events. As a person walking around the streets of the cities of the world, she
is just a fool, not an artist. Critical of the international art infrastructure, she is nonetheless
aware that hers is precisely the critical stance that the nutritious fodder high art feeds on.
Narrowing the domain of her art practice to the size of her small, peripatetic body, she is
nonetheless caught up in the high intensity exchange, for instance, as part of the gargantuan
exhibition, “Cities on the Move”. Removing herself from the frenzy, she of course knows that
she is allowing herself to be sucked in by the maelstrom of the international art world that is
constantly hungry for berserk creatures like herself.

Therefore having been critiqued thus, and having said all these, perhaps, in the long run what matters
most for me is that I have given myself the privilege and the freedom to think, perform, and create
possible critical work if only as a technology of self-empowerment and transformation.

References

Bennett, Tony. 1995. The birth of the museum. New York: Routledge.

Burgin, Victor. 1986. The end of art theory. London: Macmillan Education Ltd.

Crimp, Douglas. 1993. On the museum’s ruins. London: The MIT Press.

Eagleton, Terry. 1990. The ideology of the aesthetic. Oxford: Blackwell.

Foster, Hal. 1985. Recodings: art, spectacle, cultural politics. Seattle: Bay Press.

Foucault, Michel. 1988. “The technologies of the self. “ In The technologies of the self, Eds. L.H
Martin, H.Gutman, and P.H.Hutton. London: Tavistock Publications.

Gay, Peter. 1995. The naked Heart, the bourgeois experience. New York: W.W. Norton.

Marzorati, Gerald. May 1986. “Art in the (re)making.” In Artnews.

McEvilley, Thomas. January 1982. “Yves Klein, messenger of the age of space.” In Artforum.

Roces, Marian Pastor. n.d. “Are artists still Avante-Garde?” Retrieved from the International
Society for the Performing Arts Foundation Web site: www://ispa.org/ideas/roces.html.

Solomon-Godeau, Abigail. 1999. “Living with contradictions: critical practices in the age of sup-
ply-side aesthetics.” In The visual culture: the reader, Eds. Jessica Evans and Stuart Hall.
London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Spacks, Patricia Meyer. 1995. Boredom, the literary history of a state of mind. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.

Trinh Minh-Ha. 1991. When the moon waxes red. New York: Routledge.

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Notes

1 Trinh Minh-ha quotes R. Howard in an essay about Roland Barthes’s writings. I quote this pas-
sage to describe Lao’s body of work. His ouevre are variations on a theme. See Trinh Minh-Ha
1991, 210.

2 Matt Price is an artist and an independent curator based in Birmingham, UK.

3 Hans Ulrich Obrist is an international independent curator and MoMA, Paris’ curator of the
Migrateur Exhibition Programs.

4 Douglas Crimp quotes Walter Benjamin, “the disintegration of culture into commodities,” to
summarize his idea of a materialist critique of art. I took the liberty of appropriating much of the
phrase. See Douglas Crimp 1993, 155.

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 Politics of the Self in the Negotiation of Solidarities
Jay Koh (Singapore/Germany) and Chu ChuYuan (Malaysia/Singapore)

This presentation will reflect on certain issues around the identification and politics of the self with
others and the body of ethics that needs to govern interactions between self and others in the pro-
cess of forming solidarities.

Self and Identity Politics

In the art practice of the past two decades, artists have been much involved in the process of con-
tinuous and conscious construction, negation, and re-construction of identities, in response to the
conditions which gave rise to the surge of identity politics around the globe. This may be carried out
as an individual or as a group.

For Sigmund Freud, identification is a psychological process in which the subject assimilates an
aspect of the other and is transformed, wholly or partially, according to the model that the other
provides. The personality or the self is constituted by a series of identifications.

Through these identifications the projected images chosen by the self become the politics of the self.
Artists whose work are heavily involved in producing images should be aware of the set of politics
that they are projecting and are also a part of. So I have heard Filipino artists say that they are the
voice of the people. In my presentation, I would like to open questions on underlying assumptions,
positions taken, and dynamics of artists working as voices of society.

Self and Environment

To go back to the understanding of the self -- if we do subscribe to the notion that the self is shaped
by others and by one’s environment -- we should remember that each environment has different
layers and complexities and is shaped by different forms and types of knowledge (social myths and
histories, global and local).

The self has to negotiate the structures and spaces within a complex environment and has to define
and redefine its position and differences with other interests/positions. The concept of self should
be expanded to include social structures that act upon the self, that are responsible for the creation
and understanding of the “self.”

Need for Solidarities

Solidarities are formed in a space of interaction with others and in the forging of identifications with
others. Here I would differentiate between public and private solidarities. Forming public solidarities

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depends on the identification of who are common adversaries. It is easy if the adversary is easily
identifiable, e.g. a dictator. In public evocation of solidarity, the form is open for anyone to easily
participate in the activities; also, the targets are clear and can be understood on a national or global
platform.

In the case of private solidarities, I would quote, as an example, the model of working within family
structures, as I have encountered in Burma, Cambodia, and Vietnam -- people are used to working
in this way and it is a way of minimizing external threat. Groups of artists working together under a
common belief/ideology may also be a private solidarity, depending on how open their structures
are to “outsiders.” The common objectives and ideology of such groups are formed early, and it is
difficult for new members to be accepted. They can only become part of the group through a long-
term process of collaboration. The art network formed by the event NIPAF (Nippon International
Performance Art Festival), along with the other festivals that it has engendered, for example, the
Philippine International Performance Art Festival (PIPAF) and Jakarta International Performance Art
Festival (JIPAF), may be other examples of artists’ working together for common objectives. How-
ever, I have heard that artists in Malaysia had refused to name their event MIPAF, when they were
asked to organize such an event in Kuala Lumpur. The Asiatopia event in Bangkok was also formed
as part of this network.

Limitations on the Self in Solidarities

Yet this shared space with others within solidarities does indeed place certain constraints on the
freedom of the self. How then does the self negotiate with the other’s interests? When solidarities
are formed, how do we build a body of ethics around this interaction? What responsibility does the
“self” have toward the “other”?

What I call for are not rules or guidelines but a body of questions to analyze the involvement of the
self for those who are interested in having meaningful solidarity. These are questions about the privi-
lege to act, positions taken by the artist, the interests of the other and issues of appropriation, and
responsibility toward the other.

Politics of Self Within Solidarities

In projects where artists claim solidarity with a community, it is important to examine the politics of
the self within solidarities. Here we should examine how different positions of privilege of the self
determine our interactions, and also determine our definitions of a whole range of concepts. These
definitions in turn shape our experiences of self and others. Privilege needs to be examined inde-
pendent of “class” and categories. Even within a determined “class,” there are uneven experiences
of privilege. We also need to differentiate, for example, that art structures occupy certain positions
of privilege in society, and making art on the whole may be a more privileged activity than say ac-
tivism, or advertising, but again there are different experiences of marginalization within privileged
structures.

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 In contemporary practice, many artists are touching on experiences of oppression and marginaliza-
tion, and many artists work from their own positions of being marginalized. Yet, especially when the
artist as self agitates in some form of solidarity with others, I think it is necessary to examine the
positions of privilege and the power relations at work, starting from the self to all the structures that
act upon the self in carrying out our work and art processes, so that we can check against being
exploited/appropriated or in turn exploiting/appropriating others.

No matter what the intention of the self is in carrying out an action, it is confronted with readings and
inter-actions of others, and the meaning of the action is produced through a complex interaction of
interpretations, readings, reactions, and appropriation. Meanings are produced by readings of the
action and are mostly independent of the intention of the artist.

A project by a New Orleans-based artist Dawn Dedeaux

titled Soul Shadows: Urban Warrior Myths1 which toured
many cities in the USA may highlight some of these is-
sues. Dedeaux had worked with young African-American
prisoners in an “art in the prisons” project, with juvenile
offenders as young as 14 years of age, over a period of
several months, on a variety of art projects including vid-
eo production, mask-making workshops, and the creation
of artist’s books. From the material she had collected,
she developed an ambitious idea for a vast multi-media
installation. Among other things, the installation featured
interviews with the inmates and African-American gang
members.

Dedeaux’s intentions were

for the piece to address the crisis of crime and poverty that she had discovered in prison
society and to help white viewers ‘empathize’ with the conditions faced by young black men,
at the same time act as a kind of moral prophylactic for young black men who came to see
it, who would presumably mend their ways after witnessing the contrition expressed by a
number of imprisoned figures. At the same time, Dedeaux, who is from a white, upper-class
New Orleans family, spoke of the project as a way to overcome her fear of young black men
after being mugged in the French quarter. The young black men she worked with thus served
as vehicles for a kind of immersion therapy that allowed her to transcend her own painfully
self-conscious whiteness. (Cohen and Johnson 1993, 3)

Soul Shadows was shown in many cities in the USA. The project attracted the support of public
and private foundations, funding agencies, banks, and other institutions. It was widely touted as a
model for progressive community art, and was used as part of an anti-drug program for area high
schools. The publicity of the project fell upon the artist as the heroic figure who crossed boundaries
of racial and cultural difference into the dangerous zone of the prison, and as an exemplary healer,

192
with the ability to bring transformative power of the aesthetic into a community of perceived lack and
disadvantage.

The video in Soul Shadows showed grieving black inmates offering confessional accounts of their
involvement with crime. In spite of the artist’s good intentions, the project eventually worked against
the community that she intended to help, as the work reinforced discrimination and the existing
conservative arguments in the United States about moral depravity among poor and working-class
people of color. I was told that information given during one of the taped interviews was later used
against one of the prisoners in police investigations.

In the narratives, the prisoners construct their criminality almost entirely in terms of their own guilt
and responsibility. The inclusion by Dedeaux of this kind of material, with no real attempt to articulate
its relationship to broader social conditions and forces, led Grant Kester to make the following criti-
cism of Dedeaux’s work:

Under the auspices of this point of view, Dedeaux’s installation provides the very spectacle
that conservatives wish to see promulgated -- criminality is the result of an individual lack of
moral character; prison produces repentant subjects who accept sole personal responsibility
for their wrong-doing. Images of young black men in prison circulate widely in U.S. culture
and their interpretation is heavily influenced by a broad network of presuppositions largely
dominated by conservative policy statements, books, op-ed pieces, and so on. These images
cannot simply be re-circulated in an art context without taking that a priori discursive network
into consideration, and without taking the artist’s own position vis-a-vis these images into ac-
count. I certainly don’t hold Dedeaux accountable for conservative policies on race and crime,
but they constituted one of the most significant discursive interfaces for this project and, as-
suming that she didn’t find herself in agreement with them, she should have devised some
representational strategy to resist the potential assimilation of her project to these views (this
is the basis of many of the objections raised about the work by African American viewers,
particularly while it was in Los Angeles). (Kester 2004, 140-147).

By the Dawn Dedeaux example, I had hoped to show what can go wrong when an artist works with
pre- and self-determined intentions, and self-projected imagined qualities of a certain community in
a collaborative relationship with others.

It is not just the intention and convictions of the artist that should dictate the form and methodology
of production of an artwork; the artist needs to examine his/her position and how the participants
will benefit from the action, and acknowledge differences between self and the other. The artist also
needs to understand and respond to the set of conditions that the artist is working under and with,
and the outside structures that will have a bearing on the reception, circulation, and appropriation of
the work. From the start of a project, the artist has to develop certain relationships with and respons-
es to this complex set of conditions, agencies, institutions, and communities, to understand that the
artist’s domain is not just the immediate artwork but has to take on a larger network of structures
and policies, and, when working with the so-called “disadvantaged” communities, to work in a man-

193
 ner which empowers others to make decisions and to forge dialogues with various parties that are
affected by the issues. In such a way, I feel that the artist can have a certain degree of control over
the modes of reception of the work and also exercise responsibility over ethical issues surrounding
the work. The artist may think that these are outside the purview of artists, and prefer to leave such
in the hands of other experts, and that the boundaries of art should be kept well-defined, but we have
to bear in mind that throughout the history of art, artists and artworks have been employed and ap-
propriated for commercial, political, and diplomatic purposes (e.g. during the cold wars in the 1950s
or in recent large-scale events such as “Images of the World” in Copenhagen2), regardless of the
willingness of the artists.

Transience of Solidarities

This becomes more crucial when we think of the temporal nature of solidarities. Solidarities can be
and are often transient -- tentative just till divisions come in, as I was reminded recently when I was
in the city of Gdansk (Danzig) in Poland working on the project City Transformers (CT). CT aimed
to broaden the discussions around architectural and town planning issues in the public sphere, and
to reposition the role of artists in the city and their inclusion into the process of transformation as
equal partners. To give you some background information -- Gdansk has played an important role
in the history of Poland and Europe. The Second World War started there in September 1939 with
the Germans entering Gdansk to reclaim its territories lost in the First World War. After the war, the
Russians took power in Poland and elected a puppet government. In 1970, frustrated citizens burnt
the communist headquarters in Gdansk; 1979 marked the beginning of the Solidarnosc (Solidarity)
movement, a movement initiated by the city’s workers and later became a movement all across Po-
land. It began with a strike in the Gdansk shipyard, led by Lech Walesa. The people’s resistance later
led to the civil war that ended in 1983, and Lech Walesa was made the first president of democratic
Poland. However, most of Gdansk’s citizens today are disillusioned with the Solidarity movement;
many do not want to remember it or be associated with it. It has benefited a few, and left the majority
on the lurch. The citizens recently elected the modified communist party back into power.

But even if solidarity is temporary, how can we organize it, so that it can produce further structures
for growth and development? How can we build a discourse within solidarities that checks against
abuses of solidarity?

As I have said earlier, it is crucial that we acknowledge and examine differences between individuals
within a solidarity. Often there are assumptions at work in the group dynamics of solidarities. Soli-
darities are usually formed in times of need, and there is not enough examination of differences at
work, as well as intentions, motivations, responsibility, and limitation of self in relation to others, the
process of active trust, difference of privilege and power. All these are swept aside for the achieve-
ment of common goals.

Within (and without) Solidarities, there is the need to focus on the empowerment of individuals and
on working toward an eventual “autonomy” of the self. Here, I need to differentiate the idea of the
“autonomy of the self” from the neo-liberalist idea of individualism, which leaves the individual to

194
take care of himself/herself in pursuit of self-interest; and also to differentiate from the socialist
welfare concept of providing for the individual. For me, “autonomy” also implies interdependence, to
possess the ability to exercise personal and collective responsibility. It requires a long-term process
of working at creating conditions that make this exercise of self-autonomy possible, and includes
intervening into the structures that organize our lives. I would like to end by saying that solidarity is
a struggle to maintain the dynamic interaction that is an important component of democracy.

References

Cohen, Susan and William Johnson. September 1993. “Conversation with Dawn Dedeaux” In
The Consort: A Calendar of Photography, Film and Video Events in and
Around Rochester.

Kester, Grant. 2004. Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art.
California: University of California Press.

Notes

1 Dedeaux’s project is discussed at length by Grant Kester in his book, Conversation Pieces:
Community and Communication in Modern Art, from which this essay quotes.

2 See www.images.org; see also Jay Koh’s article, “58 Dead,” for Images of the World: Sta-
tion to Station, Copenhagen, 2000 (Exhibition catalogue and website archive).
http://images.dk/images/dialog.nsf/C9025269E44A3110C12569370043A1D6/
873B8181B4F8A23FC12569490033126A?OpenDocument

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 Discussant’s Response
Imelda Cajipe-Endaya, Philippines

That was really full. I know I’m a woman of few words but let me try. The session was about discuss-
ing self and solidarity and we had three different definitions of the self as we can notice. However
different, as they’re coming from different places, they are all founded on context. With Minh Thanh
being more visual. I really enjoyed your very relaxed way of relating how you try to define the self.
It’s very refreshing, really. It was very refreshing how he was so comfortable sharing with us, without
trying to be eloquent or anything. I really appreciate that focusing on finding the self and yet as situ-
ated in the place where he was born and where he was raised which was Vietnam and informing us
about how the self strives to define itself inspite of how government would try to impose a structure
of doing things for the self. And it was such a natural thing that he did, being as he related, a young
boy, he just painted pictures from intuition and they were portraits. And in the process of drawing,
he discovered himself. And when he brought this to be viewed by the others, he found out that they
looked like the others, and the others thought they looked like him. And I’m reminded that in Fili-
pino, we have also this indigenous word kapwa. In English, you say it in three words: self and the
other but in Filipino you just say kapwa. It’s one word. I find a similarity in that. Its so good to have
listened to you because amidst all the very confusing layers you know, of the everyday environment
that we go to in Manila, its so stressful. And you come to Antipolo and enjoy this relaxing place.
But when you come to these halls, you again come jammed with these-- so many conflicts and ideas.
And yet in just doing the painting, the artist took on the project of the self, his identity, and situating
himself, examining whether the self is right or wrong. And yet in so examining, it’s a building up and
making whole of the self and the other which I said I’d like to go back to that kapwa. Thank you for
that. I hope you don’t run too fast with the speed of light.

And then came next, Judy. I was in awe listening to you. And I don’t know how I can react to a whole
lifetime of process that you narrated this afternoon and how beautifully you wove your words, how
deep they are. There are some salient points I would like to pick out of what you said because I really
have to meditate on your paper. I’d like to bring it home and perhaps react to it within. But anyway,
what struck me were some things like boredom, I’d like to take you up on that, boredom. We would
take boredom differently. If one is bored, then you move on to do something else. You don’t get
stuck to an object or to a painting, maybe you can do another object. And then, she mentioned about
the self being an evolving invention, and a technology of transforming the self. I thought that Judy
was quite in another realm. It’s a kind of rebellion that you are doing. Yes it is. And it’s full of para-
doxes for artists, for most artists like me who have chosen to remain working with hands and creating
objects. Because after all, to operate on this earth, you need a body. Otherwise I would have to
levitate or leave this world and that’s how I react to what you said. But I’m open to that. I’m really
open to the kind of rejection of objectification that you are doing. In fact, I think there is a contradic-
tion I feel about your using yourself as a gallery and showing artworks which are also objects around
your body. And of course you still straddle between exhibiting in halls or attending conferences like
this and showing. Well I’m expressing my reaction. And of course you said in your abstract that you
are searching for a lightness of being and finding your place between--a bearable place that you’re
looking for as you straddle institutions, mainstreams, the normal and yes, this place where we are
full of commodities. But on the other hand, I really love your MOMO (Museum of Mental Objects).

196
I think you should go on with that. You know, it redeems crass materialism in this world. I think each
one of us should support Judy in MOMO. You know, bring back dead imagination. With so much
television and media, I really love that. And I was amazed when you just told me to look at the (de-
leted in deference to MOMO concept). I get high on that and I think we should do that. Let’s do that
in schools and with everybody as we go out from these halls. I’m very hopeful of MOMO.

So maybe I can move on to talking about Jay Koh. And again this is another level of self and the
other…Jay Koh would relate very much to more of the social realists perhaps and the activists who
often get stuck with problems of working together, or find out that they have to dissolve their groups
who are working together because of certain clashes of motivations and it’s very good that Jay Koh
asked us to look into examination of motives, intentions in every collaboration that we do because
all solidarities of course are temporary, as he said. And I’m also struck by what you said that: “can
artists take control of the modes of reception of their work?” Because like Jay, I am also in art advo-
cacy and yet we find that when we do art that communicates, it turns out that it would be interpreted
a hundred times, or a thousand times as in the case of the woman artist who did that work about
prisoners when actually its also a kind of cleansing or dealing with one’s trauma. And we always
have to examine intention vis-à-vis how our work will have impact on the public whom we purport to
serve or purport to uplift. So I can end with this and I would leave the forum to the rest of you.

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 Session 3:
Self and Solidarities

A SENSE of helplessness in Pinoy art, contrasting impressions of visual artists in

Vietnam, and state censure of Vietnamese art and culture were among the major is-
sues discussed. This session’s moderator was Ayala Museum Director Florina Cap-
istrano-Baker.

Filipino art writer-artist Eric Florentino raised his personal observation of how a lot
of art in the Philippines comes across as “whiny“. He added: “One of the things I’m
having trouble with a lot of Filipino art is that there’s this sense of helplessness. That
you know we are so abused, we are so exploited. I really feel strongly against it,
because the moment we feel powerless, then that’s it”.

Self-Laceration

Filipino monastery-based artist Paolo Casurao, remarked that Pinoys punish them-
selves too much and are not aware of many accomplishments in art in the provinces
and abroad. He elaborated: “I think there is so much of self-laceration among the
Filipinos,” he said. There’s a very lively art scene in the Philippines. Maybe the
market is depressed if you’re looking to sell paintings that would cost P100,000 or
so, but if you go to the regions, there’s a lively art scene, the likes of which I have
not witnessed in Europe or in America, even in theater…The Philippines has even
contributed to the theater education of the other regions. There was this central insti-
tute of PETA where Germans would come to study…The Black Tent Theater of Japan
would take root there… I don’t know if our way of finding affirmation is by lacerating
ourselves and our co-Filipinos. This has to stop. It’s not productive, period.”

Two Faces of Vietnam

Although Vietnamese artist Nguyen Minh Thanh did dwell on how his government
dictated the way visual artists are trained in his country (with regard to skill and tech-
nique) he also described his life as a painter as idyllic and laid back.

German artist-organizer Jay Koh cautioned the audience from thinking that Thanh’s
description is true for all visual artists in Vietnam. He said: “I hope you’re not think-

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ing that I’m going to play the bad guy, but how many of you have been to Hanoi?
The problem in such conferences is when one person comes from Vietnam, then you
think that that person becomes the expert on that country. Then you jump to very big
conclusions, and then you start to negate your own position here…I think you should
go there and then you make an opinion yourself. Because he (Minh Thanh), I think
he’s very innocent,” he continued. “I have met half of all the artists he mentioned and
I also asked them about this colonization and they say: ‘we have been so colonized
by so many people, it doesn’t matter anymore.’”

Copy Culture

“If you’ve been there, you will see that there’s a very strong ‘copy culture’”. Koh
went on. “They do not respect the individual. You can get, for US$50 on the street, a
copy of Van Gogh or any masterpiece, very good, perfect copies. Like he said, they
are very good painters. You won’t find that in any city in Asia. The only conditions
are, that it must not have the signature (of the original artist) and it must not be the
same size as the original,” he clarified.

Filipino sculptor Toym Imao, however, pointed out many similarities between the
Philippines and Vietnam art-wise. “The closest people we could relate to are the
Vietnamese, “ he said. “We are closer in terms of experiences in history, in terms of
colonization... They had had the Chinese, the French, the Japanese, the Americans,
the Russians while we had Spain, Japan, America. They have their point of closure,
we have our martial law.”

Both Survivors

Imao added, “They would always ask me about some comparisons between Filipino
culture and Vietnamese culture. I would just simply say that we are both survivors.
Indeed there are, what you mentioned Mr. Koh--your observations about Vietnam are
really true and we have the same things here.”

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200
DAY 2:
Mediating Art: Sites and Practice
202
Session 4:
Sites of Independence
 Sites of dependence and acts of independence
Sharmini Pereira, United Kingdom/Sri Lanka

I first started working as an independent curator nearly ten years ago when I was living in Sri Lanka.
At the time, I did not give the notion of being an independent curator much thought, probably be-
cause it was not a job in the way that I had been accustomed to think about working life. I had no
office, no salary, no job description, and no professional title for people in Sri Lanka to understand
exactly what I did, because after all, like all good Asian girls, I was not a doctor, a dentist, or a lawyer.
As an independent curator, I was independent of all that.

Like a square peg in a round hole, I moved back to London to fit into an even bigger hole.

