FORT SANTIAGO
KIRI DALENA
(Philippines)
In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be
singing. About the dark times.
2017
Neon lights
Untitled
2009
Terracotta
Kiri Dalena’s practice as a visual artist and filmmaker is rooted in her
deep involvement in the struggle for human rights. Her works are
elegiac protests that document and reflect on various social and
political injustices in the Philippines. The neon text “In the dark
times…”, a quote from one of Bertolt Brecht’s poems written during
World War II, is paired with a circle of terracotta fragments retrieved
from figures based on the artist’s own body, which shattered during
the firing process. Both works illuminate and reclaim the necessity of
hope in the face of disasters and atrocities. RB
OCA VILLAMIEL
(Philippines)
Children of War
2018
Scavenged dolls and birdcages
Oca Villamiel gathers scavenged objects as a form of testimony to
the tragedies of our time. He spends years salvaging and collecting
discards and scraps from dumpsites and junkyards in the
Philippines and assembles them into large-scale installations that
reflect on the various crises that afflict the country. In this work, he
uses abandoned dolls from the Payatas dumpsite placed inside
handmade cages made out of pilfered wires to comment on the
horrors of war, dispossession, and the loss of innocence. RB
FELIX BACOLOR
(Philippines)
Thirty Thousand Liters
2017
Metal drums, wooden pallets
Felix Bacolor’s installation using 150 metals drums, with the
combined capacity of 30,000 liters, is a commentary on the
bloodshed from the current wars in the Philippines. The volume of
30,000 liters represents a fraction of the lives lost within a year,
based on the artist’s estimate that each person needs around five
liters of blood to live. The massive stack of drums, presented like a
makeshift monument, represents the “systemic, industrial purging”
and escalating violence in the country today. RB
Felix Bacolor’s installation was made possible with the support of
Ateneo Art Gallery and Finale Art File.
AGNES ARELLANO
(Philippines)
Angel of Death
1990
Cold-cast marble, copper, brass, broken glass
Bronze Bullets
1990
Bronze
Best known for her surrealist and expressionist sculptures using plaster,
bronze and cold-cast marble, Agnes Arellano draws from philosophy,
religion, mysticism, eroticism, as well as her own personal experiences to
create highly dramatic ‘inscapes’. Her work signifies an internal unity and
totality through the convergence of various elements in an environment
that is at one with itself. These two works, Angel of Death and Bronze
Bullets, were first presented in 1990 as part of a larger installation that
explored the parallel concepts of creation and destruction. RB
PETE JIMENEZ
(Philippines)
Walang Boots
2018
Wooden shoe lasts & toy guns, empty bullet shells
Walang Boots (No Boots) is an installation of over 150 pairs of old wooden
shoe lasts, toy guns and bullet shells strategically placed near the last
steps of Jose Rizal, from his cell inside Fort Santiago to Bagumbayan,
where he was executed on December 30, 1896. The work is a parting salute
to our heroes who bravely walked to their deaths in the service of the
country. It also offers a wry commentary on the modernization of the
Philippine military. RB
LENA COBANGBANG
(Philippines)
Turf Wars
2018
Grass
Lena Cobangbang’s work often involves staged images, surfaces and
settings that blur fiction with reality. For this installation, she uses different
varieties of weeds and grass to create her own garden with a camouflage
pattern that references various contested islands in the West Philippine
Sea. The work is a direct intervention with the landscape of Fort Santiago,
which is a site of numerous battles and contestations throughout history,
and bodes the Philippines as “a territory of wild weeds in perpetual battle
for national identity.” RB
FORT SANTIAGO
KAWAYAN DE GUIA
(Philippines)
Lady Liberty
2015
Fiberglass, wood, various scrap materials
Kawayan de Guia first presented his replica of the Statue of
Liberty overlooking the public market in Baguio to interrogate
issues of American dominance, consumption, and communal
exchange. The current installation in Fort Santiago, utilizing
fragments of the statue along with scrap materials from
Intramuros, recasts the fall of the Americans during World War II
and the subsequent destruction of Manila. By allowing people to
vandalize the work, the artist creates a symbolic wasteland that
is constantly vulnerable to further attack and degradation. RB
MARIA CRUZ
(Philippines / Australia)
trans
2018
Wood, plastic sheets
Maria Cruz’s paintings and installations explore language,
materiality, process, repetition and mimicry. Working
predominantly in abstraction, she crafts images and texts drawn
from personal narratives, popular culture, and her immediate
environment. In this installation made specifically for the Postigo
De La Nuestra Senora Del Soledad in Fort Santiago, she creates
a form of canopy that extends from the wall of the historical
passageway to emphasize the act of solitary crossing, using a
material that is ubiquitous to the contemporary Philippine
landscape. RB
GAIL VICENTE, MARIJA VICENTE, & TANYA VILLANUEVA
(Philippines)
Masamang Loob
2018
Sound piece
Intending to fill the space with their presence, Gail Vicente,
Marija Vicente, and Tanya Villanueva whisper secrets, speak,
sing, and hum into the void. By interfering with the historical
narrative of an otherwise empty space, Masamang Loob
captures that moment in which sound can describe the tension
between the embodied and the unseen. AS
WNC PROJECTS (WAWI NAVARROZA & NICOLAS COMBARRO)
(Philippines & Spain)
VISIBLE
2018
Photo archive and site-specific installation/sculpture/bricolage made
with repurposed wood from past dismantled buildings, and botanical
samples transplanted from wild growth spurted from the walls of
Intramuros
The artistic practices of Wawi Navarroza and Nicolás Combarro
combine photography with intervention and installation, anchored on
research. Working with Escuela Taller de Filipinas, they respond to the
Manila Biennale 2018 concept of “Open City” with a site-specific work
that focuses on two presences that are very much alive despite being
often ignored: local architecture (mostly self-constructed) and urban
nature seen in spontaneous plant growth. By highlighting these two
rampant, yet often ignored, realities of the city, Navarroza and
Combarro erect a starting point for thinking about our place in it. AS
The construction of VISIBLE was made possible by the generous
support of the Embajada de España en Manila, Fibertech Industries,
and the participation of Escuela Taller de Filipinas Foundation, Inc.
CARINA EVANGELISTA
(Philippines / USA)
Mando Plaridel
2018
Video projection and plumeria oil
Carina Evangelista, an art professional who works both in the
Philippines and in the US, presents Amado V. Hernandez’s prolific
writing in Mga Ibong Mandaragit translated into Morse code through
the video work installed inside the turret. The title Mando Plaridel came
from a character from the novel that is about the guerilla movement
during the Japanese occupation. The installation interprets in layers
Hernandez’s description of a prison cell in the novel. “Ang seldang ito
ay naiilawan kung gabi ng isang maliit na bombilyang nakatago sa
isang siwang…Kaya ang silid ay lagi nang agaw-dilim maging araw o
gabi.” (This prison is lit at night with a small light bulb in a wire cage…
So, day or night, the light in this cell is perpetually in the clutches of
darkness.) CC
BONI JUAN
(Philippines)
Kaming Mga Busabos: Ang Kundiman ni Mariano Dimalanta
2018
Photographs, bottles and water
Kaming Mga Busabos (We, the Oppressed: The Ballad of Mariano
Dimalanta) is a work by PETA member and grandson of a sarsuwelista,
Boni Juan. Having been part of numerous productions of the theater
institution in Intramuros, Juan knows the landscape like the back of his
hand. The installation is anchored on his grandfather Mariano
Dimalanta’s experience of incarceration inside the dungeons of
Intramuros, being a guerilla during the Japanese occupation.
Dimalanta recounts the dungeons being submerged in water when it
rained hard. The faces are representations of the countless lives lost as
effect of wars and how fleeting history has become, subjecting it to
neglect and revisionism. CC
FORT SANTIAGO