Upon my move back to the United Kingdom, I continued to be challenged and committed to the bur-
geoning contemporary art scene that was fast developing in the region during the early ‘90s. How-
ever being in the UK simultaneously bought with it another inflection of being “independent” through
the ascribed distance and detachment that the move set up between my working base -- London
-- and the subject of my curatorial concerns -- Asia. This feeling of removal was further deepened
by the fact that in the UK, interest in contemporary art practice from regions that lay outside of the
Euro-American canon was by and large non-existent.

Aside from being a short introduction about myself as an independent curator, this preamble is
mainly intended to raise the question of what exactly I am independent of and how perhaps a notion
of “independent” is hinged between two or more mutually reliant opposites. Listed as I am in this
conference as a UK/Sri Lankan and the unlikely meeting of ideologies, authenticities, and positions
that it sets up, it also begs the question of how I might also be independent of these questions asked
of me but not by me. The title of my paper “Sites of dependence and acts of independence” is hence
informed and surrounded by such a reckoning and performs the task of encompassing and mapping
out the approaches that have come to inform my work.

During the following 30 minutes, I have selected three recent projects to present to you. Each of the
projects describes an act of independence, which is less about being interventionist and more about
mediation between a set of circumstances, people, funding realties, and shifting contexts. An act --
as opposed to Lee Weng Choy’s “gesture”-- whose genesis is independently inspired but contingent
on what I would call a site of dependence, or a meeting ground whose physical space also supports
the viability of a particular project around issues of access and funding as well as for filling a mean-
ingful conceptual and historical context for making things happen.

In 2001, I was asked to participate in a program of exhibitions in the North West of England, which
focused on South Asia. Each exhibition was conceived to be held in a separate venue and curated
by an international curator in consultation with the venue curator. I was the nominated curator for
Sri Lanka for a show to be held at the Liverpool University Art Gallery (LUAG), formerly a Georgian
House, which was also home to the Liverpool University’s art collection of Fine and Applied arts. The
starting point for each exhibition was the relationship between art and craft.

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In direct contrast to India, where the visibility of “Craft” has been pulled through the gauntlet of
discourse largely through the pioneering work of Dr. Joytindra Jain and Prof. Gulam Sheikh, the
art-craft debate is not nearly as polemisced in Sri Lanka. From the outset, I was wary of endorsing a
theme that had more relevance to India than to Sri Lanka and which in turn could be seen to play into
an obvious Indianization of the region and the regional politics that such a position upheld. Being the
first show of contemporary practice from Sri Lanka in the UK, I was more interested in the specific
relationship between the UK and Sri Lanka and turned my attention to the task of unpacking some
of the terminology between art and craft, which was given specific spin when colonial rule under the
Dutch was seceded to the British during the 1800s. British art, it was assumed, encouraged per-
sonal experiment, expression, and engagement in intellectual enquiry whilst the value of “craft” lay
primarily in its ability to demonstrate skill in the replication of objects for utilitarian purposes. From
hereon, the marginalisation of craft-based work and one could argue, its demise within the hierarchy
of visual practice, followed from the exclusivity and independence ascribed to the “true” and the
“beautiful” in western thought from the “useful.” When the Ceylon Society of Arts was established
under the British in Sri Lanka in 1891, the sentiments of this neo-classical 18th century discourse
were inextricably bound up with the society’s pursuit for a modern cultural identity, a change that
simultaneously led to the dismantling of the indigenous caste system of artisans and the introduc-
tion of what is now commonly known as the Modern Fine Art tradition. Rather than being inclusive
of work by craft makers or artisans, my response was to concentrate on a selection of Fine Artists
whose work challenged notions of high art and could be seen to awaken the recognition of what I
term “the craft impulse” as part of a broader cultural outlook. The conceptual bookends of the show,
as the title suggests, entertained the Crafty Thought of how intellectual pleasure usually attributed to
the production of Fine Arts was being radicalized by artists who have secured content in their work
amongst other elements of the craft impulse, and how the utilitarian aspects of craft (or “use value”)
have in turn become a strategic quest for establishing a critically and socially empowered role for
the artist in Sri Lanka today.

The Liverpool University Art Gallery is arranged over four floors with the top floor being dedicated to
the presentation of temporary exhibitions. In making the journey up the stairs to the top floor, it was
impossible not to take in the crowded display of the permanent collection and the numerous cabinets
of applied arts, furniture, and clocks that lined nearly every surface. The domestic feel of the hang
and the house infused the “site” with many questions, which to me had come to surround and inform
the relationship between art and craft, and consequently led to my decision to present some of the
Sri Lankan works amongst the permanent collection.

On the ground floor is Jagath Weerasinghe’s installation Tea Kaddie, which is part of his ongoing
Archaeology of Today series. Following a site visit, Jagath opted to make a new work in response to
Liverpool University Art Gallery’s exquisite collection of tea kaddies. Back in Sri Lanka, inspiration
for the work came from Nadesan’s book about the history of tea plantation workers in Sri Lanka.
The development of this lucrative cash crop required cheap labor and hard toil, which could not be
found in Sri Lanka and led to the recruitment of immigrant Tamil laborers from South India. Up to
the 1870s, plantation labour was seasonal with workers returning to India annually. The growth of
tea, however, required a permanently resident workforce, which saw the island’s migrant population

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 increase dramatically. This demographic change not only fuelled resentment among the indigenous
population but has also come to epitomize one of the most disquieting examples of the Empire’s
divide-and-rule policy. What one sees in Nadesan’s book is the brutality of exploitation of estate
Tamil workers by the colonial masters. Tea Kaddies like Nadesan’s book is a quiet but haunting work
that records the memory of a landscape -- crudely traced here by the artist over the label of a com-
monplace plastic Liptons tea container -- that was transformed under the relationship of a colonizer
and its subject peoples.

A work by Sarath Kumarasiri is installed in the downstairs room of the gallery. The work titled No
Glory was an existing work that consisted of a selection of shoes and open-toe slippers presented in
the guise of an archaeological display reminiscent of those found in natural history museums. From
afar, the footwear looks worn and weathered reinforcing the association with archaeological relics.
Up close, however, they prove to be the product of an intensely labored, hand-carved process in
which an imagined subject is made painstakingly real. And yet, while attention to the everyday is
evoked in Kumarasiri’s combination of humble materials -- each sculpture is made from terracotta,
a material more commonly used in Sri Lanka to make pottery and roof tiles -- the work maintains a
connection with the past through its display and sculptural effect. In common with archaeological
digs where the past is excavated through the fragments and remains of a long buried material cul-
ture, Kumarasiri’s arrangement of single shoes and slippers brings to mind the questions of loss that
surround the disappearance of culture. Through their direct reference to the body, the sculptures
simultaneously record its absence. In a country where the toil of human casualties and human rights
abuses make up the painfully recalled statistics of an 18-year long ethnic conflict, this seemingly
unglorious work becomes disconsolately inscribed with a monumental guilt.

Once upon a time there was Barrel. It was used as a container and was 35 inches in height and 23
inches in diameter, cylindrical in shape. This matter of fact description is Chandraguptha Thenu-
wara’s pointedly ironic introduction to his ongoing series of social actions described under the title
of “Barrelism” project. Under the British, the oil barrel was used by road builders to boil tar in the
construction of roads, but during the mid-’80s -- at the height of ethnic unrest in Sri Lanka -- their
function and appearance changed dramatically. Walls of camouflaged barrels were used across the
country to cordon off roads and identify military checkpoints, transforming the barrel into a symbol of
immobility and territorial control. It is against this backdrop that Thenuwara’s “Barrelism” project has
developed through subtle interventions, which seek to parody the use of the barrel in unexpected
and often humorous means. For the exhibition, Thenuwara turned an existing barrel into a kiln in
which he fired over 100 miniature terracotta barrels each measuring no more than three inches high
by two inches in diameter. The miniature barrels were then painted with camouflage design and
displayed in the form of an intricate labyrinth under a glass vitrine in one of the gallery spaces on the
first floor. And if their display in a glass vitrine adds to the idea of imprisonment, it simultaneously
introduces another level of conceit, which, disguised like a counter-camouflage, seeks to preserve
this recent period of Sri Lanka’s dark history.

Walking up the stairs to the next floor, you find that the first room you come across is used to house
the University’s splendid collection of 18th century Greek and Russian Icons, two of which are seen
here on the back of the gallery wall. This room became the temporary home for an installation of

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an existing work by Bandu Manamperi called Instant Nirvana (PVT) ltd. Made from casts of Bud-
dhist sculptures normally produced for the tourist trade, an original of which is displayed here,
Manamperi’s work plays with the notion of mass production. This is alluded to in the title and is also
conveyed in their shop-like display. Conceptually, the work also refers to notions of purity, normally
seen to reside in the “original,” the “authentic,” or that which is handmade or crafted. Against the
backdrop of ethnic conflict, such definitions of purity have also come to categorize race and differ-
ence. In Sri Lanka where Buddhism is constitutionally recognised as the State religion, the icon of
the Buddha is both deeply venerated and made according to particular principles of representation
that inscribe the image with highly symbolic meanings. By extension, the Buddha image is also col-
lected by tourists in Sri Lanka as a souvenir of exotica, harmony, and tranquillity. This conflation of
religious, political, and economic value systems parodied in Manamperi’s work is furthered by their
incongruous juxtaposition to the Greek and Russian icons of Christ.

As already mentioned, the LUAG normally only presents temporary exhibitions in the top floor gal-
lery. Of a total of eight artists in the exhibition, by now the visitor to the show would have seen over
half of the works before reaching the top floor space. On entering the top floor gallery, the visitor
finds the space transformed. Emptied but still occupied, the space hosts the work of Anoli Perera,
who made a site-specific work called Ancestral Curtain. Composed of hundreds of threads and
ready-made pieces of traditional Sri Lankan lace and crochet, the work assumes the role of a curtain
or screen. But as the title also suggests, the artist’s intervention is concerned not only with the physi-
cal space of the gallery but also with the artist’s narrative past. Women have commonly practiced
lace-making and crochet in Sri Lanka, passing down the skill from mother to daughter. For this work,
the artist employed the talents of her aunts to produce a production line of crochet pieces, which
the artist then attempted to crochet into one piece as part of her vain attempts to be part of such a
tradition. In contrast, her chaotic, albeit sensuous crafting of threads creates a formal disruption to
this tradition through its idiosyncratic improvised style. Just as the light from the windows illuminates
the works from behind, the artist’s negotiation with tradition, rather than being nostalgically recalled,
is suggestively made transparent.

In the same room were shown four sets of miniature plastercince armies by Tissa De Alwis. Standing
no more that 12 centimetres in height, Tissa De Alwis’s plastercine figures present a miniature and
deeply fantastical view of military history. Ranked according to a specific colour code in a carefully
crafted theatre of found objects such as tooth paste caps, silk brocade, and biro lids, each set of
figures suggests playful imaginings that interweave military history and cultural history, science-fic-
tion novels, and boy’s comics. Red set and Red Coat set relate loosely to the periods of Mogul rule
and British Occupation in the subcontinent and are respectively informed and surrounded by Pre and
Colonial history in the region. The other two sets shown were the Russian set and the Afghan set.
Made almost 20 years ago, the Afghan set recalls the warrior might of the Mujaheedin against the
Russians, making their pairing in the light of recent military intervention in Afghanistan all the more
suggestive. And finally, on a lighter note, a series of De Alwis’s wire flying machines made from coat
hangers and piloted by plastercine figures was suspended in the stairwell, which connected the four
floors of the gallery.

From fantastical flying machines to real life military aircraft, De Alwis’s work also introduces my
second project called Missing Zero by the Japanese artist Katsushige Nakahashi. For the last five

207
 years, the artist has been making life size photographic sculptures of the Japanese military warplane
-- the Zero bomber. I first came across Nakahashi’s work at the Asia-Pacific Triennial (APT) in 1999
but it was on the success of a subsequent Zero project in Darwin that I invited him to work with me
on a project in the UK.

In addition to the various historical and political overtones of the work as highlighted in the ABC
broadcast, I was also drawn to Katsu’s work because of the grim and witty reminder the work fore-
grounded -- how the history of warfare and that of photography have developed a fatal interdepen-
dence.

Since the First World War, the lens of the camera on board an aeroplane has served as an indirect
sighting device complementing those attached to the weapons of mass destruction. The intensive se-
quences of aerial reconnaissance photographs produced during the war were regarded as another
crucial form of ammunition. By the Second World War, it became possible to sketch out a maneuver
via global vision, through the use of spy satellites that were able to photograph the minute surface
of continents in order to compose automatic maps. Despite being monumental in size, Nakahashi’s
Zero installations do not venerate this disquieting relationship between photography and war but
instead seek to reinvent it with thought and a quiet humor. Through the process of construction, the
artist’s camera mimics the role of the sweeping satellite. The irony of scale between the toy model
and its gargantuan photographic replica also offers a wry comment on the notion of visibility as en-
capsulated in the so called “global vision” -- a term borrowed from the military and employed today
through discourse to discuss and present international contemporary art.

The title of the work also has numerous associations specific to Japanese cultural history. Through
his formulation of “a place of nothingness,” the influential writings of the Japanese modernist philos-
opher Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945), for example, were key to the intellectual growth of the Japanese
post-war avant-garde. In the 1950s, the Zero Society was set up on the premise that every work
of art began from “nothing.” Zero’s proclivity for making art from ideas is key to understanding the
development of conceptual art practice in Japan during the Showa era (1926-1989). Many members
of Zero went on to work as part of the internationally known Gutai group. Influences such as these go
some way to support the curator Alexandra Munroe’s assertion that “On a human level, World War
II was a defeat for everyone. Perhaps the Japanese were the first to accept the price of this defeat.
If that is so, Japanese artists have been in a special position to respond to the meaning of creation
and destruction. As so often happens in Japanese culture, nature and nothingness are what artists
finally turn to.” Nakahashi’s Zero series -- from its creation through to its destruction -- evokes and
plays with such a fate.

The Darwin project was also noteworthy for the way in which it used a notion of site, not previously
seen in gallery presentations of the series. Katsu took up my invitation to develop a similar project
in the UK and undertook a research visit to the Imperial War Museum (IWM) where I had discovered
they had a Zero bomber in their permanent collection. Katsu’s exhibition proposal Missing Zero
centers on the Imperial War Museum’s permanent Zero bomber exhibit on the fourth floor of the mu-
seum. Unlike most other aircraft in the collection, only the cockpit of the Zero bomber remains. The
cockpit is identifiable as that of a Type 52, which was one of the bomber planes used most frequently

208
for Kamikaze attacks by the Japanese during WWII. Lettering on the outside of the aircraft indicates
that the Technical Air Intelligence Unit flew it for a test flight. However, the history of the plane’s
capture and subsequent dismantling remain undocumented. Unlike other Zero bombers, the IWM’s
zero cockpit is painted brown and not the standard green. A circle of blue can also be evidenced at
the back of the cockpit cabin suggesting a non-Japanese military insignia.

Given the unique and unexplained documentation of the IWM’s Zero bomber cockpit, Nakahashi’s
project aims to grasp the mysterious fate of the plane by remaking the entire aircraft using the
characteristic photographic process used throughout his other Zero projects. The finished work will
hence juxtapose material history with fantasy in order to bring the missing Zero back, albeit tempo-
rarily into the museum’s collection.

Despite the fact that the IWM does not run an active contemporary arts program, they agreed to
host the residency for the first phase of the project. During the course of the project’s development,
however, their commitment wavered in regard to showing the work in the museum on the grounds
of a lack of available funding and under the pressure to work with their existing collection. It should
also be pointed out that this was the first time they gave a contemporary Japanese artist access to
their archive and to all extents and purposes, a huge step in the Museum’s willingness to accom-
modate a practice that dealt with the sensitive history of Japanese involvement in WW2. For the time
being, the implementation of the project is temporarily on hold. Meanwhile Missing Zero exists as
3,000 rolls of color film in the artist’s studio in Japan -- the ultimate sculptural conceit, if you like,
until another venue can be found. In my mind, this work is entirely dependent on the context of the
Imperial War Museum for its presentation, and represents an ideal way through which the museum
can make its collection more accessible. Should any of you find yourself in the Imperial Museum, my
guess is that you would come to understand more about their Zero bomber cockpit and its history
through Katsu’s missing Zero project, which, in the light of current circumstances, has also become
the missing project.

In contrast to Katsu’s project which has involved two years of work, the next project was curated
in six months, involved gunpowder and explosives, lasted two seconds, and took place in the week
of the first anniversary of September 11th whilst London was under security alert. Again, it was a
project that involved a single artist, this time Cai Guo-Qiang, and represented the first presentation
of his gunpowder works in London; it arose out of an unusual collaboration between myself, the art-
ist, a commercial gallery called Michael Hue-Williams, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
In common with all of Cai Guo-Qiang’s gunpowder projects, which are time-based works, video
footage provides the documentation of the event or project. The accompanying video documents a
project called Transient Rainbow, which was made on June 29, 2002 as the result of a commission
by MOMA to mark the temporary move of the Museum from Manhattan to Queens.

Money Net was conceived as the opening event for an exhibition called the “Galleries Show” held
at the Royal Academy of Arts, a conservative and traditional museum founded by the artist and
academician Joshua Reynolds in the 1800s. Conceived by the Director Norman Rosenthal and the
artist/curator Max Wigwam, the “Galleries Show” invited 20 commercial galleries to exhibit work
inside the museum space in an attempt to foreground the role of the art dealer network within the
contemporary art arena.

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 Cai, who is not represented by any dealer, undertook to do the commission with Michael Hue-Wil-
liams Fine Art by proposing to make an exploding money bag whose conceptual reckoning nodded
cheekily into the heart of the commercial art world whilst Michael Hue-Williams undertook to under-
write the commission knowing that his support would confound the belief that all dealers want to do
is make money, and that few would be willing to stake their reputation or their money on an artwork
that has no tangible commercial value, let alone one that blows up using 1,300 meters of gunpowder
fuse.

Before closing with the video footage of this project, I have consciously tried hard to avoid theoriz-
ing about the projects that I have presented to you, but if I was to tease them into a discourse, it
would err in the direction of a discourse of Humor. Humor, to me, is one of the most critical and
subversive tools of intervention and timing. From the slippage of crafty to “Crafty’ in the title of the
Sri Lanka exhibition, to the comic tragedy of Katsushige’s Zero bombers, and to the context of Cai
Guo-Qiang’s explosive one-liner, if you read between the lines across these three projects, you will
see that humor is at work in the projects and behind the interventions of the artists. However, from
Aristotle through to Freud and Bahktin, the discourse of humor has always been accompanied by a
neat invisibility which provides an interesting predicament when dealing with any discourse on the
visual. For all extents and purposes, “nothing kills a joke like a thesis,” a truism which cautions us
about the question of privileging discourse over practice.

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Making Room
Ringo Bunoan, Philippines

On October 25, 1999, Katya Guerrero, Riza Manalo, and I, together with some investors, opened
up Big Sky Mind in a quiet semi-residential area in Quezon City. It was a relatively simple set-up, an
ordinary two-level apartment, which we converted into a café on the ground floor and a gallery on the
second. We had no sign, only a clear glass facade revealing all the activity inside.

Katya, Riza, and I were then recent graduates of the University of the Philippines College of Fine
Arts, and like many other artists of our generation, we saw the need for alternative spaces for art,
apart from the usual commercial or institutional venues.

Aside from painting, we exhibited installations, performances, video projections, and other site-
specific works mostly by local young artists. We supported artists by providing them with exhibition
opportunities and extensive promotions, but most importantly, we made room for artists to explore
forms and ideas without the constraints of convention. Big Sky Mind became synonymous with ex-
perimentation, without fear of showing works at varying levels of resolution.

We also organized film and video showings, band performances, poetry readings, artists’ talks, and
other events and encouraged collaboration between artists of different fields. This multi-disciplin-
ary approach to art is one important characteristic of Big Sky Mind; however, it was never really
imposed at the beginning. Instead, it evolved in an organic manner, reflecting the varied interests of
the people who have become part of Big Sky Mind.

The café played an important role because not only did it assure us with an income, it also provided a
casual environment for art. By locating art outside the typical white box, we not only provided artists
with a chance to work with a distinct space, we also opened up new ways of encountering art and
bringing art closer to the public.

We increased people’s awareness about contemporary art and reached out to audiences who were
not your typical gallery-goers. Some of the people there just went to hang out and have something
to eat or drink but were also offered something else. I believe that it is all part of the desire to enrich
everyday experience through art and to blur the distinction between art and everyday life.

For two and a half years, we went on, and though I would like to believe that we have had our share
of special moments, I also have to admit that it was far from easy. Trying to manage a gallery and a
café at the same time is truly challenging. In the beginning, Katya was even cooking, and I was tend-
ing the bar. I do believe that it is good to be deeply involved with your work, but at the end of each
day, we were just exhausted. The hours we kept were also extraordinary. I often stayed there from
early afternoon until six or seven the following morning, every day except Monday.

Honestly, I do not think we would have survived without the support of countless individuals. We are
very grateful for their help, whether it is for participating in the exhibitions, lending technical equip-

211
 ment, helping us look for sponsors, even cleaning up and waiting on tables, or simply for staying with
us throughout the years.

Riza eventually left the country and is now based abroad; yet, despite her departure, Katya and I
have committed to pursue our support for young artists. In March 2001, we formed the Big Sky Mind
Artists Projects Foundation, a duly-registered non-stock, non-profit art organization aimed at support-
ing Philippine contemporary art and artists. This gesture signaled a new direction for Big Sky Mind.

At that time, Katya and I were already feeling the weight of running the gallery/café. The creation of
a separate foundation ensured us with an identity to continue with our endeavor. We also felt that the
space was getting too small and we needed a bigger space to accommodate bigger thoughts and
proposals -- a new ground to work on.

So we decided to move.

In April 2002, we held the last exhibition at the New Manila address and relocated to another part
of the city, an industrial warehouse compound in Cubao. Slowly, we have converted this into a place
for the arts and have renamed it the 18th Avenue Artists Compound.

The 18th Avenue Artists Compound is a space for young artists to create and develop their work
amidst an environment of community, camaraderie, and professional support. The Compound spe-
cifically addresses the need of young artists for working spaces, access to information, and repre-
sentation.

A fresh and alternative site, we hope to gather artists, students, curators, writers, researchers, other
members of the art community, and the general public in a place dedicated to the support of Filipino
contemporary art.

Unlike before where we had a regular monthly program of exhibitions and other events, this time, we
would like to focus on developing a residency program. This year, we will begin our Artist-in-Resi-
dency Program, granting one-year studio residencies to young Filipino visual artists. Our resident
artists for 2003-2004 are Ronald Anading, Lena Cobangbang, Louie Cordero, Jayson Oliveria, and
Marjorie Yu. They will be provided with subsidized working spaces and access to the Compound’s
facilities, which include three working Artists’ Studios; a Library containing artists’ portfolios, cata-
logues, magazines, brochures, books, and other reference material; a Computer Room with cable
internet access, scanning, printing, and video editing equipment; and storage space for artworks.

In July 2003, the Compound will have its first quarterly Open House, providing an occasion for the
resident artists to present their work to the public. Studio visits, artists’ talks, and other activities will
be held during this period.

The Compound also plans to offer video documentation services, workshops and educational pro-
grams, and portfolio management for artists. We have already enlisted Roberto Chabet, now retired
from the University of the Philippines (UP), to continue holding classes at the Compound for the first
quarter.

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*****

As with other independent artists groups and spaces, we see ourselves as part of a growing network,
a global community of artists working together in search of alternative proposals and solutions. And
although born out of a direct response to local issues, Big Sky Mind also believes that it is important
to know what is happening outside and engage in issues beyond our borders.

PAUSE, the 4th Gwangju Biennale, which we participated in last 2002, was an eye-opener. Not only
did we witness and experience the unfolding of such large-scale ventures, we also had the opportu-
nity to engage with other independent artists’ groups and spaces from all over the world.