KOLOWN MARK SALVATUS

(Philippines) (Philippines)

Parallel Weakest Link

2018 2011

Tarpaulin on wood Silver chains

KOLOWN is a Cebu-based street art conglomerate that explores
absurdity and contradictions by displaying deconstructed ideas
through the use of familiar images nestled with Internet technology.
For the biennale, the group presents to us the project Parallel, which
tackles fictional histories of Intramuros in the form of fake markers.
The multi-site installation is a response to the present day
normalization of false news and championing of irrational modes of
thinking. Manipulating current dependence on technology and the
need to be always online, we are encouraged to interact with the
works via the Internet. KOLOWN’s markers are installed in Fort
Santiago, Baluarte de San Diego, Japanese Cannon, Bahay Tsinoy
and Plaza Mexico. CC
The site-specific installation Weakest Link by intermedia artist Mark
Salvatus displays the figure of a map that can be shifted through the
movement of its viewers. First showcased at the Metropolitan Museum in
Manila and Hotel De Inmigrantes in Hasselt, Belgium in 2012, the work
illustrates the concept of borders in a tangible manner. Influenced by
popular culture, Salvatus used silver chains, commonly seen as a street
fashion accessory, to exploit its function both literally and
metaphorically. The work is a commentary on territories and how these
are taken from the peripheries delineated by the tracing and retracing of
history. CC
ANGEL VELASCO SHAW

(Philippines)
ALWIN REAMILLO
Inherited Memories
(Philippines / Australia)
2018
Bayanihan Hopping Spirit House
Single-channel video, sound
2015
Combining archival footage with narration and texts, Inherited Memories
Wood, bamboo, various materials
examines the grief caused by World War II on Filipino survivors and its
Alwin Reamillo’s practice is rooted in social sculpture, which he effect on subsequent generations to whom fragmented and repressed
demonstrates in imagery that is familiar to us. His project Bayanihan memories of torture, terror, and death are passed on. Manipulated
Hopping Spirit House was created in collaboration with Urban archival footage from the U.S. Army Signal Corps documentary, “Orders
Theatre Projects and David Hawkes, Design Consultant and Builder in From Tokyo,” is juxtaposed with texts from a book the artist wrote 32
Australia in 2015. Representing the concept of bayanihan, which years ago called “Second World War, Second Hand,” and are interspersed
involves dialogue, immersion, and action as performance, is with current footage and impressions of the state of Intramuros, while
grounded on the term’s root word bayan, which means town, nation, accompanied by layers of sound derived from attempts to record the
and community. Its third iteration that is presented here in walled city as witness and a first-person narration of actual memories of
Intramuros reflects on the same idea of a collective undertaking the war. CL
dependent on the activities done in partnership with Museong
Pambata and Sipat Lawin Ensemble that will engage the residents in
the area. The house will hop to Plaza Roma, bayanihan style, as a
byproduct of the engagements. The physical communal action of
carrying the house is a manifestation of how art can initiate
participation in social endeavors that can propel any community
forward. CC

Commissioned by Urban Theatre Projects, 2015.

JUNI SALVADOR

(Philippines / Australia)

As you Where… As it Were

2018

Discarded Clotheslines

Juni Salvador, an original “batang Maynila” manipulates his going

back and forth between Australia and the Philippines in his art
practice. His creation of art relies on realities of everyday life and his
floating status as part of the diasporic community. The installation As
you Where… As it Were symbolizes neglect, poverty, and anarchy in
the city as demonstrated by unsettling living conditions and
prevailing belief in institutions. Shipped from Sydney, the materials in
the work are well used, abused and abandoned from unknown
sources mirroring the decayed state of some parts of the city. The
creative process has productively activated the artist’s domestic and
societal roles. CC
SAN IGNACIO CHURCH / MISSION HOUSE

ROBERTO CHABET PETE JIMENEZ

(Philippines) (Philippines)

Onethingafteranother Hindi Kevlar

2011 2018

G.I. sheets, halogen lights Military helmets

Arguably the most influential Filipino artist of the postwar
generation, Roberto Chabet led a movement grounded on
conceptualism and experimentation. Using mostly ordinary and
found material, he insists on a more inclusive approach to art, a
search for the sublime not just in abstract ideas but also in the
immediacy of the quotidian and the commonplace. In this
installation, abstraction and the everyday collide, illuminating our
presence in the greater continuum of time and space. RB
Pete Jimenez creates sculptures and installations from found objects
and scrap materials. He scours and assembles disparate pieces and
infuses them with a distinctly Filipino sense of humor, partly sardonic
and at times forlorn. This installation, Hindi Kevlar (Not Kevlar), uses
vintage military helmets from different wars, which the artist has
collected for years. Heavily scratched, dented, and some even
bullet-pierced, the helmets stand for a battalion, brave and gallant but
perhaps ill-equipped, for war. RB

TEODULO PROTOMARTIR RENZ BALUYOT

(Philippines) (Philippines)

American Flag Went Down, July 4, 1946 / Philippine Flag Went Up, Frames of Reference
July 4, 1946
2017
1946
Mixed media installation
Archival inkjet print
Post-war Guerilla Skirmishes
Teodulo Protomartir, the photographer who popularized the 35mm
2017
format in the Philippines, documented the ruins of Manila after
World War II. He captured this historic transfer of power on July 4, Plexiglass with vinyl sticker and printed materials
1946, when the United States formally relinquished its sovereignty
In Retrospection 1 & 2
and recognized the independence of the Republic of the Philippines.
On that day, the Treaty of Manila was signed by High Commissioner 2016
Paul V. McNutt, representative of the United States, and Manuel
Roxas, who took his oath as the President of the Philippines. RB Oil on chalkboard

Smoke

RICK ROCAMORA 2017

(Philippines / USA) Ammo box with hologram

Filipino World War II Soldiers: America’s Second-Class Veterans Zero

1990 – 2006 2017

Silver gelatin prints Plexiglass airplane wing mounted against antique mirror

Rick Rocamora spent sixteen years documenting the difficult yet
dignified lives of Filipino veterans in the United States. These brave
Filipino men who fought alongside the American and Allied forces
during World War II were promised a soldier’s due: veterans’ benefits
and pensions in acknowledgment of their critical role in the U.S.
victory in the Pacific. Many already died waiting for that promise.
Those who are still alive continue their fight for equity, proudly
clutching on to their medals and uniforms, while living in poverty
and obscurity in the U.S. RB
Marston Matting
2017
Rusted metal screen
Renz Baluyot has often used rust in many of his works to describe the
tension between a past hinged upon violence and destruction, and a
present built upon deterioration and decay. The works in this space
reflect upon an encounter while the artist was on residency in Japan,
when a Japanese man knelt at his feet and begged forgiveness for the
atrocities committed by the Japanese military in the Philippines during
the Second World War. Using diverse media from multiple timeframes,
Baluyot reflects on this period, intervening with historical artifacts and
contemporary materials by creating a conversation between them. AS
SAN IGNACIO CHURCH / MISSION HOUSE

JASON DY, SJ KITTY KABURO

(Philippines) (Philippines)

Procesion los Camareros (Procession of the Caretakers) Ripples on the fabric of

2018 2018

Acrylic lightboxes, series of 15 Single-channel video on fabric

In Procesion los Camareros, Fr. Jason Dy engages three interlocking
contexts: the history of the San Ignacio Church (destroyed in 1945
during the Battle of Manila), the Marian Procession which continues
to attract massive crowds, and finally, the walled-city’s pedicab
system. Working in collaboration with 15 pedicab drivers working and
living in Intramuros, Fr. Dy engages this largely informal sector in
discussions about faith, personal histories, and their collective
situation as both drivers and art and culture guides. The resulting
lightboxes document a collection of objects that impart these stories,
while referencing the San Ignacio Church as the first church in
Intramuros to be lit by electrica luz or electric lights. AS
Kitty Kaburo works with ephemeral materials, creating pieces that rarely,
if ever, hold their shape. She often uses light and water to create
psychedelic visions of what could be the beginning or the end of an
imagined universe. Yet, it is by using light and water that Kaburo is able
to speak of the eternal in the ephemeral. Ripples in the fabric of is
Kaburo’s attempt at capturing the chaos of war. She uses a length of
fabric as a tactile reference to the “Open City” banners that hung over
the city of Manila: and a means of accessing an event she was unable to
witness, yet continues to live on, while being distorted by the ripples in
the collective memory. AS

The production of Fr. Jason Dy, SJ’s work was supported by Smart
ARVIN NOGUERAS
Communications, Inc.
(Philippines)