In November 2002, I was invited to go to Bangkok to meet with Thai artists and hopefully start some
kind of an exchange between the Philippines and Thailand. This meeting was made possible by the
Alliance Francaise International Center for Contemporary Art in Bangkok. Big Sky Mind will be invit-
ing Ark Fongsmut, curator of the Bangkok University Art Gallery, to develop an exchange between
Filipino and Thai artists, with residencies and exhibitions in both Bangkok and Manila.

*****

This is all a radical step for Big Sky Mind, a far cry from our humble little gallery/café. We do know
that funding for the arts remains a critical issue. It cannot be denied that government funding is inte-
gral to the development and maintenance of arts and culture anywhere. Without a strong government
infrastructure for financial support, the majority of museums, galleries, and alternative spaces would
simply not exist.

Some of the artist-run centers that I have encountered rely on government funding to supply up to
85% of their annual operating budget; however, here in Manila, artist-run centers and other indepen-
dent spaces have to resort to other means -- whether its having a café on the side, selling artworks,
hosting fundraising events, and soliciting private donations. In most occasions, it is often the artists
who have to shell out their own money in order to sustain the activities.

Although it has been said that philanthropy for the arts and culture simply does not exist in a level in
the Philippines that would financially support the development of artist-run centers and independent
spaces, we would like to believe that there are still some individuals within our own communities who
are willing to help. For the Compound, we are developing a Studio Patronship Program, which would
allow people to extend their support for the residencies of the artists.

*****

In the Philippines, the history of artist-run centers is very short. Though there might be some refer-
ences like Agnes Arellano’s Pinaglabanan Gallery in the ‘80s or even the earlier Shop Six, these
are few and far between. And although there are a number of artists who own galleries, like Mauro
Malang Santos’s West Gallery or the Luz Gallery owned by Arturo Luz, these spaces are really no
different from your typical commercial gallery.

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 I would say that the more recent incarnation of artists’ initiatives such as Big Sky Mind, Surrounded
by Water, and Green Papaya remains distinct, not just for its non-profit orientation but more impor-
tantly for exploring other ways to produce, present, and sustain art.

Artist-centered rather than market-driven, we exert flexibility and empathy in our dealings with fellow
artists and foster a sense of community and support. Working at a grassroots level, we encourage
resource- and skill-sharing and collaboration as a strategy to position ourselves and find our place
in the larger cultural structure.

Committed to risk-taking, experimentation, and a do-it-yourself attitude to contemporary art, we have

blurred the roles of artist, curator, writer, and administrator and have provided new models of art
practice and spaces for fresh thoughts, ideas, and proposals to develop, mature, and find recogni-
tion.

Some also say that artist-run spaces are really just for the moment; they come and go like a fleeting
star. Many artist-run spaces and artist-initiated projects do come with a bang and end with a whimper,
falling prey to the many difficulties -- foreseen or otherwise -- surrounding such endeavors. Sustain-
ability has always been that faraway utopia.

It is true that, as with many other artist initiatives in the region and elsewhere, we constantly face
risk and fragmentation. I think, in essence, we can never remain the same from year to year. We are
constantly evolving, driven by the changing concerns of contemporary society.

I believe that for artist-run centers to succeed, we must be able to instigate change not just in our
works, but also in the way we approach art and our role in it. We must be able to constantly re-exam-
ine ourselves in the face of today’s changing context and society. To fall does not necessarily mean
to lose one’s place; it also signals a shift to a new direction.

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Plastique Kinetic Worms
Vincent Leow, Singapore

Plastique Kinetic Worms is a contemporary art space organized and managed by artists, facilitating
the development of contemporary art and artists, and promoting and fostering cultural experiences.

Introduction

Plastique Kinetic Worms (PKW) was formed in April 1998 as an independent artist-run space to or-
ganize exhibitions and events and to raise the awareness of contemporary art practice in Singapore.
We first stepped foot into No. 68 Pagoda Street in the heart of Chinatown, accepting a three-month
rent-free space to curate a series of exhibitions. From this series of exhibitions, PKW invited the
participating artists to explore the idea of forming an artists’ collective to create an artist-run space
for contemporary art.

Functioning as a non-profit art space as well as a society, we believe that the work done at PKW
bridges the gap between art and society by bringing contemporary art to the community. Throughout
these three years, we have sought to realize the objectives of creating a space for the arts and rais-
ing the awareness of contemporary art. During this time, numerous artists and curators from local
and foreign art communities have visited our space, sharing valuable experiences, comments, and
criticism. Their encouragement and support have spurred us on.

From our humble beginnings of ten artists, the group has grown, attracting new members and friends
from different backgrounds. Although we are still a relatively young art group, we have organized a
surprisingly wide range of exhibitions and events.

While each member is directly responsible for his or her own exhibiting career, the shows at PKW
lend themselves to more curatorial frameworks. The visions and guidance of curators have given
our exhibitions more dimensions and greater credibility. Our challenge lies in our attempt to address
the issue of what kind of art gets to be exhibited, and hopefully, in helping determine the form and
nature of art. This is in line with one of our objectives of highlighting the works of young, and up and
coming artists.

Our work at PKW is geared toward revealing the possibilities of artist initiatives as well as exploring
the relationships between exhibition spaces and the emergence of new art forms that sometimes
cannot be supported by the commercial and public system. This in turn creates diversity in the visual
arts world, defining and redefining contemporary art: art for the community, the mainstream, the
wider public.

At present, the difficulty of defining the homogeneity that exists in the terms “independent,” “alter-
native,” and “artist-run” covers a diversity of exhibiting policies, funding arrangements, and exhibit-
ing facilities, encompassing curator-initiated projects through artist-led group-shows in our space.
Our aim is to see the alternative and the mainstream merge in privately-run galleries that serve

215
 as conduits for artists whose projects may have begun as “alternative” but are now central to the
mainstream. Furthermore, the core of our objectives forms the bridge between the “alternative” and
the mainstream, which allows alternative spaces to function as a fertile ground for the successful
contemporary mainstream while still preserving openness, integrity, and independence.

We cannot pretend that we have resolved or tackled the issues that surround the arts community.
The diversity of the art community presents different attitudes to different art forms, artistic styles,
aesthetic beliefs, and, simply, the tastes of different people; the difficulty lies in catering to all.
Constantly, we see ourselves facing the questions of how the space should exist and how problems
should be resolved, but one guiding rule for the collective is to be always more than what the com-
mercial galleries espouse.

The fact that we have come so far is an attestation to our desire to make a stand for our beliefs. We
were fortunate to have enjoyed the opportunity of having a space during the 1998 economic down-
turn which affected the real estate business. It was for want of a space when the economy picked
up which was the real test of our mettle and conviction. Operating PKW has not been an easy task,
but we have been quite fortunate to receive support from various funding organizations and artists
to achieve what we have.

We believe that the community lacks a space that allows artists to further their exploration and exhibit
their work, especially if the works are experimental and non-mainstream in nature. Because the art
world is dominated by conventional and mainstream art, we see more reason in our objectives to
expose and create dialogue and education on contemporary art in its various manifestations.

Programmes

In our first year of operations, our programs consisted mainly of exhibitions by members of PKW.
These also included two other projects, namely, the “Young Artists Exhibition” where we invited
young artists to show in our space, and the “Worms Festival” where we organized a three-week long
festival, inviting artists from the various disciplines in the arts community to present their work in a vi-
sual art space as individuals or in collaborations. These two projects are in their third year running.

In addition to these, we have initiated an artist-in-residence program and an artist exchange program.
These initiatives aim to further explore the role of PKW, not simply as a presentation of finished
works, but also as an ongoing documentary of the processes of art. We have also recently launched
a quarterly magazine, Vehicle, on the local and regional contemporary art scene which, as a first for
Singapore, is exclusively about cutting-edge contemporary art.

Over the past three years, we have also made some exchanges, collaborations, and exhibitions over-
seas especially in the region, and through these, we have made several contacts with other spaces,
which allow us to consider forming an organization comprising of representatives from the various
artist-run organizations. This would help in achieving our common objective of promoting contem-
porary art, and through this network, we can further forge a greater understanding of the operations

216
and professionalism of artist initiatives. It is hoped that this will create greater links within the larger
network of independent spaces around the world.

Lastly, we believe that artists should continue to take direct responsibility for our artworks and exhibi-
tions leading to the continued integrity of artistic projects. One cannot find fault with the goal to place
non-mainstream art alongside more mainstream practices such that there is a relationship between
the two. Looking at the pros and cons of the system, the intention of the initiatives is to reveal some-
thing of the relationship between the two and to induce vibrancy and diversity in contemporary art.

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 Session 4:
Sites of Independence

This session focused on the experience and concerns of curators who work outside
institutions. Presentations were made by Ringo Bunoan, Director/ Curator/Artist for
Big Sky Mind Foundation, Philippines; Vincent Leow of Plastique Kinetic Worms,
Singapore; and Sharmini Pereira, an independent curator from the United Kingdom.
Session moderator was Lopez Memorial Museum curatorial consultant Joselina
Cruz.

Short Lives

Pereira, Bunoan and Leow stressed in the discussion that personal sacrifice and
time, networking and collective effort are important in managing artist-run spaces.

Pereira also noted that artists/curators need to recognize the reality that most of
these spaces “all inevitably always close… Maybe the thing to learn from them is
[not] that they get set-up but maybe they are not meant to be around in the way that
museums and institutions are,” she said.

Programmed Obsolescence

Filipino artist-curator Jose Tence Ruiz raised the idea of programmed obsolesence.
“By the time they get to be ripe for obsolescence, they would have served their pur-
pose and then crossover into something else,” he said. “Rather than looking at it as
an impending tragedy that can never be escaped, why not program it to be obsolete
at a certain point and then you move on?”

Bunoan mentioned Yason Banal’s Third Space as an example of this. “When he

started Third Space, he knew that it was going to end in three years,” she said.

Expansion and Identity

Cambodian artist-academic Ly Daravuth suggested the possibility that independent

spaces, in the process of expansion, may turn into entities similar to what these
were being independent from. “Museums will stay because they are state manifesta-
tions…We will pass away and things will stay or be transformed…Somehow within
your own space, there is the potential of being something which you’re [trying to
be] independent from…It is extremely important that these independent spaces ex-
ist because you cannot do what your space does if you were to be[come] big or a
museum.”

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Bunoan could not say if Big Sky Mind was ready for expansion or if it was even in-
terested to pursue this track.

Sense of Control

Bunoan continued: “Last year, at a similar conference, there was talk about the idea
of independence because they didn’t know what they’re independent from...[It’s]
either you’re independent from the commercial market, or you’re independent from
all these institutional conventions.” She said that Big Sky Mind is “a bit removed from
that kind of situation but not far from it also…But I think that one advantage that we
have is that we’re only answerable to ourselves and our community…[we are] not
answerable to let’s say, what buyers prefer or what the top people in the museums
want to have in their spaces. We have a sense of control over what we do.”

Corporate Support

Support for the arts from corporations has been hard to come by in the Philippines
because companies usually want large media mileage in exchange for funding. But
projects by artist-run spaces are not usually large scale. “So it would be hard to give
them all that media mileage that they’re looking for,” Bunoan said.

Pereira, however, detailed a unique relationship that used to exist between artists and
corporate entities in Japan. “You had department stores with galleries on the top
floor. That has now stopped. It wasn’t a good idea anymore. But on the commercial
side of things, you’ve got Issey Miyake who’s been using his shop/stores to present
some of the most progressive, experimental kinds of practice for a long time…From
an artist’s point of view, it was not like there was a sense of selling out or feeling
compromised by having a corporation identified with their work,” she said. There
were also artists who were not represented solely by one gallery. They could work
with three or four galleries in Japan.

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Session 5:
Social Space: Society and Practice
 Peer
Ingrid Swenson, United Kingdom

During the last decade, contemporary art in Brit-

ain has experienced an increasing amount of atten-
tion from the international art community, and also
from the British media. This has led to an across-
the-board popularization of contemporary art -- for
good or for bad. Hand in hand with this has been
the academicization of the role of the curator. There
are now a number of post graduate courses that
teach curating in the UK, such as those offered at
the Royal College of Art and Goldsmiths College,
both in London. The status of the curator and artist
has risen exponentially, to the point where particu-
lar artists and curators have become cult figures.
Whereas this is less unusual for the artist (think of
Warhol, Dali, Picasso -- the list is endless), I person-
ally feel that this is an uncomfortable and potentially
dangerous situation for the curator in terms of the power that this position can now command. The
appropriately dark term “gatekeeper” is one which is often used in reference to curators.

The contemporary art landscape in the UK now is very different from the one in which I began my
career in the mid 1980s. Then, it was unthinkable that a mega museum for modern and contemporary
art would be one of London’s main tourist attractions, or that the Turner Prize would dominate so
many column inches. It is a landscape which I am still a part of but am increasingly wary of because,
on the one hand, I think that contemporary art runs the risk of sensationalization and, on the other
hand, it is in danger of utter banalization.

Since leaving the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1994 to work as a freelance curator, I have not
had the benefit of the support structure that an institutional framework can provide. Equally, however,
I have not had the bureaucratic or creative restrictions that this framework brings. So, as well as
being apprehensive about the implied power and authority of the term “curator,” I also think that it is
somewhat inadequate in terms of how I perceive my freelance status. My job is, at times, equally that
of a producer, a commissioner, and a collaborator, but also it involves rather more unglamorous roles
like fundraiser, administrator, financial controller, press officer, secretary, cleaner, painter, decorator,
and so on. For me, the very direct involvement with the art-making and presenting process has been
at the center of my practice. To illustrate a range of my activities, I will describe four projects under-
taken both as director of Peer and independently, which stand as different models of practice having
engaged with different audiences in different social spaces that are outside instutional art arenas.

In March 1999, a white neon text was installed on the entablature of a neo-classical portico at the
end of a small, late Victorian street in East London. The text read “EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE
ALRIGHT” and was a work by Martin Creed, officially titled Work No. 203, 1999. This was Creed’s

222
first work in neon and the first time he had worked outside. It was the result of an 18-month project
which began when I spotted the structure by chance from a bus window. I was immediately intrigued
by the site for what seemed to be its incongruous architectural grandeur in a residential area of con-
siderable economic hardship. Working freelance at the time with considerable experience of working
in non-gallery spaces, I was instantly convinced that I wanted to pursue the idea of working with this
extraordinary space.

I carried out some background research which I think is important to recount here because the in-
credibly rich history of the site provided a very specific context for the piece made by Creed. The
building was originally built in the 1820s as The London Orphans’ Asylum and originally stood on
eight acres of land. It was founded by a non-conformist minister to provide accommodation and as-
sistance to children of “respectable” professional families where an income was no longer assured
due to the death of the father. At the time, this area of London was on the outskirts of the city and
was a fashionable week-end retreat for the wealthy. In 44 years, the orphanage had taken in more
than 4,000 children, who were eventually moved elsewhere in 1870 after a fatal outbreak of typhoid.
After the building stood empty for some time, it was purchased by the newly formed Salvation Army
in 1882 as an officers’ training garrison. A huge amphitheatre was created in the central quadrangle
which could accommodate 5,000 people at a time. Now called Congress Hall, the building was the
focus of the Salvationist world movement for 50 years until 1929, when the training centre moved to
South London, though some activities continued here until 1970, when the building was purchased
by the local educational authority. When I first saw the site, all that was left of the once huge building
was the main entrance that comprised a portico and two colonnades. It was in effect a dilapidated
architectural folly, surrounded by railings and a locked gate that forbade access. The local residents
called it “the monument” and significantly regarded it as “their monument,” of which they were both
protective and proud.

The fund-raising process was, not surprisingly, long and difficult. The money that was raised came
with the usual strings attached and committed me and Creed to engage in a consultation process
with the residents as well as education and outreach work. Prior to the installation of the work, a
certain amount of resistance and hostility was encountered from a number of people who lived in the
street (which generated some negative press) and from the neighbouring girls’ school (with whom we
carried out a six-week project). However, soon after the sign was installed, it was quickly embraced
by the community and was “our sign on our monument.” The fact that the sign was by an artist, and
a conceptual artist no less, was of no particular interest to the community. They just liked it for its
message and, I suspect, for the fact that it honoured and respected its social environment. Although
the site remained closed off, children would regularly climb over the fence and find a way of switch-
ing off the lights. Whenever this happened a local resident would call me up to ask if I could come
out to switch the lights back on.

The success of this work was, I believe, due to the fact that it functioned in different but equally valid
ways for both the local and art communities. The common perception of public art -- and particularly
public art in areas of urban regeneration -- is that it should decorate or “dress up” an otherwise drab
or depressed environment and that it should communicate in a language which is befitting of those
who live and work there. This is often manifested in projects like colorful murals designed by the lo-

223
 cal, usually multi-cultural community, or in the design of “fun” looking street furniture. Alternatively,
public art in civic or corporate spaces, i.e. moneyed environments, has a “look” and a language
which is altogether more sophisticated and speaks to the alleged intelligence that economic privilege
brings. This work respectfully and restrainedly adorned, but did not decorate the site. The message it
put out was upbeat but did not patronize. As a “thing” -- a simple white neon text on a building -- it had
the ability to quietly and persuasively transform both itself and its context into something extraordi-
nary. The reception of this work by the art community was equally positive. Within a few months, The
Public Art Fund in New York had commissioned Creed to place this sign on a prominent building in
Times Square (this time it was in red). Soon after this, he was invited by Tate Britain to make a neon
text piece for their neo-classical facade. Given the different proportions of the Tate’s building, Creed
decided to incorporate a text he had used before and one which had in a way become his mantra. It
read: THE WHOLE WORLD + THE WORK = THE WHOLE WORLD.

A few months before the installation of this work, I was appointed as director of Peer, an indepen-
dent commissioning and initiating organization in London. I had still not hit my fund-raising target for
Creed’s project, so I made a proposal to my new trustees to commission a parallel project which
would in effect make up the shortfall. The project was to commission Creed to write three songs
(Works Nos. 207, 208, and 209) which would be published on a CD and sent to an extensive mailing
list. This would not just be a kind of mail art, but would also act as announcement for the neon text.
The CD was printed in an edition of 2,000 for free distribution. Martin later selected one of the songs
which was used as the backing music for a three-minute time-lapse film of the neon work, which has
been shown as an independent work in galleries.

In stark contrast to Creed’s discreet, poetic, and perhaps ambiguous intervention into a public space
in London, Peer invited British artist Mike Nelson to make a proposal for a new work to be presented
at the 2001 Venice Biennale. Nelson builds large-scale environments -- theatrical, yet seemingly real,
elaborate, and intensely engaging. The installation took place in a disused brewery building off the
main island of Venice and occupied nearly 3,000 square feet of space in which he constructed 19
rooms, a mezzanine, and around 200 running feet of corridor. Nelson spent several months in Lon-
don collecting materials and preparing the work, and then two months in Venice with two assistants
to build the piece.

The decision to commission a work for Venice was made in order to bring Peer’s activities to an
international audience and because we felt that Mike Nelson’s installation would work extremely
well in this context. One of the continuing discussions about this particular event is how useful, ap-
propriate, or important it is that each of the countries taking part chooses an artist to “represent”
their country -- rather like the Olympic Games showing off their star athletes. The questions that
this raises about national pride and identity have become even more relevant in recent years with
the creation of “new” countries, particularly in Eastern Europe. Another factor which prompted the
decision to commission Nelson was specifically due to the nature of his work. Nelson creates vast,
hermetically sealed architectural environments that audiences enter into and become immersed in --
in an almost performative way. The so-called real environment, i.e. the place in which Nelson’s work
is physically situated, has little if any relevance to the work. For me, one of the most difficult aspects
of the Venice Biennale is that the work exhibited is often upstaged by the complexity and richness of
the city itself. The ultimate decision to commission a new work by Nelson was made because of the

224
fact that it provided an extraordinary opportunity to present one strange and compelling theatrical
landscape literally inside another, while keeping the integrity of each quite separate. In this sense,
although the work is site-specific, the artist had no real interest in engaging in the history, geography,
or demographics of the site, but instead created a parallel world of complete fiction.

The title of Nelson’s work, The Deliverance and The Patience, referred to two galleon ships that
sailed from Bermuda to Virginia in the 18th century. Like most of his work, this installation was
steeped in both literary and historical reference. The intricate scenarios he created were played out
by his fictional constructs, but were also enacted by the viewer/participant as they made their journey
through the labyrinth. Writing about the work, Nelson said:

In the introduction to Cities of the Red Night William Burroughs tells the tale of Captain
Mission and his doomed utopian colony of Libertatia on Madagascar in the eighteenth cen-
tury. Had it not been destroyed by natives, but flourished so encouraging others to establish
similar communities across the globe, Burroughs argues that the communications network of
Mission’s pirate routes could have become a viable alternative to, and undermine the capital-
ist, imperialist systems which continue to prevail today.

As well as commissioning offsite projects that take place in non-gallery or non-institutional spaces,
Peer is also very interested in promoting and provoking discussion about the role of culture in
contemporary society. The publication Art for All? Their Policies and Our Culture came about in
response to a perceived need for debate about the government’s attitude towards the arts. Since
“New” Labour came to power in 1997, there had been increased interest in how the arts could and
should function in society. Lottery funding meant that much more money was available to make the
arts more “accessible” and this had resulted in the formation of many new spaces for (often popular)
culture, and new kinds of funding programmes to take the arts to wider audiences. The broadening of
arts’ role in society is evident in the fact that the word “heritage” had been dropped and the new gov-
ernment department now services “Culture, Media and Sport.” While more money being spent on
the arts is a good thing, Peer was more cautious about the creative potential of these new changes in
policy. In particular, we were skeptical of the benefits it would bring to arts practitioners whose work
is more “difficult” or “experimental,” or in other words, the kinds of work that many contemporary
artists are engaged in. The debate about “dumbing down” had been current in literature, theatre, and
music (particularly opera), and we felt it was an appropriate moment to include the visual arts.

The decision to produce a book on the subject came about as a result of several meetings. Initially,
we discused the idea of spearheading a campaign which included flyposting, writing to the media,
the signing of a petition to present to the government, and a public debate. But ultimately, we felt
that we should make a document that would be an informative reference book presenting arguments
from across the board, but would also break from the tired mould of the government or academic
document by being graphically energetic. We wanted it to look good, with the attraction of a coffee
table book, while maintaining the rigor of the material it contained -- the model that we looked at
was Whyndam Lewis’ Blast. Our next step was to invite two respected, high profile, guest editors.
We were extremely honored that our invitations to both artist Mark Wallinger and philosopher Mary
Warnock were met with such enthusiasm for the project. Also, with Baroness Warnock’s support, we
anticipated that the book would be read by those outside of the art community.

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 In order to ensure contributions from as wide ranging opinions as possible, we made it an open sub-
mission publication. We advertised in Art Monthly and the Times Literary Supplement. We posted
a call for contributions to our extensive mailing list, placed posters in arts and academic institutions
across the UK, in addition to a flyposting campaign in London. As the book was a direct result
of current Labour government policy, we were very keen to include the government’s voice and
had a meeting with the arts minister’s advisor about their contribution. Unfortunately the govern-
ment proved reluctant to participate and instead we were
instructed to reprint an existing speech made by the arts
minister at the time, Chris Smith, on the basis that it would
be printed in its entirety (We were told this during the final
stage of the design and in order to fit the whole text into
the allocated space it had to be printed in five point, and is
virtually illegible).