Systematic Nature and Isolated Occurrences

TAD ERMITAÑO
2018
(Philippines)
Sound piece
Bell
Arvin Nogueras (who also goes by the name Caliph8) experiments with
2011
how sound can shift the ambience of a space. In Systematic Nature and
Sound installation Isolated Occurences, he uses found recordings of the sounds made by
an assortment of weapons used throughout Philippine history. By doing
Considered to be one of the pioneers of sound art in the Philippines,
so, Nogueras uses an element that is atmospheric to describe the
Tad Ermitaño’s artistic practice heavily examines the phenomena
dynamics between oppression and democracy, or how (to loosely
surrounding humanity’s relationship with technology. He created Bell
paraphrase the critic and historian, Walter Benjamin) every document of
from roofing steel, cabling, and turnbuckles - common building
civilization is also a document of barbarism. For artists working with
materials that allow viewers to freely interact with the work. Appearing
digital media, Systematic Nature… is Nogueras’s way of showing how
to float in thin air as a massive yet hollow structure, the piece evokes
technology is (to put it bluntly) weaponized. AS
the spiritual while maintaining links to the modern and industrial. AS

LUIGI SINGSON
HIKARU FUJII
(Philippines)
(Japan)
Fragmented Consciousness
Record of the Bombing
2018
2016
Plaster casts
Mixed media installation
Face Value
Hikaru Fujii is an artist and filmmaker who often uses archive
materials to reinterpret social events and how they are inscribed 2015
within history, memory, and human relationships. His output
3-channel video
encompasses not only installations and video, but also workshops,
documentaries, and writing and directing for theater and film. Record
of the Bombing, responds to the aborted plans to construct an
Across a variety of media, Luigi Singson is an artist who unravels what we
exhibition primarily devoted to the Second World War, but also about
are taught about national history. Face Value takes two potent images
Japan’s role as aggressor and instigator of countless war atrocities.
from the overlapping periods of the American and Japanese
By installing a space voided of objects, Fujii sheds light on the
occupations in the Philippines, juxtaposing the Rizal monument with a
institutional mechanisms - such as displays and their accompanying
spinning one centavo coin, dated 1944. Fragmented Consciousness
literature - that form modern consciousness. AS
interrogates the notion of history as the consciousness of a nation,
inverting historical markers of various sites, and casting them in bright
white plaster as a way of embedding the often ignored or unquestioned
The installation of Hikaru Fujii’s Record of the Bombing was made
purity of our monuments and markers. AS
possible through a generous grant from the Japan Foundation
Manila Office.
SAN IGNACIO CHURCH / MISSION HOUSE
HENRI VAN NOORDENBURG
(Netherlands/Australia)
Waterline
2014-2018
Carved photographic prints
In Waterline (2018), a series created specifically for the Manila
Biennale, Dutch artist Henri Van Noordenburg explores notions of
conflict wrought not only by political upheaval, but through
environmental disasters. The lovely surfaces upon which Van
Noordenburg carves these difficult narratives serve to highlight the
contradictions between waxing nostalgic and the burden of history –
a burden that is no doubt familiar to the walled city of Intramuros,
and its own embedded memories of colonialism and warfare. AS
ELNORA EBILLO
(Philippines)
WatAwat
2018
Video projection on textile
Documentarian of sociopolitical and environmental issues, Elnora
Ebillo presents in the installation WatAwat a video projection on
textile of a dramatization representing forbearance, courage, and
tenacity of women. Inspired by Tula ni Oriang (1898) by Gregoria de
Jesus, the work highlights the role of women in the unfolding history
of nation building towards a just and egalitarian society. Having been
a former member of women’s collectives, Ebillo culls from her past
involvements to bring back the feminine in her work. As a director of