To launch the publication, we held a public debate followed

by a reception. For the event, we hired the large Council
Chamber in a building that was once Shoreditch Town Hall.
The 60-year-old decorations in this Victorian building pro-
vided a wonderfully shabby atmosphere for the evening’s
proceedings. The panel debate was chaired by the then
Director of the National Portrait Gallery, Charles Sumarez
Smith (now Director of the National Gallery), and the other
panellists included artist David Batchelor, Baroness War-
nock, and writer Julian Stallabrass. The room was filled to
over capacity with more than 250 people, some of whom,
including the Tate Director Nicholas Serota, were sitting on
the floor at the front. The response to the publication, de-
bate, and issues which it raised has been overwhelming, and
the book continues to sell well, finding its way onto a number
of reading lists for courses in the arts, social and political sciences, and policy studies. Although it
may seem somewhat peculiar to talk about a publication in terms of its position in a social space, I
believe that this is a useful way to think about it. Not only is the book the enduring result of a wider
project, it also continues to exist in the public sphere on library shelves.

The final project I want to discuss is one which I have recently completed and existed in yet another
kind of social space -- that of the foyer of an academic university department of geography and also,
again, as a book. It was initiated by a team of three at the Department of Geography at Royal Hol-
loway, University of London, and was called Visualising Geography. I joined, as the fourth member
of the team, to fulfil the role of freelance curator. The funding from the Arts and Humanities Research
Board had been granted on the basis of a very thorough proposal which detailed how eight collabo-
rations between geographers and artists would be forged and managed, how workshops would be
held to discuss the nature and the process of collaboration, and how myself as the curator (in the
guise of a post-doctoral research assistant) would set up, facilitate, and oversee these collabora-
tions, which would in turn lead to an exhibition in the department.

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The Elusiveness of the Transitive:
Reflections on the Curatorial Gesture
and Its Conditions in India
Ranjit Hoskote, India

“At every step, you find new rules. For every step, you realize that a rule is missing.”
– Yona Friedman1

I. Prelude: Schizoid Spaces, Dual Lives

The independent theorist and curator occupies a curiously ambiguous, even unstable position in the
landscape of contemporary Indian art. As a theorist, he diagnoses the political and cultural maladies
of the present, proposing remedial tactics and strategies of resistance, his eyes scanning the future
with qualified optimism. In his role as a curator, however, he remains a prisoner of the present, to
the extent that his exhibitions are visual arguments based on actually available or emergent artistic
tendencies. He experiences this predicament as a constant, double-edged disquiet in relation to his
practice. On the one hand, he finds himself often placed under pressure to underline tendencies with
which he may not be wholly in sympathy, in order to justify his activity in an institutional context still
dominated by the gallery system. On the other hand, as an intellectual dedicated to the futurative
imagination, he feels an impatience with the artists who are his collaborators, constrained as he -
- and they -- are by the local system that provides the armature for their projects. My account here
is at once a critique of the system and its actors, as well as an auto-critique; if it seems pessimistic
in tenor, this is only the shadow of the optimism that leads me to present the caveats and proposals
which follow.

In the course of this essay, I will address the peculiar problems of the contemporary Indian art scene,
elaborating upon the dilemmas of pursuing an independent curatorial practice within it. Such a prac-
tice must necessarily be defined in contour against its uneasy location within an economy of art-mak-
ing devoted to the connoisseurial fetish, the fossil invested with speculative value. In this economy,
the idea of the artwork as a product -- static in all aspects except the escalation of its commercial
value: a recognizable and commodifiable artefact sealed off from its processes of production, cir-
culation, address, and reinterpretation -- takes precedence over the work of art as an activity of the
imagination, a gesture of provocation, set within larger circuits of significance. The emphasis on the
art object renders the transitive possibilities of art almost impossible -- whether in terms of site, ar-
tistic move, curatorial scope, or viewerly understanding. As a corollary, such an economy demands
the development of an associated structure of knowledge-production -- but strictly as a device of
legitimization, and therefore attempts to limit its critical possibilities.

This brings me to the title of my essay, and to the basis of the present reflection: the elusiveness
of the transitive. By “transitive,” I mean those works of the imagination, those artistic choices and
curatorial initiatives that are phrased in the modes of inquiry, exploration, or stimulation: critical,
mutable, and ever-shifting modes responsive to the lifeworld in which they come into being. By “elu-
siveness,” I signify a quality inherent in such works and referential-activational frames of art, which

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 enables them to resist the shaping and possessive desire of individual patronage, the imperative of
the market, or the reflection of State authority. So that, instead of corresponding directly to these
molds, they manage to operate through protean, ludic, or evanescent forms, through the conditions
of portability, liminality, sudden de-materialization, and strange re-embodiment. Thus, such works of
the imagination render themselves invulnerable or non-conducive to containment within the commod-
ity-fetish system: their surplus meaning is not translatable into consumable value, and they function
as critiques of the status quo, affirmations of imagined futures2.

Admittedly, it is difficult to sustain such works of the imagination -- necessary markers of resistance
as they are -- within a market structure: these transcendences of the present are so rarely accom-
plished in practice that I accentuate their futurative status, discussing it later in this essay under the
rubric of distributed tropism (see section IV below). Of the situation as it actually prevails, the best
one can say is this: Acting within the system, yet also pointing outside it, theorist-curators and critical
artists committed to the elusiveness of the transitive lead dual lives, amphibians constantly crossing
the border from one condition into another, negotiating a geometry of schizoid spaces.

II. Theme: The Agoraphobia of the Indian Artist

Very few of the actors involved in the contemporary Indian art scenario have yet fully realized the
dramatic urgency attending their situation. It has come, especially during the last few years, to be
characterised by a severe crisis of representation, one engendered by the growing slippage be-
tween the conceptual idioms and formal means adopted by Indian artists, and the fast-changing envi-
ronment within which their art is produced. For half a century, postcolonial Indian art has represented
its relationship to its lifeworld through the analogical mode, by symbolism, similitude, or calibrated
realism; and however mannered its various symbolic-abstractionist, expressionist, and allegorical-
narrative categories may occasionally have seemed, this analogical mode did possess, at its best,
the concreteness of critical engagement (I will re-visit this theme of criticality in sections III and IV).

Nonetheless, analogy could be sustained as a mode of representation only so long as artists and
viewers shared the belief that the subject and the medium of representation were compatible, that
the medium could plausibly represent the subject. In the context of Indian art, this belief encrypted
the last and local phase of a long international truce between photography and cinema, and the
prior media of visual and plastic art3 -- it could be maintained only until the next paradigm-changing
revolution took place in visual technology. That revolution, which unfolded gradually in the industri-
ally developed societies during the second half of the 20th century, was enacted with suddenness in
India in the early 1990s. It began, innocuously enough, with the introduction of the video; it increased
in intensity, as successively, digitally enhanced popular cinema, 24-hour satellite television, com-
puter-morphed advertisements, the music video, the Internet, and the virtual-reality interface made
their advent, radically transforming the nature of the contemporary Indian experience. These are not
merely novel technologies, but reality-altering devices: mediatic structures that no longer mediate
actuality, but shape it, together with the receiving consciousness, into a pervasive new counter-re-
ality that is as aerially virtual as it is materially social, for it comes buttressed with a grid of social
aspirations, fantasy incentives, and their inevitable freight of despair and frustration. The subject of

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representation has transformed itself, leaving the existing medium of representation behind, inad-
equate to the purpose -- this split translates as a corresponding rupture in the consensus between
artists and viewers, concerning the plausibility of representation by analogy.4

Crucially, for Indian artists, the new mediatic structures and their counter-reality have proposed a
new sensory environment, new spaces of immersive synaesthesia, new visual means and surfaces
-- and art, which cannot represent this world (conventional analogy being precluded), has also had
to compete with it for the attention of audiences, since it exerts a powerful claim on visuality. This
challenge to the artistic claim to primacy in the sphere of visuality, by agents based outside the des-
ignated circuit of art production5, is related to the implications that the crisis held for form. Just as
the protected market of the nationalist period broke down under the incipient process of globaliza-
tion, so too did the charmed, out-of-step circle within which Indian art had until then evolved. As the
opening up of geographical and intellectual borders made an unprecedented amount of information
from elsewhere available through the mid-1990s (especially after the Net became widely available
as a public technology), Indian artists were suddenly confronted with the range and accomplishment
of conceptual and improvisational work, the assemblage, installation and inter-media forms that had
been developed not only in the First, but also in the Second and Third Worlds, since the 1960s.
What had long been obvious but comfortably distant became immediate and inescapable: that Indian
art had lagged behind, that it had somehow missed the flight; that the conventional two-dimensional
painted surface and the formal sculpture, as defined within academic usage and gallery expectation,
were irrevocably finished. The modernist art object was trapped in a semiotic self-closure: framed
within the connoisseurial and commercial discourses of the studio-gallery-museum-auction house
system, it suffered a depletion of significative value in proportion to its ascribed monetary value,
becoming ever more isolated from the wider and more urgent circulations of cultural and political
meaning.6

While a number of younger artists realized that the only way to continue to paint or sculpt was by
radically re-organizing their sense of the relationship between pictorial space or the sculpted object
and its surroundings, few of them did -- or have yet to -- work their way out of the labyrinth by inven-
tion. The most insistent aspect of the crisis is its role as a compelling and cruel revelation, the epis-
temological impasse it creates, and the division it generates between those who recognize its import
and those who do not. The theorist-curator knows what must be done, but lacks the necessary sanc-
tion and infrastructure to enforce it, being sensitive to the autonomy of the artist and limited by a lack
of alternative infrastructure outside the galleries and the one national museum for modern art, with
its official protocols. The artist, in turn, is often dazzled by the advances already made by contem-
poraries elsewhere in the world and attempts to bridge the time lag, with results that are frequently
imitative and less than heartening; he has also ransomed his mythic autonomy to the gallery system,
which sustains him, in the near-complete absence of alternative sources of funding and alternative
contexts of practice. The galleries, for their part, are aware of the crisis only as a “trend” that vaguely
threatens the established economy of art, and make occasional concessions to it for cosmetic rea-
sons, while in fact remaining greatly reluctant to accept its transformative consequences.

The twofold result of these various hesitancies and reluctances is that, while the long-agreed analogi-
cal consensus -- the contract between artists and viewers as to the plausibility and persuasive energy

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 of what and how art represents -- has broken down, no concerted and coherent attempt has been
made to apprehend and address this crisis through the improvisation of new forms, new frames, new
conventions of response, and new publics. Put simply, the irrelevance of its prevailing conceptual
and expressive forms ensures that the bulk of contemporary Indian art does not show or tell our
world as it is, or as we feel it to be; it is remote from, refined away from our lifeworld, the world
of experience in which we constitute ourselves as historical subjects. With some significant excep-
tions7, Indian artists have been slow to reflect on, to wrestle with, and to illuminate the key phenom-
ena that have transformed the nature of our experience in recent years, problematically blurring the
line between local and global, intimate and public, human and machine: phenomena that range from
telematics and transnational techno-labor outsourcing, cybernetic processes and virtuality, through
bio-technology, terrorism, forced migration, and ecological degradation, to surveillance and mobile
warfare, macro-programming, and nano-coding. Indeed, it is cultural producers entering the “art
scene” from outside its designated parameters, who have taken up such themes, being enriched by
formal disciplines and archives of expertise that artists trained narrowly in the art academies mani-
festly lack8. Nor do Indian artists consistently translate into art -- once again, with some significant
exceptions9-- their awareness of operating in a public sphere, a democratic order that is threatened
by right-wing forces who speak in the name of an alternative modernity more accurately classified as
a counter-modernity, a wager on the contemporary that instrumentalizes history, making use of highly
advanced technologies of communication and destruction but in the name of a retrograde desire to
reformat the cultural, and the freedoms of the cultural, on majoritarian lines. When, as a theorist and
curator, I ask myself to what extent these contemporary narratives inform contemporary Indian art,
the answers that suggest themselves are not uniformly encouraging.

I would contend that many Indian artists have yet to throw off what I have elsewhere described as
their “gallery reflexes,” to step out of the intimacy and security of the studio and include other the-
atres of action in their understanding of the world. They occupy the unstable ground between two
models: on the one hand, the artwork as artefact or commodity-fetish object; on the other, the art-
work as membrane or interface. They have not yet made the significant move from perceiving their
ethos as an economy to perceiving it as an ecology -- with all the transformations of structure, atti-
tude, environmental responsiveness, interfaciality, versionality, and interactive attention to the public
sphere as context, that this implies. Our understanding of this problem is amplified when we sketch
it against the backdrop of an admittedly brief and highly condensed, but nonetheless suggestive,
social history of art practice in India from the 1950s to the present. I would contend that the gallery
reflexes with which Indian artists operate are an atavism, that they refer back to habits of survival ac-
quired and passed on by the first generation of postcolonial artists (who were then struggling figures,
marginal to the national panorama, not the foci of public attention that they have now become) during
the early phase of the Republic, and the institutional development of art during the 1950s, when the
vehicles of official, commercial, and private patronage were taking shape in a mould still reminiscent
of the methods of feudal, haute bourgeois, and colonial connoisseurism10. In such an ethos, the artist
claimed to act in the name of autonomy, but craved acceptance.

The world around the artist has changed entirely since these early times, as have the conditions of
practice, and to a lesser extent, of patronage; but these habits of mind, as they are incarnated in
the institutions of art and in the way artists accommodate themselves to these, have remained es-

230
sentially unchanged. I will argue here that such institutional circumstances have contributed greatly
and negatively to what I call the agoraphobia of the contemporary Indian artist. By this I indicate
both, literally, the visceral fear and confusion that Indian artists experience when called upon to work
in public space, a terrain without the gallery’s safety cordons and rules of engagement, as well as,
figuratively, their fear of engagement, both in conceptual and material terms, with the public sphere
and the wider lifeworld as an agora, a space of interaction and exchange, an arena of praxis.

III. Variation: Institutional Socialisation

This agoraphobia is part of the professional equipment that Indian artists carry, a habitus that they ac-
quire through their social location and institutional socialization. Typically, with a few notable excep-
tions, the Indian artist is an individual who has been trained in a fine arts setting11 and been socialized
within the established institutions of the studio-gallery-museum-auction house system12. This institu-
tional socialization has had four major effects, which have a bearing on our present discussion.

First, it ideologically commits and professionally binds the artist to a conservative, connoisseurial,
and commercial lifeworld governed by hegemonies of class and language. Despite the universalizing
or subversive claims that some artists advance for their practices, their actual viewership is largely
restricted to those class segments that are privileged by wealth or articulacy13. Secondly, such a
socialization can and does turn out technicists of fine art who persist in the belief that they have been
summoned to the creation of artefacts that refuse communicative engagement with the viewer, and
who have long seen any such engagement as a “politicization,” a profanation of their high calling, a
source of contamination to be kept at a distance. The visionary is thus sought to be divorced from the
artisanal and the social, and it is the art object, rather than the art project or the art situation, that is
emphasized. Thus, thirdly, trained as they are to regard themselves as bearers of a privileged system
of semiotic production, many Indian artists remain unable to conduct themselves into a more experi-
mental life of frictive, engaging, and enriching solidarities with other agents of creative intervention,
based on an acknowledgement of the need to unmask and resist prevailing power asymmetries. This
is not surprising, since the schools (not counting extremely important, but ultimately transient phases
at the fine arts faculties of Baroda and Santiniketan) have been largely distant from political causes,
even during the 1960s and 1970s, when most campuses in India were dominated by Left resistance
politics, and university students underwent, to varying degrees, a radicalization experience14.

And, fourthly, following inevitably from these three aspects, their particular institutional socializa-
tion renders it very difficult for Indian artists to renounce the career imperatives that bind them
securely to the gallery system. It is not as though no one asks how artists are to resist co-option
into the system -- but we must recall that they operate in a context that offers very limited local pos-
sibilities of alternative funding and progressive patronage, and must look to overseas sources for
grants, residencies, and assistance. The minimal support structure offered by the State comes with
the expectations of official ideology and permissibility attached, a fact not made more pleasant by
the knowledge that the State apparatus is currently dominated by a coalition government led by a
Hindu-majoritarian party. Indian artists cannot turn to artist-run initiatives either; there are only two
such groupings15, which have gained visibility in recent years, but both of which depend heavily on,

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 and operate from within, a mainstream gallery, so that their alternative political intent is a significa-
tion not sustained by a material basis in alternative practice. As is evident, these factors are greatly
detrimental to the development of a consistently critical art.

I am not, of course, suggesting that there has never been any art launched from a critical position in
India. A strong impulse towards criticality was explicitly manifested in the post-modernist Indian art
of the period between the 1960s and 1980s, but even these flamboyant or brutal acts of defiance
against good taste, tact, and political convention were embodied in forms that could be (and have
indeed been) contained within a certain economic circuit of viability. So that these artworks, which
we regard as benchmarks of provocative content, alternative formulation, and radical approach, re-
main formally well-behaved: they lend themselves easily to the methodology of the private collection
or the State museum16. Such polite easel manners, adapted for the interior and the chamber perfor-
mance, are the logical outcome of the institutional socialization delineated above, and an appropriate
accompaniment to agoraphobia: they represent a disciplinary self-definition by which artists in India
have asserted their autonomy (however illusory) from other expectations, contexts, practices, and
sites of cultural production. This disciplinary self-definition, inherited by formally trained artists -- and
routinely imbibed, until recent years, by autodidacts aiming to blend in17 -- proposes that art-making
is a privileged practice and superior sensibility.

This view of art as a modernizing transformation, which abolishes the past and the limitations of lo-
cality, is one of the 1950s “gallery reflexes” to which I have alluded above: in the early postcolonial
period, artists saw their vocation as a redeeming technology of the self, by means of which to bypass
the pressures of traditional expectation as well as the demand for social relevance made in the mo-
ment of nationalist consolidation. It was a guarantee by which the artist could underline his moderni-
ty, even though the espousal of such an independent artistic selfhood enacted a corresponding loss
of connection and responsiveness: it meant the isolation of the artist as a self-created subject, and
the loss of sociality consequent upon the deliberate choice of a trajectory and language tangential to
the mainstream of society. As a residual habit, this continues, enormously, to restrict the range and
scope of postcolonial Indian art: the cost of “modernity,” conceived in a narrow disciplinary sense,
is the loss of sociality.

By refusing to see themselves as participants in a broader, more complex and kaleidoscopic do-
main of cultural production, by declining to recognise that art is a narrow band on the spectrum of
expressive culture, the majority of Indian artists cut themselves off from a wider understanding of
other visualities, the everyday affirmative and critical practices that could become the venue for new
expressivities. For the same reasons, many Indian artists have been reluctant to work in inter-media
forms, which call for a dissolution of the artistic ego in collaboration, in issues of design, engineer-
ing, and architecture. This also explains the marked reluctance, for decades, to step beyond the clas-
sic media, so that even as late as the mid-1990s, sculptors hesitated to venture into the sculpture-
installation and expanded-field idioms that had meanwhile become part of the standard vocabulary
of art practice elsewhere in the world18.

Another result of this disciplinary self-definition, equally as tragic as the slowness to grasp the need
for strategies of contextual reappraisal and formal innovation, is that an entire spectrum of politi-
cally nuanced and culturally vibrant activities is missing from the programme of designated Indian
artists. Being still largely confined to the white cube, or to official permissions when outside it, or

232
by their bourgeois aspirations and inhibitions, they do not always fulfil -- although many of them
recognize -- a larger vision of themselves as citizen-artists, members of a body politic incorporated
as a republic but subject to distortions and asymmetries. Consequently, when they project work that
bears a current political implication or makes a claim to the public sphere, claiming to have moved
from self-in-act to others-in-community, this is all too often a performance with no consistent text, no
constituency.

This situation is not improved by the gradual ascendancy, in the domain of “politically conscious art,”
of that species brutally but accurately described as proposal artists, whose actions are programmed
under the mandates of non-governmental organization funding. Such individuals enter into nominal
collaborations with one another, or with members of disadvantaged or marginalized groups; their
expressions of political solidarity are often phrased in an illustrative manner, or through outmoded
forms of assembly and protest. To the outside world, they present the image of an art scene in transi-
tion towards more compelling practices, but they are -- with at least one significant exception to the
rule19 -- all too often the fruit of cynical careerism, rather than embodying an inspired response to
patronage and circumstance. The reluctance of many Indian artists to intervene in the public sphere
-- their seeming inability to organize expressions that are politically immediate yet aesthetically fulfill-
ing, both conceptually and sensuously rich -- stands in sharp contrast to the attitude of present-day
inheritors of the folk and street arts of performance, who have re-configured their traditions to suit
the needs of the present -- and thereby practice media that are fully contemporary and tactical.

IV. Counterpoint: Distributed Tropism

This difference reveals itself most strongly when the contemporary Indian art scene is viewed in par-
allel with the demotics and the colloquials of expressive culture that are mobilized around the annual
cycle of popular religious festivities in metropolitan India. These languages, which only nominally
emerge from traditional texts, improvise around canonical images and topoi to deliver a wraparound
narrative that is richly hybrid and insistently topical, sometimes wise, sometimes caricatural, almost
always epiphanic. They respond to a changing public and lifeworld, helping to produce, as well as
participating in, a public sphere. By turns kitsch and refined, they are not immune to the virus of
majoritarianism and the contamination of regressive ideologies of localism and group rivalry, but
they must be given the credit for being far more inventive in form, discourse, and performance
than the efforts of the artists formally designated as such. And while the designated artists have no
constituency (except the vaguely generalized “art world”), these non-designated artists (complicated
though their practice is by the politics of popular mobilization through identitarian or ethnic rhetoric)
have audiences with whom they share a dialogue. The mistake that we make, as observers, is to
valorize artists formally so designated as the monopolistic bearers of the contemporary in art; while
we condescend to the demotics and colloquials of expressive culture, either as traditional forms or
as urban kitsch marking the decline of an imaginary classical -- theirs is an inventivity for which we,
as theorists and curators, have no name or slot. Indeed, in corrective fact, we ought to concede that
tradition is by no means a primordial entity that is transmitted as stasis, but rather, is a special form
of modernity that is evolving along a distinctive and dynamic trajectory. The manifestations of the
contemporary Indian festival, for instance, are far more capable of what I will designate here (bor-
rowing a term from the world of science, from botanists, and from cyberneticists) as the tropism of
the imagination.

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 Tropism usually defines the phenomenon by which an organism or organ responds to a stimulus
from its environment, by moving either towards or away from it; it is a vital movement, a sign of life.
In the framework of the visual arts, it might be adapted to mean the preliminary physiology of the
aesthetic experience: the archetypal viewing paradigm in which the viewer’s eye reacts to an artwork
with which it is presented. In the interactive, inter-media paradigms that will increasingly come into
play -- conditioned as they are by an understanding of cybernetics -- the relationship embraced by
tropism will be distributed over the mutual responses of viewer, artwork, and the space they occupy
together in the moment of aesthetic experience. It is in this updated sense that I will use the concept
of tropism here, to signify a future counterpoint to what I have called the agoraphobia of the Indian
artist. By tropism, in this essay, I allude to the manner in which an artwork can respond to the pres-
ence of a viewer-experiencer, through its distribution across various media and registers of tone;
this response of the artwork setting off a cycle of mutual stimuli and responses, a music of surprise
that allows the work of art to embrace new viewers, constitutes new publics for itself. The practice of
such a distributed and multiple tropism would call for the radical overhauling and re-formatting of the
artistic persona, artwork, art practice, and the art-viewing situation in India, and their substitution by
a new dynamic of art experience. Distributed tropism, in other words, incarnates that elusiveness of
the transitive, that protean criticality, which is a key motif in the present discussion.