video productions, her interest in narratives is revealed through her
presentation of the present moment that is marked by resistance led
by women that threaten our freedom, democracy, and sovereignty. CC
Performers: Aimee Santos-Lyons, Claudine Najera, Iyara Santos-Lyons;
Cinematography: Vircent Labrador; Production Team: Boni Juan and
Carmelo Pecadizo
JOHN TORRES
(Philippines)
3 Short Films: “After Nonoy Estarte, a certain Orpheus, and those
flowers in Dahilayan that accompanied this other sense they told me
about” (10:07 mins); “Study on Lukas in Lukas The Strange” (4:18); “How
he died is controversial and completely memed” (8:01).
2103 – 2017
Digital Video, Color, Sound
John Torres’ films are wrought with poetic sensibility. His fragmented,
associative, and idiosyncratic cinematic syntax establishes him as
one of the most innovative filmmakers in the Philippines. The three
short films highlight Torres’ unique vision and his penchant for
crafting films with a sense of history and place, combined with an ear
for the intricacies of language presented through off-screen
narrations and on-screen texts. Inspired by true events, he fuses the
historic with the banality of memory and personal longings, as
exemplified in these three films: whether it is about a certain town
whose own folklore coincides with a commoner’s own tales; found and
archival footage that serve as landscape for boyhood memories; or
an isolated tribe documented on their last memorial, these all speak
of tales mined through the richness of both local and personal
histories. CL
JET MELENCIO
(Canada / Philippines)
Gupit Militar (Military Haircut)
2018
Performance, Polaroid photographs
As a re-enactment of the drafting of young men whose service were
sought during World War II when the Japanese invaded Manila, Jet
Melencio offers live haircut sessions to volunteers—civilians, who are
asked to sport the standard military haircut of that era. The artist
associates the struggle of the past with the present, the ‘Dark Times’
when a shroud of terror once loomed over the city. Placed in the
present context and within the stage of the Biennale, this ‘standardized
haircut’ becomes an act of resistance—to pose for war when there is
really no war to speak of, except the struggle that continues inherited
from a colonial past and the ever-present effects of imperialism and
dictatorship. CL
JET MELENCIO
(Canada/Philippines)
Enemy Broadcast
2018
3-channel video, with broadcast material sourced from various Spanish,
American and Japanese mainland TV stations
Presented as competing entities, the trio of broadcasts from different
foreign stations serves as notice to our colonial past and the continued
effects of their vying presence. Recorded programs from Spanish,
American, and Japanese television make up for a pastiche of these
imperial forces guised in the forms of popular culture and invasive
technologies—as the new soft power that continue to mold
consciousness and desire. As a critique to the hegemony that
mainstream entertainment deploys, Jet Melencio’s Enemy Broadcast
provides insight to the confounding nature of their influence which
through their competing voices provide tension rather than
assimilation, confusion rather than coherence, as a reflection on the
nation’s history that went through the hands of contending forces,
which left the city grappling for identity. CL
GERARDO TAN
(Philippines)
Sear to Open
2018
Motion-sensor lights, paint, wood, found rubble
The sinister implications of the notion of ‘blinding light’ serve as an
experiential anomaly in Gerardo Tan’s Sear To Open, undermining the
perceived stability of the visual and sensorial. Through a constructed
tunnel, darkness ensues until the presence of a willing subject enters
and triggers a quick flash of light which, instead of illuminating, induces
a feeling of dread—echoing the assimilated imageries of the Nagasaki
and Hiroshima atom bombs which seared and reduced humans into
what the artist refers to as ‘negative shadows.’ CL
SAN IGNACIO CHURCH / MISSION HOUSE SAN IGNACIO CHURCH / MISSION HOUSE

MM YU LOST FRAMES: MANILA BIENNALE

(Philippines) (Philippines)