Fundamentally, therefore, Indian artists must be prepared to sacrifice, to a greater or less degree,
their cherished premium on the “integrity,” “wholeness,” “stability,” “permanence” of the artwork as
universally executable program. They must be prepared to accept instability and mutability as the
norms of the art situation, to delegate artistic influence to collaborators who may be human, ma-
chine, or cyborg, proximate or remote, connected in real space or by virtual transmission lines. In
such a changed ethos, the most significant manifestations of art will be those that re-open, in radical
ways, the questions of conception and form that have become ossified around the commodifiable
art object. Once emancipated from the unthinking commitment to the studio-gallery-museum-auction
house system, artists could explore such forms as the situation, project, or platform -- tactical, impro-
visational, and situational modes that would activate public sphere interventions; mobilize compos-
ites between older and newer mediatic technologies; construct social/digital interfaces; dramatize
such foundational conditions of our lifeworld as archivality, simulation, and versionality; and initiate
works-in-progress based on the generative principles of the avatar and the palimpsest.

This thoroughgoing transfiguration of preoccupation and practice would have to be accompanied

by an equally radical psychological rebirth, principally involving the dismantling of that idea of a
privileged self with which many Indian artists working under the sign of the contemporary armour
themselves. What is demanded here is the renunciation of that obsession with mastery which is a
key motif in Indian art practice -- a peculiar and limiting notion that foregrounds style, medium, and
the serial exhaustion of the image, a High Modernist dogma of the sublime that overlaps with a vi-
sion of transcendence drawn from the canon of Indian idealist aesthetics20. This would oblige the
artist to recognize himself as the perennial apprentice exploring conditions and finding interlocutors
in a heuristic manner, walking out of the studio and facing the agoraphobia squarely, to overcome it.
The unselving of the artist-as-genius toward the world would mean the gaining of an edgy criticality
for the image that is not only viewed, questioned, and trawled for meaning, but which views back in
turn, and which impacts the world by contrast, collision, and interrogation. The urgent question to be
addressed is that of a creative politicization: How, in overcoming the isolation of the subject and the

234
solitude of the master, can the artist form connections across entrenched lineages of cultural produc-
tion? Distributed tropism could serve as an umbrella metaphor for just such a retrieval of sociality,
a re-formulation of the conceptions of communion and community that is achieved, not through a
looping back of oneself into an imaginary tradition or a conformity-demanding mainstream, but by
forming solidarities across various sources and sites of cultural production21. These are suggestions,
allusions to modes yet to be recognized as transformative in relation to the way in which Indian art is
likely to be conducted in the future.

V. Coda: The Legitimacy of Curatorial Desire

Strap on your seat-belts; we are returning to earth, to the constraints of the Now. How does an
“independent” curator function in a schema where independence is clearly fragile and limited by
negotiations with the ambient system, and is often colored by disillusionment and pessimism? I write
now in more pressingly autobiographical vein, when I confess to my growing impatience with the
artists whose work I have admired, but whose refusal to respond more adequately to the crisis of
our shared predicament has perplexed me, through the 15 years of my work as a critic, theorist, and
curator. Increasingly, it has become clear to me that a divide exists within the Indian art world. On
one side of it are the artists and theorists trained within the domain of art and art history, many of
whom are entrenched in “camps” formed around long-dead debates, devoted to an inflexible geneal-
ogy that can situate art only in the rigid line of descent from the Renaissance and European modern-
ism, and who are often astoundingly unable to respond to developments in other fields, or distort
the findings of other areas in the name of an under-nuanced, non-rigorous, anything-goes “visual
studies” scarcely distinguishable from pop psychoanalysis and history-for-beginners. On the other
side are artists and theorists who have come to the art scene from other disciplinary backgrounds
and fields of dedication, whether in political theory, aesthetics, the social sciences, film, activism,
or technology (this is the side to which I belong, with my training in the first two disciplines listed).
To theorist-curators like myself, the option is to acquiesce in the system as it obtains, or to contest
it in ways that take us into a space that must be mapped differently, through its varied ancestries,
but which must also generate an infrastructure and a new (inter-)disciplinary status for itself. We are
impelled by an urge to push artists and art practice beyond their current envelopes of comfort -- and
indeed, to push art beyond the art world, into the universe of semiotic practices.

I began by observing that the curatorial gesture in India must be seen under the rubric of the elusive-
ness of the transitive, but this also implies a factor of risk. For, while we prize this quality as a concept
that rescues us from dogma, accepted opinion, and accepted structures within the art world, it is
very difficult to make this quality material, to place in a circuit of support and meaning. It puts me in
mind of the lacunae that have confronted me, while I was engaged in projects involving the interface
between formal, gallery-constituted art practice and the wider public sphere; of the many difficulties
that attend all provisional attempts to work at the edge of the structure, or against its grain, in the
quest for small Utopias, subcultural imaginaries, emerging topographies of awareness. I conclude
with a roster of questions, rather than resolutions: the resolution is an elegant way to phrase an im-
passe, but the question eventually forces doors open.

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 How can the curatorial gesture detach itself from the demands of mainstream art production, to work
in a series of tactical minor keys, as against the major key of an officially imagined “national space”?
Can it function undercover, under the pretext of urban anthropology or semiotic investigation, to
stage artistic acts of provocation that engage with the nuances of public space, with its histories of
colonialism, regional identity, and the contestations involved in its territorial marking as habitat for
varied constituencies? What would the politics of such a curatorial gesture be? In a public sphere
that is not given, but must constantly be made and remade, that is threatened, in constant need of re-
construction and securing against the State as well as extra-Constitutional political forces, could the
curatorial gesture carve out, or help defend, a series of shifting ‘liberated zones,’ each a model of an
ecumene in which artists, curators, and viewers are equally invested? Can it launch renewed expedi-
tions into privacy, speaking to and from the most intimate sectors of personality and subculture?

And must the theorist-curator then stop complaining of his institutional marginality or vulnerability,
and begin to play a more active role, not simply as one who describes, annotates and contextualizes,
but as an instigator of events and tendencies, an inventor of new publics? How should the curator
mediate the relationship between his mental realities and their material embodiment, while manoeu-
vering past the obstacles of practice and system in a particular economy? And what is the limit of
the curator’s role in articulating an art that is animated by the elusiveness of the transitive, an art of
distributed tropism, a futurative art? Does he not, if he travels to the logical terminus of that line of
reasoning, become a secret artist, a conductor composing and improvising as he works with other
people’s scores? Can curatorial desire be acknowledged freely as a creative impulse in itself, a
prognosticative gift for investing significance in a practice not yet recognised as art-making, a wish
to prefigure an art that is not yet there, and an energy that can will such an art into being?

References

Adajania, Nancy. 1999. “Art and craft – bridging the great divide”. In Art India. 4:1.

________. 2000. Net culture. In Art India. 7: 1.

________. 2002. “Links and lacunae: mapping a new strategics of resistance”. In

Kapital und Karma: Aktuelle Positionen Indischer Kunst/ Capital and Karma: Recent Positions
in Indian Art, Eds. Gerald Matt, Angelika Fitz, and Michael Wörgötter. Vienna: Kunsthalle Wien/
Hatje Cantz.

Anderson, Benedict. 1998. The spectre of comparisons: nationalism, Southeast Asia and the
world. London: Verso.

Everett, Anna. 2003. “digitextuality and click theory: theses on convergence media in the
digital age”. In New media: theories and practices of digitextuality, Eds. Anna Everett and John
T. Caldwell. New York & London: Routledge.

Hoskote, Ranjit. 2002. “Subject to change: reflections on contemporary Indian art”. In

Kapital und Karma: Aktuelle Positionen Indischer Kunst/ Capital and Karma: Recent Positions
in Indian Art, Eds. Gerald Matt, Angelika Fitz and Michael Wörgötter. Vienna: Kunsthalle Wien/
Hatje Cantz.

“In search of utopia”. 2003. Janus 14. Antwerp.

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Sheikh, Nilima. 1997. “A post-Independence initiative in art”. In Contemporary art in
Baroda, Ed. Gulammohammed Sheikh. New Delhi: Tulika.

Sinha, Ajay. 1997. “Envisioning the seventies and the eighties”. In Contemporary art in
Baroda, Ed. Gulammohammed Sheikh. New Delhi: Tulika.

Notes

1 Yona Friedman, architect and proponent of “mobile architecture,” in conversation with Hans-
Ulrich Obrist and Molly Nesbit (Janus 2003, 45).

2 I would draw upon various histories to define the poetics associated with the “elusiveness
of the transitive,” summoning to mind as this phrase does the disembodied fragrance of the
Sufi parable, the cyclically growing and dissolving Zen garden, the insubstantial but compelling
shadow of the puppet theatre, the sound of the directed breath in Yoga. Set as it is against the
permanence of the canonically and hagiographically established, such a poetics would embrace
diverse exemplars, practitioners and lineages, including the exponents of Dada, Fluxus, Con-
ceptualism and Gutai, the reflections of Baudelaire, the meditations of Tanizaki and the instal-
lations of Boltanski. It would even find a prototype in the Heian-period aesthetic of mono no
aware, with its emphasis on the fugitive, the evanescent, the ephemeral and the transient. Nor
should the playfulness latent within this proposal be disregarded, for the infinitive “to elude”
holds the form lude, indicating play: linguistic whimsy or conceit though it may seem, to “e-lude”
opens up a prospect of digital and cybernetic applications of the poetics under review.

3 This truce followed from the contract, so to speak, of mutual accommodation, collabora-
tion and trans-media practice entered into between the artists, photographers and film-makers
involved in the pioneering experiments of the 1920s avant-gardes.

4 This situation in the visual arts -- with the game changing on the artists, leaving them clue-
less as to the new rules -- is illuminated by the parallel discussion around the supplanting, by
convergence media’s image-constructs, of conventional cinema. As Anna Everett writes: “Since
popular culture audiences today understand and expect that most contemporary media texts,
including films, are produced with some degree of digital manipulation, processing, and com-
puter generated images (CGI), expressions of cinematic realism, escapism, and formalism as
representational incommensurabilities arguably become less significant… fealty to ‘a unified set
of related, interdependent elements,’ principles, and laws such as genres, narrative and non-
narrative categories matters less… More important is its ability to technologize the sublime and
convincingly render what was once considered unrepresentable.” Citing the success of films
such as The Truman Show (1998) and The Matrix (1999), among many others, she ascribes it,
not to “recognizable separations between representational strategies of realism or verisimili-
tude, artifice or animation, experimentation or virtuoso formalism to elicit spectators’ willing
suspension of disbelief,” but to the power of these films to “challenge the digital literacy and
scopic competencies of contemporary media audiences.” (Everett 2003, 9)

5 By “designated circuit of art production,” I indicate the loop of practice, exhibition, sale, dis-
cussion, and publication through which artists, typically academy-trained, though also including
a number of prominent autodidacts (on this latter subset, see note 17 below), operate -- and by
participation in which they are recognised as art-practitioners. See also notes 8 and 11 below.

6 See Hoskote 2002.

7 Such as Baiju Parthan, Shilpa Gupta, Ranbir Kaleka, Sudarshan Shetty, and Sonia Khurana.

8 Such as the RAQS Media Collective, a group of artists, writers, activists, scholars, and new-

237
 media practitioners based in New Delhi. See also note 17 below.

9 Such as Atul Dodiya, Jitish Kallat, Subodh Gupta, Jehangir Jani, and Shantanu Lodh.

10 A comparison of art activity across societies, during the 1950s and 1960s, will reveal the
fundamental difference between, say, the Japanese and Euro-American avant-gardes of this
period, and the positions in Indian art to which subcontinental art historians ascribe an avant-
garde value. To put it plainly: while artists in the industrially advanced societies were trying hard
to get out of the gallery, their counterparts in India were trying hard to get into it. Hence the
persistence of painting, albeit mediated through a shift from obsolescent School-of-Paris styles
to more allegorical-narrative styles, in India, down a time-line that elsewhere demonstrates,
among other experimental approaches, Gutai, Arte Povera, Fluxus, Conceptualism, Performance
Art, Mono-ha, and Land Art. This significant absence of avant-garde activity leading outside the
gallery, in India, during the 1950s and 1960s, and the lack of parallel to avant-garde develop-
ments elsewhere, explain the lack of expertise in dealing with the history and nature of a site in
public space, or even the grammar and nuanced usage of making public space by performative
gestures, in unbounded or invisibly bounded public terrain, among Indian artists making such ef-
forts in the 1990s and early 21st century (as witness the simplistic exteriorization of the gallery
into the street, during the manifestation of a certain recent “urban arts festival,” when framed
works and pedestal sculptures have been propped up on a pavement in the name of “public
art”).

11 Designated art practitioners are recognized as such by their academic training and/or recep-
tion history: through their maintenance of a studio practice, their participation and acceptance in
the gallery system and/or the international circuit of periodic exhibitions, their representation in
museum acquisitions, and in secondary and tertiary auction-house sales. Artists located outside
this circle of recognition accorded by the curatorium, the market, and the media, and from
whom the designation is withheld, are either practitioners of “folk” or “popular” art forms, either
rural-based or subaltern in class position (classified as artisans, craftspersons or performers in
art critical discourse; for which, see Adajania 1999), or, in the new-media context, practitioners
of digital forms, whether vehiculated through the Net, video, film, or hybrid productions and
composite idioms; for which, see Adajania 2002a). See also note 5 above.

12 As against West and Central Europe, or North America, where these sites have separate
and not always neatly interwoven histories, in postcolonial India they form four venues of the
same continuum of art production and dissemination). See, also, notes 5 and 11 above.

13 In India, this means specifically the class segments articulate in English, which is one of the
major languages of influence, alongside Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, and Bengali -- and certainly
the premier language of intellectual and cultural capital, with its transnational character, in the
epoch of globalization.

14 The tension between the rival mandates of the political and the aesthetic was for many
decades discussed in terms of a desultory opposition between the “illustrative image-as-slogan”
and “art-for-art’s-sake” positions, and produced an undercurrent of anxiety even in the works of
politically radical artists whose works were complex and sophisticated, such as Vivan Sundar-
am and Sudhir Patwardhan. An unhappiness with this false binary, and a sense of the discursive
limitations imposed by the conventional two-dimensional surface and sculpted mass, however
re-configured in content, was among the motive forces that led a number of critically positioned
artists, during the 1990s, to extend themselves into installation, inter-media arrangements,
collapsible sculpture, and collaborative practices, such as Sundaram, Nalini Malani, Sudarshan
Shetty, Navjot Altaf, Atul Dodiya, and Baiju Parthan. This note is to be read as an additional nu-
ance to the account offered, for the expansion of Indian art practice in the 1990s, in section II.

15 SAHMAT (The Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust), based in New Delhi, and Open Circle, based

238
in Bombay, both of which are closely aligned with Gallery Chemould, the oldest (founded 1964)
and arguably most established commercial gallery in Bombay.

16 Such artists -- who emerged during the 1960s, and the substance of whose work was radi-
cal from the standpoint of a class behalfism, gender, or sexuality, but whose formal choices
remained broadly within the conventions of painterliness -- include Jogen Chowdhury, Bhupen
Khakhar, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Gieve Patel, Sudhir Patwardhan, Manu Parekh, Vivan Sun-
daram, and Nalini Malani (the latter three have since re-invented their practice in the directions
of collage, assemblage, video, performance, and inter-media installation; see note 14 above).
For an informed and sympathetic discussion of the artists of this generation and orientation, as
centred around the Fine Arts Faculty of the M S University, Baroda, see Sheikh 1997 and Sinha
1997.

17 I make this distinction because all autodidactic artists have not been eager to assimilate
themselves into the prevailing orthodoxy in postcolonial Indian art. On the contrary, through the
1960s, autodidacts such as Khakhar, Patel, and Patwardhan, mentioned above -- who “came
in” from outside the ranks of the academy-trained artists, and in the case of the latter two, had
undergone a degree of Left-radicalisation as students -- famously insisted on their difference
and made vital contributions to the Indian art scene. Nonetheless, as pointed out above, even
these dissidents kept to the rules, so far as form was concerned. This is in sharp contrast to the
new entrants into the sphere of art production, discussed in section II and mentioned in note 8
above, who change the rules of form and no longer aim to blend into the status quo.

18 Note 14 above offers the more proactive and positive interpretation of this phenomenon;
both facets of the case are true.

19 This exception being the collaborative artistic, social, and political practice of Navjot Altaf,
who has been working with the rural artists of Bastar, Central India.

20 Parenthetically, we may note that the operation of High Modernist dogmas in Indian art
curiously echoes traditional conceptions, which are then re-formatted and become very dif-
ficult to dislodge. This, despite the apparently very different assumptions of High Modernism
and Sanskrit aesthetics -- the one premised on individualism and originality as the route to the
sublime, and the other devoted to uncovering that shared universal spirit which is the ground
of the sublime. Consider, for instance, the icon of the master/author/artist in both traditions:
the High Modernist artist-as-genius, tapping with facility into both Neolithic and Renaissance
sources, is convergent with the Sanskrit artist-as-initiate, preparing to establish contact with the
higher nature. The obsession with mastery, in style, medium, and seriality, likewise, evinces the
blending of High Modernist procedures with pre-existing Indian ideas associated with the Hindu
guru-shishya and the Sufi murid-murshid relationships of learning, as well as with the related
conceptions of tapasya and riyaz, the focused daily practice of an art or a meditative exercise. I
would also speculate that this obsession with mastery is connected to the condition of colonial
subjection, the sense of being always a laggard apprentice who must struggle to enact and
articulate the master tongue, achieve competence, dexterity, and expertise in the ways of the
superior, in yet another expression of the continual doubleness experienced by the postcolonial
subjectivity, and which is denoted by Jose Rizal’s vivid image: “el diablo de comparaciones,” or
“the spectre of comparisons” (which serves both as leitmotif and substantive of the magisterial
Anderson 1998, contextually germane to the present essay).

21 For a bold and innovative treatment of this possibility of solidarity across lineages and sites
of cultural production, see Adajania 2002b.

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 Engaging Public Space Politically:
(Para)Sites of Review
Patrick D. Flores, Philippines

The debate in the social sciences between structure and agency has over time tried to overcome an
unproductive scheme in which agency merely reproduced an encompassing structure of which it was
but a function. At the other end of the divide was an agency unrestrained in its phenomenological
play, transcending social relations, and exercising its unfettered freedom under an affirmative and
(neo)liberal auspice. A theoretical resolution came by way of the category of practice that would in-
sist on a certain transformation through labor as a form of technology, so that human action is forged
by both volition and regulation. The eminent French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1984) contributed
a rigorous formulation in this regard through the term habitus, or the structured and structuring
disposition of agency to act on reality within a social field of varying modes of capital and chances.
Raymond Williams’s (1981) “structure of feeling” likewise speaks to this formulation.

In this light, the discipline of anthropology had to revise the method of ethnography to grasp the lay-
ers and nuances of practice in everyday life to the point that some of its practitioners had to move to-
ward writing against culture, as in the case of Lila Abu-Lughod (1991), in order to resist the typifica-
tion of such nomenclature. The notion of everyday life would also find prominent space in the French
new history school and in the hybrid discipline of “cultural studies” that strove to challenge the
hierarchy between high art and popular culture and in the process reclaim the expressive traditions
of daily practice as forming part of a wide array of material culture. Recent ethnography for its part
would revisit everyday life to discern in its sovereignty a strategy of sufferance, a moral economy, a
local moral world, or the domain of experience in which people live out a system of accountabilities
pertaining to what it takes to be human and how one could achieve it given the constraints and pros-
pects at hand; within it, “the micro-level politics of social formations and social relationships, in the
setting of limited resources and life chances, underwrite processes of contesting and negotiating ac-
tions” (Kleinman 1992, 19). Moral economy enables one to take up what an anthropologist studying
villages in Malaysia calls the “weapons of the weak” (Scott 1985). Such politicized terrain becomes a
site of struggle in which, following Michel de Certeau (1984), human agents can surmount structures
and remake their substance in the realm of practice as a matter of tactic.

It is within this theoretical matrix that I locate practices in contemporary art that tend to encroach on
spaces with the view of at once aesthetically marking them and integrating them into the locus of
art. Such double take has its risks that must be assessed, as space in everyday life is subjected to
the processes of emplacement, its temporality disrupted by the intervention of art, or the process
of aestheticization, even if only fleetingly in a social context increasingly privatized by media and
commodity.

This paper thinks through the issues implicated by projects in Philippine contemporary art that in-
trude on territories of distinct aesthetic constitutions like a cultural center, a mall, or a church. How
does a public sphere or local culture respond to initiatives that suspend everyday life but at the same

240
time are recontained within a mode of spectacularization? Examples taken from contemporary art,
folk ritual, and museological practice frame the discussion.

The idea of a para-site evokes the politics of trespassing. The prefix para is polyvalent. It may mean
beside, near by, along with as in paradigm; beyond, aside from, or amiss as in paradox; an imbalance
of well-being as in paranoia; an accessory as in parasympathetic; similar to but not identical with a
true condition or form as in paramilitary; or shelter or protection against an element as in parasol.
The term para-site may be hyphenated or slashed to deconstruct its meaning and redeploy its pos-
sibilities of signification. In common usage, the word para-site is negatively construed as dependent
and opportunist, as in a leech sapping the vigor of a host. If art is to be valued as intervention in
everyday practice and relocates beyond its traditional emplacements, how does it configure its para-
site and how does it configure as a para-site? This paper cites a few cases from Philippine art history
to sort out the prospects of the practice.

In 1972, Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law and initiated a fascist agenda of reform under
the program called New Society. Such program was sustained by developmentalist initiatives in
which culture and the State played a critical role. The Marcos government, specifically through First
Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos who was also the Governor of Metro Manila and the Minister of
Human Settlements and therefore the chief architect and urban planner of her time, supported a
two-pronged cultural policy that advocated the celebration of a precolonial Philippine civilization, on
the one hand, and internationalist art, on the other. Both were needed to invest the regime with the
credentials of being the custodian of the people’s destiny as well as the pretensions to modernity
as it aspired to insert itself into the world order of democracies and free markets. The Ms. Universe
Pageant in 1974 and the International Monetary Fund-World Bank meetings in 1976, which all took
place at the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex, testified to this projection. In 1982, Imelda
even put together an International Film Festival housed in an imperious structure; in the mad rush to
construct it, one of its floors collapsed, burying many workers in quick-dry cement. Imelda’s Parthe-
non, which was the spark of the vision, was their Pompeii.

This myth-making agenda is cogently represented by a bust of Marcos put up in 1984 in Tuba in
Benguet province in the northern Philippines, two years before the strongman was deposed in an
uprising. It is 100 feet high and 70 feet wide, made out of cement reinforced by steel. It cost US$8.5
million, a hefty sum at a time when the Philippine economy was severely hemorrhaging, and its
plans included a 300-hectare Marcos Theme Park with a golf course, swimming pool, tennis courts,
a horseback-riding area, and a conference center. The inspiration is obvious, Mt. Rushmore in the
United States. But the Marcos bust is not carved out of a single stone; rather, it is pieced together by
concrete slabs, the seams of which etch their lines on the magisterial face of a Third World dictator.
This public monument displaced the Igorot Ibalois who consider the site their sacred land. When the
Marcoses fled in 1986, they performed a ritual to exorcise the place of evil. In 2002, armed revolu-
tionaries blew it into pieces.

The cultural endeavors of the Marcos administration revolved around the Cultural Center of the
Philippines, a building sitting on land reclaimed from Manila Bay. It accommodated flirtations with
conceptual art that were largely facilitated by the first curator of the visual arts museum, Roberto

241
 Chabet. The latter pursued the directions set by David Cortez Medalla, who left the Philippines in
1960 and is an important name in the British art world today. Contemporaneous with this conceptual
emergence was social realism that challenged the Marcos government and the system that had
made it possible. One of the most powerful symbols of governance was the Cultural Center of the
Philippines, which paradoxically was the site of experiments that sought to reconceive a new defini-
tion of art-making.

The departure of the Marcoses reorganized these public

spaces. The Presidential Palace, for instance, was stormed
and portraits of Ferdinand and Imelda were defaced. The
persona of Imelda Marcos was pivotal in this iconoclastic
gesture. If Marcos had his monument as the premier patri-
arch of the Philippines, Imelda would be remembered by
her avarice as best exemplified by the legendary 3,000
pair of shoes, which were exhibited in the Palace museum
when Corazon Aquino assumed office. These shoes are
now housed in a shoe museum in Marikina, Manila’s shoe
manufacturing center. Imelda as an allegory of indulgence
is best captured by the word “Imeldific” and has caught
the attention of such artists as Australian Mike Parr and
Chinese Shen Jiawei. Parr staged a ritual, mimicking St.
Helene’s quest for Christ’s Cross, to reflect on the to-
talitarian architecture of Imelda’s imagination. Shen, who
used to be the Party’s propaganda painter, painted a large work titled Third World. Standing out in
this gallery of Third World political luminaries is Imelda, one hand latching onto Mao’s arm and an-
other holding a golden shoe.

The four-day revolt against Marcos also merited memorialization. Our Lady of Edsa, which is the
name of the avenue where the mobilization against Marcos took place, stands today as the memory
of the spirit of so-called democracy and the role of the Church in Philippine social life and its transfor-
mations. Protests against former President Joseph Estrada, who was forced to leave office because
of grave charges of plunder, also found their focal point in the evocatively Catholic monument. When
the adherents of Estrada, a cinematic star known for his action titles, ran to his rescue, the Catholic
church objected. It reasoned that the people, who were largely from the slums, were desecrating
holy ground with their lumpen expressions, which included slander and the washing of clothes in the
very vicinity of the action. It is curious to note that while all this was happening, the mall, in whose
premises the shrine is located, did not cease its operations; it was business as usual.

The Marcos episode and its aftermath are invoked here not only to contrive a context to Philippine
contemporary art, but also to make sense of the projects of Yason Banal that have breached the bor-
ders of both the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the Megamall, the largest shopping complex
in the Philippines and for a time the fourth in the world. Yason’s collaborative Kaka, which he expli-
cates as a mode of speakeasy in the form of a prefix, transformed the toilets of the Cultural Center
of the Philippines into sites of installations and arenas of performance in 1999. One toilet was practi-

242
cally invaded by a gargantuan synthetic coil, which in the artist’s performance would be lubricated
and caressed with efficascent oil. Strewn on another were pornographic pictures, which caught the
ire of a nun. The artistic director of the time suggested that the images of genitalia be effaced by a
pen, which the artist did not contest.

Another project of Banal, who was director of an alternative space called Third Space, appropriated
the Santacruzan, a Maytime ceremony that commemorates St. Helene’s search for Christ’s Cross,
and transported it into the mall. The participants moved around and confronted people with different
specters of sexuality. In another work called Masa de Gala (Gala Mass) in 1999, artists sneaked into
churches to perform; one projected his video inside a confessional.

Banal’s projects may access earlier efforts of disruptive forays like those of Santiago Bose in Baguio
as in the work Imagined Enclaves and Ephemeral Borders in 1993. Another artist from Baguio, Rene
Aquitania, walked all the way from the North to the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1989, push-
ing a cart which he filled with artifacts he had found along the way. Jose Tence Ruiz’s performances
in Singapore, where he worked as a graphic artist for the Singapore Straits Times, as the White Man
is also a vital reference, which to some extent converses with Lee Wen’s Yellow Man in Singapore
and Manit Sriwanichpoom’s Pink Man in Bangkok. A performance event was also undertaken every
Sunday in Luneta, the National Park, in the early years of 2000. Called Tupada (cockfight), it was
sustained by artists associated with UGAT-Lahi, an organization that used to overtly identify itself with
the hardline Left in the Philippines. UGAT-Lahi had made effigies for mass protests against various is-
sues and burned them in the trenches, so to speak. The coterie of performance artists has consider-
ably expanded over the years, organizing activities with more regularity, magnitude, and participation
from more local and international artists.

With these projects in context, how do we reflect on the condition of the para-site? How do we cal-
culate the efficacy of its engagement with everyday life and its range of materialities? How do we
judge the intervention, for example, of Katya Guerrero’s work at the 2001 Yokohama Triennial, which
was meant to interrupt the flow of traffic but ended up in a parking lot away from the bustle of the
streets? How do we judge this kind of art in relation to, say, the Pahiyas, which is practically a social
installation consisting of the town’s harvest in honor of its patron saint. Every 15th of May, the people
of Lucban deck their houses with miscellaneous objects to allude to their livelihood, take them down
at the end of the day, and share the bounty with the rest of the community. In some instances, house-
holds would put up tableaux that comment on the pressing concerns of the day.

How do we see the relationship between Guerrero’s work and the Pahiyas? Niranjan Rajah contends
that to a degree “(o)ne of the characteristics of culture in the East is a resistance to this contempo-
rary art…There are religious traditions, rituals and performances that overpower and overshadow
the rituals of contemporary art” (Rajah 1999, 159).

To round out this discussion, I look to the project of Manuel Ocampo and Gaston Damag in a mon-
astery in Spain in 1999. La Naturaleza de Cultura or The Nature of Culture is a project of Manuel
Ocampo and Gaston Damag, Filipino artists based in California and Paris respectively, at the Centro
Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, which is the same church sacristy of the old monastery and site
where four centuries earlier the Carthusian Order commissioned works from Francisco de Zurbaran.

243
 It grapples with the politics of colonial conversion within the locus of Counter-Reformation Baroque
and Hispanic culture. In this intervention, the panopticon of religious painting, and even of the mu-
seum, is revisioned to lay bare the parasitic ideology of colonialism and the para-site of Philippine
contemporary art and culture. According to the artists:

Culture is Europe, and nature is the ‘New World.’ It’s a very curious idea that the Contempo-
rary Art Museum of Seville moved to the same spot where Columbus planned his voyage to
the New World, the Carthusian monastery. In terms of an exhibition, these circumstances cre-
ated an interesting dialogue with the context of us as people from the supposed ‘New World’
contributing some re-animated artifacts 500 years later. (1999, 62)

One installation titled Cooks in the Kitchen is a scene of cannibalism in which two white men are
simultaneously being cut open and stuffed. The evisceration yields credit cards, a skull, a bottle, a
dog’s head; and funneled into the other man’s backside are coins and bank notes. Written across
the canvas is the phrase “The Development of Abstract Art Immigrant Version,” enclosed in a struc-
ture around which African sculptures parade, moving about through a certain mechanism. Another
is titled Divine Intervention that portrays the map of the Philippine islands inside a glass case that is
made to appear burglarized. The map lies under the eye of the Holy Spirit and is located in the scene
of the Discovery of America.

The paintings of Ocampo -- which mingle colonial iconog-

raphy, underground vandalism, and requiem rap -- eroticize
and render abject the very aesthetic of the spiritual sub-
lime, stirringly represented by the style of Zurbaran, that
underexplains the basis of faith and its excess of ecstasy.
These cases negotiate the tension between history and the
contemporary within a recovered ground from which the art
we so revere emerges and is blasphemed. In the hands of
Ocampo and Damag, culture and colonialism tremble be-
fore their scatological and eschatological haunting: the very
abject end of art. This occasion leads me to the cast of
mind of Joseph Beuys who declares: “I have really nothing
to do with art, and this is the only possibility to do anything
for art .”

If the claim formulated by avant-garde movements to abol-

ish the separation of art and life, although it failed, contin-
ues as before to define the situation of today’s art, then this
is paradoxical in the strictest sense of the word: if the avant-
gardist demand for abolition turns out to be realizable, that
is the end of art. If it is erased, that is if the separation of art and life is accepted as matter of course,
that is also the end of art. (Burger 1992, 47)

244
Does the post-avant-garde intervention of para-siting, the repossession of spaces and relations, then
convey us to a renewed engagement with a sort of affect that need not articulate itself aesthetically?
Or, does it mesmerize us further with the irresistible indulgences of a contemporary that carries the
cross of the modern and suffers its protraction, simply because we cannot help it?

References

Abu-Lughod. 1991. “Writing Against Culture.” Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Pres-
ent. Ed. Richard Fox. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.

Altered natives: a conversation between Manuel Ocampo and Gaston Damag. 1999. In La
Naturaleza de la Cultura. Sevilla: Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo; Barcelona: Centre
Cultural Tecla Sala; Mexico City: Galeria OMR.

Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. Richard Nice.
London: Routledge.

Burger, Peter. 1992. The Decline of Modernism. Trans. Nicholas Walker. Pennsylvania: Pennsyl-
vania University Press.

De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendail. Berkeley:
University of California Press.

Kleinman, Arthur. 1992. “Pain and resistance: the delegitimation and relegitimation of local
worlds”. In Pain as Human Experience: An Anthropological Perspective, Eds. Mary-Jo
Delvecchio Good, et. al. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Rajah, Niranjan. 1999. Forum. In International symposium: Asian art: prospects for the
future report. Tokyo: Japan Foundation Asia Center.

Scott, James. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New
Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Williams, Raymond. 1981. Culture. New York: Fontana Paperbacks.

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 Session 5:
Social Space: Society and Practice

TOPICS in this session included 1) the curators’ personal dynamics in selecting art;
2) discourses of art coming from other disciplines such as anthropology; 3) Indian
artists’ preference for galleries over public spaces; 4) whether the UK government
has a hand in setting the direction of art through funding selection and; 5) isolation
versus sociality in Indian cultural practice. Session moderator was Ateneo Art Gal-
lery curator Ramon Lerma. The following are excerpts from the discussion.

On Curators’ Desires

Judy Freya Sibayan: I want to know about the curators’ desire to move the
dynamics of the art situation or the history of art, or the practice of art in your loca-
tions.

Ingrid Swenson (PEER, United Kingdom): I do follow a lot of my gut in-

stincts…I’ve been working in the field for a very long time and I’ve acquired a visual
language which has taken a very long time to acquire…To me it’s been extremely
enlightening. It has made me think about the world in a new way, in constantly new
ways. It is a very broad thing as the geography project has reinforced. It goes
everywhere and that’s where I like to follow it. I like the potential, that art can go
everywhere.

Ranjit Hoskote: It has taken me a while to recognize the legitimacy of this de-
sire that you’re talking about. [This is] partly because of the sort of aura around the
artwork and partly because you’re careful about the cult of power around a certain
kind of curatorship. I’ve always been a little wary of acknowledging the legitimacy of
this desire of the curator to bring about some kind of transformation, if you like. But
it is there and…speaking purely personally, I think it would take the form of trying to
add to the context, making tactical interventions.

On a Discourse of Art

Jay Koh: You talked about the necessity to use anthropology to evaluate public
art… Do the artists here accept that-- a critic coming from another direction that’s
not purely art?

Patrick Flores: Is the Philippine public ready to engage with a discourse of art,
or on art that is not about art?…I think in academe yes, there is discourse on that but

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in the larger sphere I’m afraid to say that there’s not much discussion on art really,
period (laughs). If we bring disciplines outside art to talk about art, that kind of event
or practice might just produce discourse. To wean art away from art itself, I think
would generate the condition of discourse about art.

Galleries vs. Public Space

Jay Koh: Ranjit, you did criticize Indian artists as more gallery-reflective rather
than working in public space which is very contested. How do the artists in India
recognize the need to understand that they do have to think of other criteria when
they produce art for public spaces in contesting or opposite to gallery space work?

Ranjit Hoskote: Two sorts of things tend to happen. One is that, in some way,
there is a belief that you can simply turn things upside down. That you turn the gal-
lery inside out and place whatever is in the gallery in the street. That seems to be
an extraordinarily static approach with very few exceptions. I have to say that what
normally happens is that objects that have a certain validity in the gallery are sought
to be placed in public space and so become sort of monuments or oddities and they
simply don’t become part of the circuits of meaning that operate in the street…We
have to, through discussions with artists, bring about a situation where you don’t
have this kind of plunking down of objects in the street, where you really develop
a sort of public space art which emerges from the conditions that prevail in public
space. The second thing is that all unbounded space is not necessarily public space.
It needs to be activated in certain ways. So what artists at home need to look at is
ways in which public space can be activated, and you’ve to look for those triggers
in the sorts of transactions and negotiations, and human exchanges that go on in the
street, in the railway station or wherever the particular venue might be.

On the UK Government and Art

Jay Koh: The UK is a very class-based society. So the class is always behind all
production of culture and artwork. So you say that artists, when they consider all
these factors in doing artwork you will become very poor, lousy. But don’t you think
maybe the artist has been doing work to meet the New British Art criteria?

Ingrid Swenson: The patronizing attitude toward artists actually comes from
[the] government, British New Labor…They make it their job to decide what people
want. They make it their job to decide that people need art in their lives and up to a
point that’s a good thing, but they have to step back after a while and leave it to us
cultural bureaucrats to get on with our jobs. They don’t have the visual language that
we all have. They want us to take boxes so they can write reports, they don’t go to
these projects.

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 Isolation vs. Sociality

Ly Daravuth: You mentioned once that in order to challenge or to break away

from traditions to get into [some] sort of modernity, the cost is to be in [a] sort of
isolation right? So how could we get back to sociality, how could we get back to [a]
sort of collectivity?

Ranjit Hoskote: If you look at the specific history of modernism in Indian cultural
practice, there was a point at which it was necessary to isolate yourself. I don’t
want to make a general comment on modernism, but in India specifically it meant,
also for political reasons, that you wanted to throw off the burden of the past. So
writers or painters or sculptors would constitute themselves as people committed to
the future in a way that did not involve the pressures of the past. What’s happened
is that there’s a curious process of historical vengeance if you like, because those
pressures don’t disappear from society. They get morphed and mediated into dif-
ferent forms.

What you have today, in the public sphere in India is a resurgence of reactionary
forms which represent the past in certain ways. And then you have artists who have
abandoned their claim to speak in or on that past--so that was the context in which
I was speaking. But one of the outcomes of this is what I call the loss of sociality
which is when the artist stands aside as a critical commentator or someone who
has a critical relationship to or even an adversarial relationship to society. And now
with this reconfigured political situation, how does that artist move from the isolated
position and come back in to intervene? So that’s the general crisis that I wanted
to outline.

So I mentioned the use of public space in ceremonial activity not as a model to be

followed but just to point out that artists intervening in the public sphere also have to
contend with these very influential models of usage which are there already. I mean,
there’s befriending the obstacle or learning from the enemy--these are valid strate-
gies, so how is that to be? I think it calls for the dismantling also of the sort of social
circuits in which art operates.

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Session 6:
Beyond the Gallery and Back
 Locus
Lani Maestro, Canada/France

I will outline several points in response to the “theme” of this panel. I would like to address the at-
tempt to maintain a critical perspective relying on terms and concepts such as cooptation and main-
streaming. I propose a questioning of the inevitability that is implied in this perspective and takes on
the artist’s perspective, a perspective that veers away from the analytic, the territory of criticism.

How do we acknowledge that the process of “cooptation” is always already the fruitful and telling
space of our inevitable social reality, that communication inevitably includes inauthenticity and distor-
tion? Could we subvert a seemingly powerful art market-system by simply accepting its terms? What
if we could begin to think of these things as a system already internalized? Can we simultaneously
be independent of and also inhabit the institution of art? Conventional language would present these
as oppositional terms.

I propose a dismantling of the authoritative voice within this construction, opting for a discussion
of difference as that which can be pursued alongside conflict. Perhaps by looking at language, its
authority and dominance, we can begin to decipher the production of theory and knowledge as com-
modity. Difference could be located within those spaces deemed as failed or coopted if we would ac-
cept that social reality is in constant flux, where various subjectivities unfold and reveal complexities
that are transformed as they transform us. My insistence on the experience of art is that it engages
us in a process of creative transformation (alternative to critique) as we allow ourselves the freedom
to venture into the unknown.

Let me introduce some of these points through my selected works that will hopefully elucidate,
problematize, or reflect on the issues I have brought up. There will be connections and crossovers,
ambiguous as they may seem. I speak from my own practice but would like to acknowledge that I
also work from a particular context, a European/North American one, and so I do not want to assume
the universality of the position which I speak from.

In 1993, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto, Canada mounted a solo exhibition of my work.
This exhibition included two major installations, and a third one, a small but seminal work called
The Enemy Within. The work was situated in a small but intimate corner of the museum where they
were also showing a collection of early nineteenth century Edward Curtis photographs of Native
Indians. The context directed a particular reading of my work which was that of a comment on the
Eurocentricity of this museum in its representation of works of art. I was not previously informed by
the curator about the Curtis exhibition, but I was pleased to have my work seen and experienced in
this context.

The Enemy is Within/The damage is everywhere.

The work included two identical wooden frames with a small photograph floating in an expanse
of damask fabric within each frame. Reproduced from an appropriated postcard, the photograph

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showed a sepia image of black women dressed in western clothing in a tropical setting, engaging or
showing their fine embroidery work. Amidst this grouping sits a Franciscan missionary in her white
habit. In the context of racial politics, we read white western colonialism. But my early and uncon-
scious affinity to this image was for the Franciscan missionary, whose visual image includes a scent
that lingers in my memory as a child from my early education with German and Irish Franciscans in
the Philippines.

The conception of this work evolved in response

to an invitation of a feminist publication that cel-
ebrated the influence and contribution of femi-
nist thought to women’s art practice in Canada.
The parameters were exclusive, a feminism that
excluded the experience of non-white theorists
or thinkers. I wanted to make a critique that did
not come from a defensive and exclusive posi-
tion. I have also asked a male collaborator to
work with me and in the end this printed work
was received without much discussion.

The Enemy is Within/The damage is ev-

erywhere.

In the installation at the AGO, the vinyl text on

the walls changed the relationship of the work to the gallery space as a receptacle of works of art.
The space became implicated in the voice of the text as it held (framed) the words that enclosed
(framed) the photographs and the other elements that constituted the work (framed within the work).
These repeated framings also reiterated the question of interiority as the question of who or where
the enemy resides continued to arise -- The Enemy is Within. Within the work? Within the image?
Within the walls of the gallery? Within the institution? Within the viewer? Within the artist?

The Enemy is Within/The damage is everywhere.

In this work, the text has the voice of urgency while at the same time, it is ambiguous. Within and
everywhere are not fixed places. The decentering of the subject was an empowering experience in
its unsettling of power positions.

The question of framing often arises from a need for knowing and thus allows for a certain kind of
efficiency within one’s place in the world. It is a perception that contains and defines things within
a periphery. Sifting, 1991, a work installed in a warehouse exhibition in Montreal, echoed the re-
placement of absences and traces in the architectural landscape. I used framing again as a device
for isolating a color photograph of two hands on top of someone’s face. Or we can say a woman’s
face covered with her hands. The image could be read as that of resistance, or mourning, or fear,
or denial. On the far right, another frame of flour without an image. No photograph. Loss is evoked
because of the absence of something, the previous photograph. Relationality. In the context of my
own psychoanalysis, I began to understand very profound struggles with exclusion in this work.

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 Absence here is made apparent because of the presence of another framed image. But if we were
to ignore for a moment the other frame, we see the absence as that of a larger entity which is the
larger architectural space and beyond. How to transgress borders or territories that bind? The sifting
of the pure from the impure. How to see difference instead of conflict? The fear of non-identity and
non-recognition. The fear of cooptation and adapting mainstream skin? But who is looking? And what
do we see when we begin to look at the other within ourselves?

Coming to my other through mortality was a very important point in understanding difference. My
own reflections on otherness moved slowly outside of the dominant discourse around identity poli-
tics to a more philosophical position about the relationship of self and other. The self and other as
distinct entities and yet intertwined. Fluidity, difference, non-fixity. The self in permanent mutation.
A table offers a book, as in libraries, it offers a place of study. A book thick of ocean. The ocean
surface. A mechanical reproduction of an image. A still ocean image is moved in time by a hand turn-
ing pages. The same yet different. Repetition. Repetition is eroded by repetition. A refusal. Illusion
is the result of trying to pin things down, to fix things in time, to objectify. Science of course will tell
you the opposite, that the flux of time has to be suspended if we are to achieve any kind of truth with
regard to the real. The relationship between permanence and impermanence. The impermanence of
consumer culture and science is a dangerous permanence. Impermanence is on the side of life/Per-
manence on the side of death. a book thick of ocean. A meditation on death, mortality, difference,
the other recognizing that they all rest on the impermanence of whatever is.

With Cradle, the labor of memory becomes the memory of labor. If the work can and does embody
this relationship, then its resonance will create other sets of relationships with the viewer, with the
people who handle or put the work together within a particular space. Interestingly, the resonance that
happens is immaterial and yet it can trigger a whole series of other relationships within the physical
space. I am thinking more now about how this happens within an “installation” where issues of power
become apparent when we establish relationships within a space. Who is looking at whom and who
is being looked at? What is inside and what is outside? The reciprocal and interchangeable relation-
ship that happens here disperses centralized power and discourages spectacle. The nonpresence of
a solitary subject engages us in an awareness of our own bodies as our presence actually creates
the absence that we experience. Frequently in art, production is heroicized and reception relatively
ignored. I feel that, ultimately, the resonance or power of art resides in all of us. The transformation
is we, the maker, the viewer, and how we are and how we become, in the social world.

taema involves sound, video image, and a sculpture. A bound white book in a vitrine holds/carries a
hole, a tear in the same place on each page. This gesture has appeared in my work for a long time
as a thought, as metaphor, as a formal element. taema is a Japanese word for pause or gap and
literally translates as “discontinuous place.” Derived from the word ma, this was a concept adapted
by the Japanese Buddhists to express the notion of emptiness or the void.

In Canadian history, the Japanese-Canadians were ostracized, relocated, and put in internment
camps in Western Canada during the Second World War. With the “Recollection Project,” five artists
were asked by the Gendai Gallery at the Japanese Cultural Center in Ontario to use the collection of
the Center as a starting point for reflection and then work from there. I found myself in a space of
unknowing faced with an array of mementos and cultural fragments that provoked questions of au-

252
thenticity. My familiarity with traditional
Japanese craftsmanship was displaced
by these objects from consumer culture,
approximations for things “Japanese” lost
during the internment. This pushes one to
think carefully about how we determine
what constitutes genuine memory where
questions arise concerning history/culture
on the one hand and the memory/body on
the other. Instead of choosing an object
to respond to, I engaged in photograph-
ing the archives in its current displaced
state. I did not know what I was search-
ing for, but I wanted this process to help
me find something, or for that something
to find me. The process of recollection is
a tenuous one but a decisive process of
incision for remembrance or forgetting.
Photography like any museological practice involves fixity and renders reality into death. I had to
rely on the gesture of tearing to reconstitute something unrepresentable. This simple gesture created
an empty space within an object to make a void that spills over to a larger universe. I am interested
in emptiness as a place for relinquishing and unfolding, allowing for new subjectivities to exist. It also
becomes a counterpoint to the archival or museological practice of collecting and pinning down.

I wanted to develop the relationship between the context of a community cultural center and the con-
cept of an art gallery as a basis for this work. Art can have a recuperative potential, which is based
in the possibility of silence to function as language. The relationship between silence and enuncia-
tion, between nothingness and trace, has evolved in my work in ways that acknowledge the possibili-
ties of paradox. This has become a way for me to apprehend a fuller and more complex conception
of “difference,” so that when I say difference, I don’t mean uniqueness or singularity, but rather I
mean the processes of continuous differentiation, of “difference within difference.”

I hope these thoughts on my work have expanded some of the critical points I have brought up ear-
lier. Through the years of working independently within institutions and outside gallery representa-
tion, I have tried to maintain an autonomous position while acknowledging that art in the modern era
is in itself already an institution. It would perhaps be useful if we examine the totalizations on which
rest the use of terms such as cooptation, resistance, alternative. As Patrick Flores mentioned in his
paper, “alternative to what?” Perhaps we have developed a language so colonized that we often for-
get that we can actually be the center, the subject that has agency, and that whatever we do is vital
and different each time. And within these suspected cooptations, there are unassumed positions or
gestures that also hold the unfolding of new subjectivities. It is important for artists to assert indepen-
dence, engage in not-knowing, engage in the pleasure of making art, not second-guessing criticism
by being pre-occupied with theory, with adapting and second-guessing the cultural perspective and
the reception of work not yet done.

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 Negotiating the Center and the Periphery:
Towards a Bearable Lightness of Being
Judy Freya Sibayan, Philippines

The process of moving away from the center and into the periphery and eventually arriving at a
comfortable place where I can critically negotiate the center and the periphery of production, circu-
lation, and reception of art has been a 23-year-journey. Early in my career, I was deeply entrenched
in this center. I was not only producing art that fed into the system, I was also part of the system that
canonized objects and persons as art and artists. My first one-person exhibition investigated the
museum’s spatial and architectural infrastructure, and its attendant power to endow any object with
the privilege of being something called art. I was hired as a curatorial assistant at the Cultural Center
of the Philippines Museum on the basis of this work.

Ten years later with four one-person shows, 14 major group exhibitions, a good number of art per-
formances, and an MFA degree from the United States to my name, I was appointed director of the
Contemporary Art Museum of the Philippines (CAMP). This museum evolved from the consolidation
of the resources of two museums, the Museum of Philippine Art and the Cultural Center of the Philip-
pines Museum, making it the most well-endowed and therefore the most powerful contemporary art
museum in the Philippines at the time. With the demise of Ferdinand Marcos’s 14-year dictatorship
in 1986, the new government was quick to reinstate democracy. Cultural institutions were soft struc-
tures where democracy could be visually embodied, giving form to its reestablishment at its most
urgent. These institutions were restructured and opened up as democratic spaces. In particular, the
Cultural Center of the Philippines, formerly Imelda Marcos’s “art parlor,” was expanded to accom-
modate coordinating centers for the visual and literary arts, film, broadcast media, music, theater,
and dance.

While the museum’s director, I was concurrently the coordinator of the Center for the Visual Arts. My
roles were conflicted. As coordinator of the center, I was merely to oversee the equitable distribution
of its finite resources. But as head of the museum, I directed the same resources according to the
official discourse, which was to be maintained and further evolved based on a ten-year plan. This
plan consisted of three phases: Phase 1, the dialectical phase, was to be devoted to questions on
aesthetics, identity, issues, and orientation. Phase 2 was geared toward an analysis of the visual arts
as a reflection of Philippine culture. In Phase 3, we were to arrive at a definition of Philippine culture
as expressed in the contemporary visual arts. Obviously this project limited its investigation to a very
specific form of art, which privileged a few and excluded many Filipino artists. Just as I can be faulted
here and now for speaking “only to and for each other in a language oblivious to everything but a
well guarded, constantly shrinking fiefdom forbidden to the uninitiated” (Said 1983, 143), then, too,
as museum director, I could have been accused of belonging to that “closed system run by a very
small group of people who were even more defensively protecting the territory against the invasion
of the outsiders” (Tucker 1992, 11).

Thus began my discomfort with and within the Center. Placed on the museum staff and on myself was
the burden of discursively proving the legitimacy of the art that was to be deployed as “contempo-

254
rary,” which would in turn legitimate this newly consolidated museum as a space for progressive art.
This “verification” process necessitated an expertise performed in two kinds of spaces. Practiced
in the hidden space of the museum is the expertise “whose function is to produce and organize a
representation claiming the status of knowledge.” Then there are “the public spaces in which this
knowledge is offered for passive consumption producing a monologic discourse dominated by the
cultural voice of the museum” (Bennett 1995, 103-104).

The ten-year plan mentioned earlier was to be the blueprint for the production of such a discourse,
a practice received from the industrialized west and an idea not reflected upon by most cultural
practitioners within modern structures in the Philippines, a nation that recently celebrated 100 years
of nationhood and was very busy in its “political museumizing.” This is a term historian Benedict
Anderson (1983) uses to articulate the

process of creating a national culture through state institutions and their ability to create a
homogenizing and totalizing classificatory grid, which could be applied with endless flexibility
to the state’s real or contemplated control: peoples, regions, religions, languages, products,
monuments, and so forth. The effect of the grid was always to be able to say of anything that
it was this, not that; it belonged here not there. It was bounded, determinate, and therefore
- in principle - countable. (Anderson 1983, 183-184)

In hindsight, my unhappiness, my discomfort, with this center and in particular this museum stemmed
from the burden of producing this monologic discourse for institutional legitimacy through the power
of privileging a few -- a project that went against what the artistic community, then hungry for signs
of the new liberal rule, was promised. I felt vulnerable to the possible attacks from those who were
disenfranchised. Were it only a matter of exhibiting every artist until the Center’s resources ran out,
the work would have been easy; more difficult was the ideological work of maintaining the museum
as a space designated for contemporary art. Thus the quest for quality based on the modernist “con-
cepts of progress, continuity, totality, mastery and the universal claim to history accepted as true”
(Tucker 1992, 11) was in opposition to the practice of the majority of Filipino artists: social realism
eventually collected as adornment; folk art realism; photorealism using emotionally charged subject
matter; works of conceptual art that were exquisite visual pleasures; and abstract expressionism
rendered within non-monumental scale and with non-heroic gestures.

I was not only beleaguered from without; there were basic problems from within. In its desire for a
speedy rendition of the new order in high relief, the Cultural Center overexerted itself, inadvertently
taxing its workforce and its resources, forgetting to breathe and reflect upon the real work at hand.
Was the project only to meet the “political demands based on the principle of representational ad-
equacy” (Bennet 1995, 105)? Or having been instrumental in the formation of the deposed regime,
at least in the area of cultural construction, and given this opportune break in history, shouldn’t the
work have been to provide itself the space and time to come to terms with this past by taking the
lead in radically rethinking how such structures like itself can truly be responsive to a culture long
colonized? And to a people recently unshackled from military rule and now mobilized by the state and
industry, to make up for lost time in the project of modernization?

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 Believing that art is a technology of self-transformation, I started to doubt deeply how an artist
can possibly constitute and “decipher himself in regard to what”1 he or she has been permitted to
produce as only that which is valorized when made visible within exposing systems. It is a question
of the relation between a delimited, dependent, pre-coded aesthetic production and self-truth. Con-
trolled and co-opted by such systems and made the mere producer of things intended to be embod-
ied architecturally as objects of institutional discourses of art, his/her autonomy compromised, the
artist is now merely a technician who makes the commodity fetish par excellence.

Two years into the job, I resigned. My faith in the criticality of art practice shaken and eroded, I left
the museum, withdrew from the art world, and stopped making art. For five years, I did not make art.
Removing myself from the center, I inevitably placed myself at the periphery. It was a necessary place
to be in to seriously rethink my reasons for making art. Self-exiled, disillusioned, my disengagement
marked the beginning of the crucial process of individuation. A process so stunningly providential,
its poetic logic no longer escapes me. If my dis-ease with the monolithic circuit of production, circula-
tion, and reception of art had largely to do with its perverted ecology of mere spectacle and monu-
ments, of infrastructural, institutional, historical, economic, and discursive confinement, dependency,
and co-optation, of privilege, and exclusivity, of universals and homogeneity, the path to restoring my
health was to move away from this particular circuit. Precisely, the intimate process of individuation
and integration called for a move towards quietude, humility, a forsaking of the socialized canonized-
self and an embracing of the deeply personal; a move away from the comforts of being privileged
and accommodated toward self-determination and sufficiency; and toward self-truth and autonomy.
This line of flight, a process of de-centering, brought me straight to the margin, beyond the limits of
the center of production, circulation, and reception of art.

My life was marked with great discord, seven long years of malaise. Although there was no desire
to go back to that anointed but trapped self, there was great tension in having to shed this old self.
To have gone back meant a life lost to anxiety, to a constant dread of never having to find one’s way
home. It would have been a life so ill-fitting, I had no choice but to stay untethered within a territory
where the only fear was the unknown. Consequently, a technique of attention to be used in and on
my daily life was needed to do the work via negativa: work not among people or for others but with
and for oneself alone; painful, arduous work, isolated, invisible, intimate, valuable only to oneself;
work with the self as prima materia, the subject demanding to be the object of reflection, relentlessly
attended to. Eventually there came a time when having lived long enough at the periphery, I started
to re-experience my relation to it. Having undergone the pain that was a necessary part of fully at-
tending to my “peripheral self,” a different self started to emerge, a self formed within and of the
periphery.

Thus in 1994, I was ready to make art again but this time independent of the usual institutional sup-
port -- independent of the Center and self-sufficient within the periphery. I finally was able to do this
for I finally understood that placed upon the shoulders of all artists is what Victor Burgin calls an end-
game: Roles are “handed down by a particular history through particular institutions, and whether”
we choose “to work within or without these given history or institutions, for or against them,” our
“relationship to them is inescapable” (1986, 158). Further he perceives the canon of art as a grave-
yard made up of masterpieces: “To be admitted to it is to be consigned to perpetual exhumation, to
be denied entry is to be condemned to perpetual oblivion” (159).

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But the kind of oblivion Burgin refers to is not the kind of oblivion I fear. Secure in the knowledge that
my creative life need not necessarily take the form of art since art-making is only one of the technolo-
gies of the self, and acutely cognizant of where I am in art history and its limits, the one fear I had was
not disappearance into oblivion but rather the fear of being oblivious to my entrapment and enchant-
ment within instrumental systems, with my supposed critical practice of artistic production fueling
these systems I created Scapular Gallery Nomad, a gallery I planned to perform, curate, and wear
bodily, daily for two years, but ended up performing for five years. Like an amulet to protect me from
becoming a victim of the endgame, I wore the gallery placed on my shoulders daily in the hope that
I would attain salvation from the eternal fires of oblivion. Being a nomadic artist with multiple roles
(curator, critic, gallery owner, gallery architect and builder, publisher, as vehicle of the gallery and its
infrastructure), having multiple exists and entryways, I dealt with the possibilities of an art practice
that gave me the speed, the immediacy, and the fluidity to ceaselessly create connections deep or
fleeting, forming a ‘rhizome’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 3-25) in a variety of situations with all kinds
of individuals. With Scapular Gallery Nomad therefore, my hope was that I would render my body as
locus for the enunciation and performance of a “materialist critique of art” (Douglas 1993, 155).
Having accepted the reality of my inevitable relationship with the very same system I profess to
critique and work without, and secure in my autonomy as an agent critically aware of the co-opting
discursive powers of these institutions, I have arrived at a place where I can now comfortably but
critically negotiate the center and the periphery. Thus, for the past four years and to the present,
whenever invited by the center to make art, I have graciously accepted the offer. And always, I try
to address the very same issues I consider problematic whenever one has to work with and within
the system.

Allow me then to describe two other works that succinctly locate my present practice in negotiat-
ing the center and the periphery of production, circulation, and reception of art. Pose to Pause was
a project I proposed but was not approved for the 4th Gwangju Biennale. Photo booths equipped
with digital cameras were to be installed all over the biennale space. The audience would have been
encouraged to use these booths for taking photographs of themselves and of their friends for the
purpose of configuring a portrait mural as part of the biennale.

Every day, the images taken with these cameras would be downloaded and printed into 8 by 10 inch-
size photographs and installed simply by hooking them on a designated wall. Over the duration of the
biennale, hundreds of these portraits would be generated. In labeling the work as to who created the
mural, it would be attributed to me and to each member of the audience who participated. My name
would just be one among the list of many. Not one image or name would be edited out. Everyday the
mural would grow. Every day, the number of names would grow.

In negotiating the critical problematiques of such an engagement, I wish to posit an ethics of curator-
ship within the work. Here I take my cues from Jennifer Fisher (1995) who sees that the practice of
curatorship is analogous with the practice of caring, of healing. In her article “Trick or Treat, Nam-
ing Curatorial Ethics” published in one of the catalogs for the First Johannesburg Biennale, Fisher
considers curatorship as a “dynamic, entailing those processes of becoming implicit to mobilizing
the spaces between art’s discourses, objects, personalities, audiences and institutions” (13) Further,
she links other terms with the word

257
 curate...one charged with the care of souls...in curatorship one charged with the care of other
selves, those imaginary citizens populating the mandates of public culture...cure...the critical
intervention of a curator functioning like those of healers...a surgeon acting on inert (anaes-
thetized) bodies for various effects, a homeopath which provides for awareness, a therapist
through intersubjective encounters which might resemble a talking cure...securus...to render
safe and secure...accurae, to be careful about...curiosity...curio...impelling interest. (Fisher
1995, 13)

The problem with art made instrumental as pure spectacle is that it zaps the audience to passivity. The
audience anaesthetized, they are rendered inert, uncritical -- mere receivers of ideas. In providing a
mechanism by which the audience can become creating agents themselves specific to the biennale,
Pose to Pause allows for a self-reflexivity among the biennale audience as receivers/decoders/inter-
preters of art as they themselves participate in the creation of art. They are therefore critical factors
in the construction and deconstruction of spectacle. This work in allowing for the “transgression of
the habitual divorce of seeing and being seen.., a sovereign circulation between the two functions”
(Barthes 1977, 5) is achieved. Therefore, via this work I would have hoped to critically intervene, and
function “like that of healers, a surgeon acting on inert (anaesthetized) bodies for various effects, a
homeopath providing for awareness, a therapist providing intersubjective encounters which might
resemble a talking cure and impelling interest” (Fisher 1995, 13).

This work would also have given me the opportunity to take a breather, a pause from my role as
creator of a work of art and become instead a facilitator of hundreds of poses/pauses for those
who usually are taken for granted as mere collective passive gazers of the production of that one
individual called artist.

On the other hand, since the magnitude of the spectacle these universal expositions take make it the
norm of display par excellence for the visual arts made instrumental in representing the aspirations
of a city (or of empires as in the 19th century) in terms of modernity, economic health, its project for
renewal, its future as it enters a new century, a new millennium, then my creating for a biennale is the
ultimate act of working with and within the Center.

But at the same time, I am able to easily and comfortably transition back to the periphery and create
Sacred Sites in Secular Spaces. In despair over the reality that we live in a city so unwelcoming to
a life of deep quietude and of the spirit; bereft of spaces where we can rest our weary heads, of non-
institutional, non-monolithic places where we can connect to the stillness of the infinite, I prayed that
I be shown what I can do in my own small way about creating precisely these spaces of solitude and
communion. I now perform the installation of shrines for friends or for those who wish to have a site
for those quiet moments of communion with whatever they consider divine forces guiding and gift-
ing them their lives. Designating myself as shrine maker, I have installed 13 shrines beginning early
2002, in gardens, in offices, in homes, for professorial lecture opening rites, for events to usher in
the Chinese new year, for birthdays, for dinners to welcome home a friend, for a ritual of gratitude
to a generous environment, for the reinvigoration of an existing shrine, or as a ritual to welcome a
group of foreign curators who interviewed me about my art.

258
These shrines are made from objects con-
sidered significant in these people’s lives.
The sites may be ephemeral, installed only
for the duration of the event; or made more
permanent, used as altars in houses, of-
fices, and gardens. These installations are
not attributed to me. I do not own these
shrines. For the more permanent sites, the
requesting party owns them; after my per-
formance of the initial rites, the owners get
to reconfigure them as they please, add-
ing or removing objects, moving the things
around. Other people too are invited to use
the shrine. I have never informed those who
want a shrine installed that this is an artwork,
that I am doing an art installation or that I am
doing performance art. But scheduled as a
12-year-long performance, it is perhaps my
most ambitious work yet in terms of making
art at the most extreme of the periphery.

I now thank the day when seemingly, every-

thing in my life conspired to remove me from
what I believed then was the heart of the
art world. For it turned out to be the much
needed push to start me off into a journey
unburdened by the dictates of the monolithic
center and therefore towards a lightness of
being. From that day onward, I could cross
the threshold between center and periphery
with great ease. My work at the periphery
has afforded me a great sense of symmetry between what I am able to expend and invest on my
own and who I am and the fruits of my own labor. Having given myself the privilege to constantly
sense my order of things according to my own scale of things, I believe I have attained the self-suf-
ficiency, the ability to empower myself proportionate to and within the limits of my own energies and
my subjectivity.

On the other hand, now, my work with and within the center allows me to constantly test and refine
my ideas about the problematiques of precisely my inescapable relationship with the very same
system I profess to critique and can work without. But perhaps the greatest gift I have been blessed
with in this process of negotiating these two extreme thresholds -- the center and the periphery -- is
a community of kindred spirits critically supportive of my work and thus fellow-travelers in this en-
lightening journey of creating art.

259
 Editor’s Note:

This is an updated version of a paper delivered in the symposium “Asia Now -- Women Artists’
Perspective” held at the auditorium of Moderna Museet Stockholm, Sweden on October 20,
2001.

References

Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined communities. New York: Verso.

Barthes, Roland. 1977. The Eiffel tower and other mythologies. New York: Hill and
Wang.

Bennett, Tony. 1995. The birth of the museum. New York: Routledge.

Burgin, Victor. 1986. The end of art theory. London: Macmillan.

Crimp, Douglas. 1993. On the museum’s ruins. London: The MIT Press.

Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. 1987. Introduction: rhizome in a thousand plateaus:
capitalism and schizophrenia, trans Brian Massumi. Minneapolis and London: University of
Minnesota Press.

Fisher, Jennifer. 1995. “Trick or treat: naming curatorial ethics”. In Africus, ed. Sunil
Gupta. London: OVA.

Said, Edward. 1983. “Opponents, audiences, constituencies”. In The Anti-aesthetic, ed. Hal
Foster. Washington: Bay Press.

Tucker, M. 1992. “Who’s on first: issues of cultural equity in today’s museums”. In Different
voices: a social, cultural, and historical framework for change in the American art museum, ed.
M. Mitchell. New York: Association of Art Museum Directors.

Note

1 In conceiving a rather odd project when studying the technologies of the self, Michel Foucault
proposed “a history of the link between the obligation to tell the truth and the prohibitions
against sexuality” (1988, 17). He asked how the subject has been compelled to decipher
himself in regard to what was forbidden. Is it a question of the relationship between asceticism
and truth? I have taken the liberty of forming my own questions based on his formulation. See
Foucault, Michel. (1988). Technologies of the Self. In L.H. Martin, H. Gutman, & P.H. Hutton
(Eds.), Technologies of the Self (pp. 16-49). London: Tavistock Publications.

260
Session 6:
Beyond the Gallery and Back

A DESIRE for deeper discourse, a scrambling for definitions and a feeling of being
overwhelmed by two days of intense discussions characterized the comments in this
session moderated by artist-curator Jose Tence Ruiz.

Floating Around

Artist and curator Jay Koh felt he disagreed with many positions put forward in the
presentations. “I have problems with a lot of the presentations here because when
the organizers give ‘critical art’ they already put themselves in a position that is quite
vulnerable in this phase,” he said. “And then by calling it ‘Critiquing Critical Art’ they
actually doubled that vulnerability.”

“At the end I feel that we are still floating around,” he said.

Koh also noted that many participants, during the breaks, aired complaints about the
“lack of definitions to ground the discourse and the lack of time to discuss…which
is normal”.

Desire for Deeper Discourse

Vincent Leow felt the two days were an opportunity for him to have a glimpse at a
myriad of issues and that he felt he had much to share with his colleagues back in
Singapore. Though he too said he wanted more indepth discussions.

“I had hoped to really have gone more in-depth, hopefully if we had the chance to be
in the city-- Manila,” he said. “Because I felt that we are in a sort of environment that
I don’t know that if it truly represents Manila itself.”

Koh said the inability of the conference to delve into deeper discourse was because
participants from outside the Philippines wouldn’t have had enough knowledge about
local issues.

Wechselwirkung

Koh noted a tension between theory and practice. “I can only use the German word
wechselwirkung to say that these both must work together,” he said. “Wechsel-
wirkung means the dynamic balance of both. If one becomes overpowering and

261
 becomes absolute, and even in the art form, the artist himself who pleaded for the
integrity of the art, in reality no position can be absolute and elitist. You have to con-
sider, especially in public art, in social art, in engaged art, you have to consider all
the points of power and structure in negotiation, you cannot just depend on one.”

Nevertheless, Koh expressed hope that participants would carry on the discourse
initiated in the conference. “In Asia…it is the discourse that is…lacking. It is not the
production of art.”

A Generation Represented

Sharmini Pereira, an independent curator from the United Kingdom, disagreed that
there is a lack of discourse. “There seems to be a huge amount of theoretical posi-
tioning being taken that is coming out of a lot of the universities perhaps and those
kinds of cultural institutions,” she said.

“I think its about time that the museums and some of the independent art spaces
were looked upon for producing some of that and adding to that discourse because
it speaks in a very different kind of language. I think language is again, what it comes
down to. We don’t all need to speak the same language and to homogenize what
we’re all doing,” she said.

Pereira also noted that the conference brought together “a generation, I think, of
people who are working in the region in very different kinds of ways: as critics, as
curators in museums, as artists.”

“I think there’s a generation that’s represented here which I give credit to the con-
ference organizers for bringing us together because it really rarely happens,” she
said.

262
Keynote
Lani Maestro

I had imagined that a keynote address would usually be at the beginning of a conference but perhaps
it can be an interesting disruption to the linearity of beginnings and endings to do it this way… Let me
begin/end with a quote from Algerian born writer/playwright, French feminist, Helene Cixous. This is
from an address she gave for a human rights conference at Oxford University some years ago. At
that time, Helene Cixous was active together with Michel Foucault and other writers and intellectuals,
in the movement for prison reform, GIP, (Groupe Intervention Prison) in Paris. She writes:

On November 28, 1991, I told myself: I should talk about state authority, and at the moment,
I was taken with the desire to sleep. The voice of my own police said: go ahead, sleep. And I
went to sleep. And at the end of my sleep, I was free.

In her essay “We who are free/are we free?” Cixous invites us to consider our assumptions with
regard to our perceived freedom. Now that freedom has been taken over as a slogan of the right, can
we come up with a more resistant formulation, something less susceptible to cooptation? What do we
mean by resistant and from where would we find adequate criteria? Cixous has responded to these
sorts of questions by proposing that the poetic plays a major role in the defining of our subjectivities
in a life of critical thinking and political analysis.

I would like to speak from the space of the poetic. I try to find my center and a rhythm that would
allow me to imagine the unimagined. In the slumber of fluidity and weightless thought, my body be-
gins to remember the rhythm of sensual thinking and being. As in the serenity of experiencing new
work unfolding right in front of me, never knowing where it is taking me or how and where it arrived
in the first place. An idea masked in air but unraveling itself and myself simultaneously as it allows
for the “social” to come into being. The social that resides within me, a self that resides in the social
(intertwining). The social that is me--if I am to experience the world as something embodied and not
as an entity that resides out there. Elsewhere.

In the breathing of sleep, we relinquish power and control and we are disconnected from our every-
day preoccupation with practical tasks and goal-oriented activity. How could this be a kind of disrup-
tion of the state’s authority with regard to my daily life and my social environment? The inefficiency
of nothingness, of a liminality where one waits or simply lies still. This is a movement that allows for
the unsettling of fixed perceptions. But, how can doing nothing cause so much unease?

The body is already resistance and we simply need to learn what it unravels. First there is resistance,
then there is cooptation. Why is this not a satisfying thesis? This implies that one is in a position of
authority with regard to one’s work whereas it may be that the work of art is far more complex and
elusive, paradoxical, and profound. What is simplistic is that artists are in a position of dominance
with regard to the work of art. It is this power relationship of artist over work that maintains that
hierarchy that persists in all rationalistic attitudes. For example, man over nature, mind over body,
man over woman.

263
 In the ‘6os Brazilian artists Lygia Clark and Helio Oiticica and David Medalla from the Philippines,
made radical propositions that transformed the understanding of sculpture and performance art.
Their works of art which they called propositions, existed only with the participation and exchange of
the viewer with the work itself. This marked the difference between their proposition of body/perfor-
mance/sculpture from its western counterpart in the early ‘70s. In her seminal work, Ar e Pedra (Air
and Stone) 1966, Lygia Clark initiates an encounter between a viewer and his or her own breath in
the shaping of air within a plastic bag that cradles a piece of stone. The associations are multiple:
breathing, birth, tenderness, sexuality. The work presents a simple dialectic between empty and
full, inside and outside, solid and immaterial. Air and Stone questions the very idea of a content that
could be alienated as a product, commodity, or message. In fact, this work is freely available as an
open ended multiple, anybody can have one. There is no original and there is no copy. It is remade
each time. This work’s resistance lies in its self-reflexivity; any outcome is up to the viewer, the work
unfolds only on the basis of the viewer’s engagement, a radically experiential work that can never
be encompassed as commodity.

There is the question of occupying two spaces simultaneously: success in the art market while main-
taining political efficacy. This compartmentalization seems unrealistic, proposing on the one side
a state of purity while on the other a coopted complicity. This simple opposition has already been
undermined within the postmodern practices of the eighties, based as they were on various sorts of
ironic and paradoxical complicities.

With respect to this question of oppositional relations, the Vietnamese born filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-
ha has focused on finding new ways to speak about difference as difference within. In speaking of
power relations she acknowledges the movement of differences within entities. There is a third world
in every first world and vice-versa. Within each entity there is a vast field. And within each self is a
multiplicity. For example, when do I see myself as part of the east and when do I tell people that the
west is also in me. “When I am speaking of the west I am not speaking of a reality outside of myself.
It is not a question of blurring boundaries or of rendering them invisible. It is a question of shifting
them as soon as they become fixed.”

The fear of cooptation may be simply a lack of confidence in the work of art. We need to shift our
locus from thinking in terms of short-term goals and immediately affective instrumentality to shift to
a temporality less linear and more generous. Again, Trinh has written about the fear of cooptation
saying: “If the mainstream uses strategies similar to those of experimental productions, it uses them
towards totally different ends. Its aim is to reify for consumerist purposes so it produces what at first
sight may seem similar but missing the spirit of ‘purposefully purposeless’ experimentation. It turns
everything into a matter of technique in the process of totalizing meaning.”

The relationship between self and other has been an essential if not basic preoccupation amongst
contemporary artists. These explorations have become explicit especially in the last two decades
with the evolution of feminist art practice and the debate surrounding “globalism” in art. Discussions
of race and place, the “Post-colonial,” and gender have been concerned with new articulations of
identity, of the self and subjectivity, challenging dominant constructions of the self/other relation.

264
The balancing act between theory and practice becomes a fragile space as theory/knowledge be-
comes institutionalized and commodified.

Perhaps this conference will continue to begin with no end in exploring possibilities for artistic and
curatorial practices based in self-empowerment, practices which may redefine or offer new un-
derstandings of what counts as resistance, as action, as agency or subjectivity, especially through
expanded conceptions of the rational and formulations of the self/other relationship in terms that
become relational rather than oppositional or exclusive.

Helene Cixous speaks of the fear of our generation and that it is afraid of losing itself. The fear of
losing identity, of non-recognition. But it is only when we go astray that we are able to give ourselves
freely as we lose ourselves in making love. And it is on the basis of this losing that radical possibili-
ties emerge for creativity.

265
 Afterword
Patrick D. Flores

The project of Locus in its two phases sought to foreground the system within which art as a social
practice is generated. Locus 1 focused on the Philippines, presenting in their most complex form the
many different ways of making art and the strategies of engaging a range of forces, like the State,
the market, and civil society across the islands. Art was, therefore, situated within a public sphere
in which the sheer presence of art instigated the necessity of making sense of its intervention and
in some instances of its provocation. These concerns inevitably cohered into the quest for a pro-
ductive ethic through which to render it responsive to the social and the sociality without which it
ceases to be transformative in a determinate manner. This aspiration would require a new language
and a new perspective in art-making, a framework that hopefully transcends the allure of career
and orthodoxy and disposes agents to converse across persuasions. A network and solidarity of
causes and hopes must in the future emerge from these problems and resolutions. And if Locus 1
had proven something, it is the feasibility of this initiative. Varied organizations representing manifold
modalities of artistic practice came together to form a community of workers in culture, a multitude
that might finally overcome the dead weight of the art world, peopled by merchants and its minions
of inordinate malice.

Locus 2 tracked this energy in the larger realm of a global belongingness in which the Philippines
rearticulates itself in relation to the other articulations of art practice in other parts of the world. Phil-
ippine contemporary art thus would be reshaped by the forces that in one way or another inform its
prerogatives. The Philippines would be located elsewhere, in the context of others that compel it to
move beyond its pale. On the other hand, this “constitutive outside” is faceted from the angle of the
“Philippine,” so that this elsewhere takes root in translocal ground and ceases to be cosmopolitan
and merely mobile. The local and the global, therefore, mark a nexus, a passage through which to
work out a common struggle to exceed the limits of their ordinations – and their imaginaries of origin.
Locus 2 succeeded in deepening the knowledge of the world about the Philippines and sharpened
the edge of Philippine contemporary art and discourse as well as reaffirmed its acuity and agility in
refiguring a kind of art that addresses the emergencies of our time.

At this point, it is perhaps imperative to remark on the prospects of a contemporary art in light of
the irrevocable critique of the aesthetic and the preeminence of affective labor as a mediation of
the biopolitical in which the production of life and body instantiates the moment of politics (Agam-
ben 1998). In this respect, it is instructive to revisit the work of Peter Burger on modernism and his
proposition for a post-avant-garde program instead of a postmodern one. Burger asserts that any
project to define contemporary art must be animated by a “dialectical continuation of modernism,” in
spite of the alienation it insinuates that renders such a condition aporetic and, therefore, impossible:
“It will strive to affirm the essential categories of modernism, but at the same time to free them from
their modernist rigidity and bring them back to life” (Burger 1992, 44). The continuity with modern-
ism as condensed in the failed avant-garde to subvert the institutional equipage of art and to revoke
the distance between art and life collects itself at a high paradox. Burger presents as an example
the career of Joseph Beuys who, in his endeavors, attempted to intricate his personal mythology

266
with the art that he subjected to intense inquisition. In the wake of these experiments, he felt that
he was not willing to lose “sight of art altogether. Art as such is what I wanted to achieve. We have
not yet achieved it” (Burger 1992, 154). This is exemplary of Burger’s paradox and the necessity
of contemporary art’s dialectical continuation of a failed modernism that compels post-avant-garde
contemporary art to inhabit an impossible position. This extensity is a complicated process; Walter
Benjamin advocates to blast it and Jurgen Habermas foregrounds a “continuity of disenchantment.”
It is through Benjamin’s “redemptive critique” and Bertolt Brecht’s “refunctioning” that we could re-
possess a future by retroactively salvaging the past in gestures of heightened making and doing.

Locus contributes to these discussions by intimating the Philippines as a site of eccentric modernity
and a decentering contemporary.

References

Agamben, Girgio. 1992. Homo sacer: sovereign power and bare life. Trans. Daniel
Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Burger, Peter. 1992. The decline of modernism. Trans. Nicholas Walker. Pennsylvania: The Penn-
sylvania University Press.

267
ANNEXES
LOCUS 1 Mideo Cruz
UGAT-LAHI
Cell: 0927-8818515
Directory Email: mentalcolony@yahoo.com

Flaudette May Datuin

Dept. of Art Studies
Santi Bose † University of the Philippines
37 Quezon Hill, Cut-off Road 1 1101 Diliman, Q.C.
Baguio City Telephone: 9270581, 9818500 loc. 2115
Email: maydats@yahoo.com
Ringo Bunoan
Big Sky Mind Christina Dy
c/o Katya Guerrero Surrounded by Water
70 18th St., Murphy, Cubao Cell: 0917-5356237
Email: artworldmuse@hotmail.com Email: cdy@pacific.net.ph,
diafly@yahoo.com
Imelda Cajipe-Endaya
Kasibulan/Who Owns Women’s Bodies Ken Esguerra
25 Thailand St., Better Living, Pque. Balay Taliambong
Telephone: 8231973 E. Rodriguez Ave., Gregorio Heights
Email: icajipeendaya@yahoo.com Taytay, Rizal
Telephone: 7577117-18
Lena Cobangbang c/o Ayala Museum
Surrounded by Water Email: kcesguerra@ayalamuseum.com
Cell: 0915-4553308
Email: lcobangbang@yahoo.com Alfredo Esquillo
Anting-Anting
Marilyn Canta Cell: 0917-5026431
Dept. of Art Studies Email: fred_eski@hotmail.com
UP Diliman
1101 Diliman, QC Brenda Fajardo
Telephone: 9270581, 9818500 loc. 2115 Hanao-Hanao
Email: m_canta@hotmail.com, 24 9th St., Magdalena Rolling Hills, QC
shine@kal.upd.edu.ph Telephone: 7210091
Email: bvfajardo@hotmail.com
Joselina Cruz
Singapore Art Museum Patrick Flores
71 Bras Basah Road, Singapore 189555 Dept. of Art Studies
Telephone: (0065) 6332 3222 University of the Philippines
Email: joselina_cruz@nhb.gov.sg 1101 Diliman, Q.C.
Telephone: 9270581, 9818500 loc. 2115
Email: patrickdflores@yahoo.com
Ferdinand Isleta Jose Tence Ruiz
National Commission for Culture 31 Palmera, Gloria III Culiat
& the Arts Tandang Sora, Quezon City
Telephone: 5272192 Telephone: 9313539
Email: ferdz_isleta@yahoo.com Fax: 9324576
Email: tanedoruiz@grafiktrafik.com.ph
Irma Lacorte
Lesbianarama Don Salubayba
Cavite ANINO Shadowplay Collective
Cell: 0917-5026320 Telephone: 8959844
Email: lacorte38@yahoo.com Email: sining@lycos.com

Ino Manalo Katti Sta. Ana

Metropolitan Museum of Manila Art Esteem
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Complex c/o University of the Philippines
Roxas Blvd., Manila Baguio City
Telephone: 5237855 Cell: 0921-3741655
Email: kattist@yahoo.com
Estela Ocampo-Fernandez
Luná/VIVAA-EXCON Federico Sievert
14-18 3rd St., White Hills Subd. ABAY/Sanggawa
Banawa, Cebu 6000 48-A Rodriguez St.
Telephone: (032) 2328185 Baysa, QC 1106
Cell: 0927-8023702 Telefax: 4535015
Email: egof@weblinq.com.ph,
estelaray@hotmail.com Cristina Taniguchi
Mariyah Gallery
Ma. Teodora Conde-Prieto Larena Drive, Bago Junction
Galerie Kamarikutan Dumaguete City
Rizal Ave. Ext., Bancao-Bancao Telephone: (035)4227672, 2251637
Puerto Prinsesa, Palawan Cell: 0921-3400686
Email: lagitana@mozcom.com, Email: cristina_taniguchi@yahoo.com
kamarikutan@yahoo.com
Roger (Rishab) Tibon
Rico Reyes Tam-Awan c/o Luz Gallery
Diwa Arts-California, USA G/F Locsin Bldg.
Email: rjreyes@aol.com Makati cor Ayala Ave.
1200 Makati City
Norberto Roldan Telephone: (074) 4462949
Green Papaya Art Projects Cell: 0919-6049951
60-B Mahabagin St., Teachers’ Vill., QC Email: paruparo_99@yahoo.com
Telefax: 9262096
Email: greenpapaya@pacific.net.ph
Norman Tiotuico
Pampanga Art Guild
Singlan St., Lourdes Sur East,
Angeles City, Pampanga
Telephone: (045) 3225641 (6-11pm)
Cell: 0916-3771005
Email: abu-nt@mailcity.com
LOCUS 2
Directory
Corazon S. Alvina
Director, National Museum
Burgos Dr., Manila
Philippines
Telephone: (00632) 5271215
Fax: (00632) 5270306
Email: museumph@info.com.ph
Dr. Florina Capistrano-Baker
Ayala Museum
De la Rosa St. cor. Makati Ave.
Makati City, Philippines
Telephone: (00632) 7577117-18
Email: ninacapistranobaker@yahoo.com
Piyaluk Benjadol
Nuts Society
Email: piyaluk.b@bu.ac.th,
nuts_society@hotmail.com
Ringo Bunoan
Big Sky Mind
c/o Katya Guerrero
70 18th St., Murphy, Cubao
Philippines
Email: artworldmuse@hotmail.com
Imelda Cajipe-Endaya
25 Thailand St.
Better Living, Pque.
Philippines
Telefax: (00632) 8231973
Email: icajipeendaya@yahoo.com
Chu ChuYuan
International Forum Intermedia Art
Blk 108, #03-244,
Commonwealth Crescent
S140108, Singapore
Email: zhiyen@gmx.net
Joselina Cruz
Singapore Art Museum
71 Bras Basah Road, Singapore 189555
Telephone: (0065) 6332 3222
Email: joselina_cruz@nhb.gov.sg
Karen Flores
Blk. 5 Unit 5 Buencamino Compound
Cadena de Amor, Manuela 1
Las Piñas, MM Philippines
Telephone: (00632) 8752528
Email: kangkong66@yahoo.com
Patrick Flores
Dept. of Art Studies
University of the Philippines
1101 Diliman, Q.C., Philippines
Telephone: (00632) 9270581
(00632) 9818500 loc. 2115
Email: patrickdflores@yahoo.com
Sid Gomez Hildawa
CCP Museum & Galleries Division
Roxas Blvd., Manila, Philippines
Telefax: (00632) 8323702
Email: sidgomezhildawa@rocketmail.com
Ranjit Hoskote
1, Sea View
14/A Road, Khar; Bombay 400 052
Fax: (91) (22) 605-2505
Email: ranjithoskote@yahoo.co.uk
Jay Koh
IFIMA
Blk 108, #03-244
Commonwealth Crescent
S140108 Singapore
Mobile: +06591063439
Email: nica@yangon.net.mm
jaykoh@gmx.net
Lee Weng Choy
Artistic Co-director
The Substation
45 Armenian Street
Singapore 179936
Telephone: (0065) 6337 7535
Fax: (0065) 6337 2729
www.substation.org.sg
Email: wengchoy@pacific.net.sg
Vincent Leow
Plastique Kinetic Worms
61 Kerbau Road
219185 Singapore
Telephone: (0065) 2927783
Fax: (0065) 2922936
Email: lvky@pacific.net.sg
adirector@pkworms.org.sg
Ramon Lerma
Ateneo Art Gallery
Ateneo de Manila University
Rizal Library Bldg.
Katipunan Ave., Loyola Heights
Quezon City, Philippines
Telephone: (00632) 4266001 loc. 2651
Fax: (00632) 4266088
Email: rlerma@admu.edu.ph
Ly Daravuth
Reyum Institute of Arts and Culture
47 St. 178, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Telephone: (00855) 023217149
Email: reyum@camnet.com.kh,
lydaravuth@everyday.com.kh
Lani Maestro
France/Canada
Lechamp de Four
53140 Lignieres Orgeres, France
Email: lanibmaestro@hotmail.com
horne.maestro@wanadoo.fr
Sharmini Pereira
Sri Lanka/UK
68 B Hampdem Road
London N8 OHT UK
Mobile: 07712585069
Email: sharmini@clara.co.uk
Niranjan Rajah
c/o New Forms Festival 2005: Ecologies
Suite 200, 252 East 1st Avenue
Vancouver BC, Canada V5T JA6
Telephone: (1604) 4363759
Email: niranjanrajah@hotmail.com
niranjan@newformsfestival.com
Jose Tence Ruiz
31 Palmera, Gloria III Culiat
Tandang Sora
Quezon City, Philippines
Telephone: (00632) 9313539
Fax: (00632) 9324576
Email: tanedoruiz@grafiktrafik.com.ph
Judy Freya Sibayan
College of Liberal Arts
De La Salle University
Taft Ave., Manila, Philippines
Telephone: (00632) 5244611 loc. 322
Cell: 0917-5320201
Email: sibayanj@dlsu.edu.ph,
judyfreya@yahoo.com
Ingrid Swenson
PEER
99 Hoxton Street,
London N1 6QL, UK
Telefax: (0044) 020 7739 8080
Email: piertrust@btinternet.com
mail@peeruk.org
Nguyen Minh Thanh
8/24 nyo 108-Duõng Ngmi. Tãm
Hanoi, Vietnam
Telephone: (0084) 48294838
Mobile: (0084) 0903405090
Email: thanhmiin@yahoo.com.au

Thanom Chapakdee
c/o Rangsit University
Fine & Applied Arts Faculty
Muang-Ake, Paholyothin Rd.
Patumthani 1200 Thailand
Telephone: (0066) 997 222231 ext. 3400
Email: amazingthanom@hotmail.com
Locus 1 Elito Circa Mitch Garcia
Conference Participants Karlota Contreras Mitchell Gonzales
Margaux Yvette Contreras Bonifacio Guandao
Levy Achanzar Rey Paz Contreras Tessa Guazon
Abigail Adams Roberto Corbin Katya Guerrero
Benedick Adriano Jenny Cortes Juan Paolo Guevarra
Vanessa Alcantara Tonette Cristi Clarence Guintu
Burog Alvarado Ariel Cruz Eloisa May Hernandez
Nunelucio Alvarado Neslie Cruz Elmar Ingles
Alexandra Alviar Ramoncito Cruz Rolando Inocencio
Edda Amonoy Rosario Cruz Gina Isais
Edward Anda Ronald Cuenco Lisa Ito
Alfredo Aquilizan Noel Cuizon Tala Isla-Contreras
Isabel Aquilizan Thomas Daquioag V. Isla
Dindin Araneta Allan David Lorna Israel
Angela Carla Araniego Giancarlo David Jaazeal Jakosalem
Jemil Araos Helen Dawal Ernesto Jalbuena
Jerry Araos Mark De Castro Ryan Jara
Liwa Araos Arnold Diangson Magdiwang Jardiniano
Gilbert Arce Don Reich de Dios Vangielyn Joson
Jose Austria Gladys de Guzman Aimee Kho
Virgilio Aviado Don Lee De Guzman Annaliza Kim
Jes Aznar Cecilia dela Paz Scott Koterbay
Lui Bacaltos Boyet De Mesa Nathalie Lamy
Jose Badelles Aubrey Dela Cruz Alden Lauzon
Christine Balicia Franchelle Dela Cruz Cecilia Legion
Chico Barretto Ramona dela Cruz Gerry Leonardo
Lezzel Bartido Marie Cris Delgado Nina Libatique
Gee-an Bartosie Liza Dey Vivian Limpin
April Basco Ramon Diaz Karl Cruz Lingad
John Batten Silvana Diaz Norma Liongoren
D. Bautista Brian Dizon Emil Lo
Haidee Beoruz Leilanie Fayda Dizon Joseph Lofranco
Arneth Bermudo Annie Rose Duhino Edgardo Lorico
Cristina Bernaldez Raymond Dumlatesa Jaime Macapagal
Juliet Bien Christina Dy Shiela Magbiray
Sis. Mary Birkemeyer Jane Ebarle Jerome Malic
Nhorleen Bitco Ivy Jill Enero Joel Mallari
John Paul Bituin Edneil Esber Melody Manalang
Celia Bonilla Kenneth Esguerra Neil Manalo
Lawrence Borsoto Maria Eleanor Espinas Mark Manansala
Riya Brigino Ai-ai Eustaquio Clarence Mandao
Carlos Buan Patricia Eustaquio Romulo Mandoldol
Marne Bunyi Jes Evangelista Archie Manlapaz
Michelle Cabrera Egai Fernandez Malou Manrique
Froilan Calayag Peter Fernandez Godfrey Manzanares
Larry Calubay Maria Figura Wilfred Marbella
Reuben Ramas Cañete Eric Florentino Richard Martin
Eldon Daniel Canlas Karen Flores Ashley Martinez
Jonathan Cariño Noel Flores Siuala Ding Meangubie
Victoria Cerino Elduyan Frising Long Melo
Karenn Laurice Cervantes Adora Gadayan Catherine Mendoza
Edna Chan-Rarallo Angeli Galang Dindo Mercene
Leslie De Chavez Tony Ganal Romel Miranda
Allad Chingcoy Lyra Garcellano Loudette Miranda
Gina Garcia Jayvee Morada
Julio Morano Jr. Alfredo Santos Rufina Fajardo
Victoria Mortel Rose Santos Eric Florentino
Joseph Munares Socorro Sapnit Ricky Francisco
Tomomichi Nakao Eric Jason Sarol Emmanuel Garibay
Jelyann Nanggan Hazzel Senen Cecille Gelicame
Aron Narcisco Sarabeth Servito Tessa Guazon
Wenda Narvadez Ma. Liza Simon Katya Guerrero
Jose Guillermo Naval Arvhin Sioson Armand Guitering
Madeleine Nicolas Robert Sison Eloisa May Hernandez
Jordan Nolasco Line Skum Riel Hilario
Isabel Nunag Pedro Soliven Jr. Maria Cielo Imao
Lizzie Obay Jeffrey Sonora Sajid Imao
Luigi Ocampo Marvin Suba Toym Imao
Kathlene Olan Ryann Sy Jennifer Jamea
Niño Olivares Haydee Tacusalme Jennifer Javier
Jade Ong Mariz Talisaysay Tony Leaño
Maya Kristine Oveñas Christian Tamondong Joseph Ermi Lofranco
Lucky Padilla Jason Luna Tanjuakio Amy Loste
Katrina Palma Rochit Tañedo Angelo Magno
John Dale Pamintuan Joselle Tanlo Joyce Makitalo
Harold Panlilio Almina Tengco Mary Ann Manganti
Edille Paras Jomar Tiglao Norman Narcisco
Ma. Luisa Paras Christie Tiglao Madeleine Nicolas
Jet Pascua Maria Criselda Tolentino Bobby Nuestro
Oscar Pecson Mar Torres John Oliveros
Sam Penaso Ariel Tuazon Adeline Ooi
Bill Perez Clairelynn Uy Marives Pedraja
Mary Ann Pernia Ode Valdez Joseph John Perez
Mark Gil Pineda Rubylee Valiente Claro Ramirez
Argel Prencina Jay-rald Vasquez Norman Reyes
Ryan Quilala Michael Vilaga Dante Rosales
Fidel Quiñones Leo Villaflor Ditas Samson
Edwin Quinsayas Jun Villalon Daisy See
Joanne Quintin Junette Villanueva Anna Isabel Sobrepeña
Alma Quinto Yhey Villanueva Pedro Soliven Jr.
Ma. Bernadette Rañeses Charmina Viola Jonathan Sy
Bett Ramirez Arthur Vito Cruz Antonio Tejado
Claro Ramirez Eugene Yambao Rex Camposano Tubelleza
Tracy Ramos Chitoy Zapata Arthur Vito Cruz
Jucar Raquepo Jevijoe Vitug
Dan Rarallo Ralph Walker
Cris Rebutiao Locus 2 Paul Blanco Zafaralla
Jeremy Reyes Eric Zamuco
Conference Participants
Patric Reyes Claire Zapata
Paul Reyes
Eric Agoncillo Ambata
Ikoy Ricio
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan
Efren Rivera Jr.
Joffrey Baylon
Mark Sherwin Rivera
Bernadette Becares
Arlene Ronquillo
Susie Bugante
Michelle Roque
Reuben Ramas Cañete
Ronaldo Ruiz
Fray Diosdado Casurao
Adum Salalila
Karlota Contreras
Araceli Salas
Salvador Convocar
Mar Salazar
Madoline de la Rosa
Ditas Samson
Andy Estella
Shierly San Jose