In Transit Lost Frames features video and film from artists whose works occupy
the margins or interstices across the vast field of moving images. From
2015
its origins inside a small screening room in Cubao, Lost Frames has
Single-channel video gathered more than 50 filmmakers, animators, designers, and visual
artists from regular screenings held since 2015. Each screening
In photographing the makeshift homes that hound the streets of
includes talks by artists and an open forum with the viewers as well as
Manila, Mm Yu employs the idea of the tableau. She picks out the
other artists/filmmakers. This format of presenting and discussing the
opposite part of the sidewalk as her vantage point, assuming the
works opens up a more enriching viewing experience, which is geared
role of an observer who has completely surrendered her attention
towards developing a community where anyone—whether amateur or
against the diorama in front of her. The image becomes part
professional, student or artist—can participate and put forward
documentation and part careful compositions, whose gap she
artistic or practical concerns. From its initial attempts to future regular
bridges through her photographs. The different objects of these
screenings, Lost Frames aims to adhere to this simple format, which is
makeshift homes appear inside the frame as cohesive parts,
discovery through viewing, and understanding through discussions.
eliminating any disjunction that their sudden intervention might
As part of the first Manila Biennale, Lost Frames adopts the idea of
cause: wooden carts are parked motionless as if they were
‘Open City’, which coincides with the Biennale’s aim to explore the city’s
permanent fixtures along the street, while the peculiarities found in
history and identity through art. CL
the picture are evened out by the somberness of the situation, as it
touches briefly on the outcome of deprivation from one of human’s Participating artists: Pablo Biglang-awa, Glen Cruz, Miguel Lope
basic needs. CL Inumerable, Arvin Kadiboy, Jim Lumbera, Neo Maestro, Manny
Montelibano, Kaloy Olavides, Jippy Pascua, Mariah Reodica, Gerome
Soriano, Ivan Zalmagi, The Weather Bureau, and Alice & Lucinda.
VIC BALANON

(Philippines)

Chimera

2016

Three-channel video, sound

Using hyperlapse technique in animating images of the city, Vic

Balanon explores the idea of place as the juxtaposition of natural
ecologies, built environment, and their interconnection with one’s
own personal space. Gathering successions of photographs of the
city and the artist’s own studio, their combination through
symmetrical and kaleidoscopic compositions reframes the city as
unfamiliar territory—one that caters to illusion rather than living
space, one that undermines the notion of city as a permanent
structure. Chimera, as an amalgamation of manipulated and
perfected cityscapes, is projected as symphony that evokes
BIENNALE LOUNGE
possibilities of re-imagination; of convergence with the personal. CL

CATHERINE SARAH YOUNG

GARY-ROSS PASTRANA
(Philippines)
Untitled (Groupings)
2017
Old computers, digital device, video
Known for exploring the inherent properties of objects to present
new ideas in art, Gary-Ross Pastrana turns his attention to the
relations we develop with our personal devices that have become
next to none when it comes to exemplifying our dependency on
machines. Computers, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices that
belonged to the artist himself, and at some point became
instruments to his own productivity, are arranged together to
present a culminating narrative depicting one’s artistic process. The
different forms of personal devices can be seen as reiterations of a
recurring object which is the screen, where different instances of our
personalities, histories, and agendas were transmitted as images.
Pastrana looks into this relationship between objects as something
which has been determined chronologically, while asserting that our
history as people is determined by the ever-changing state of
technology. CL
(Philippines)
An Olfactory Portrait of the Amazon Rainforest
2016
Bottled Scents
The Sewer Soaperie
2016
Soap in jars (palm oil, used cooking oil, oil recovered from sewers)
Catherine Sarah Young mobilizes the mundanity of everyday objects
to speak of what we stand to lose at a time of reckless consumption
and ongoing environmental disaster. An Olfactory Portrait of the
Amazon Rainforest attempts to capture the memory of one of the
world’s most vulnerable areas, by trapping it in bottles as a series of
scents. The Sewer Soaperie converts food waste into cleanser by
turning oil used at different stages of the fast food industry into soaps
– lovely objects that guests are welcome to use only if they dare. AS
BALUARTE DE SAN DIEGO
ZEUS BASCON
(Philippines)
Dead Masks
2014 - 2018
Acrylic and various materials on tarpaulin
Dead Masks was first presented as a column at the Koganecho Bazaar
2014 in Yokohama, Japan as part of Zeus Bascon’s residency project The
Cave. The installation in Baluarte de San Diego takes the shape of a
tower, conversing directly to the ace-of-spades bastion architecture and
standing as a memorial. Serving as portals for trade and military
activities, both locations of Yokohama and Manila are backdrops of the
work that unravel a translation of commemoration of war. It acts as a
totem encouraging the return of the mystic in this site of local history. CC
MIDEO CRUZ
(Philippines)
Golgotha
2010-2018
Found objects, resin, wood, metal
Golgotha is a collection of sculptural works made from industrial excess.
Mideo Cruz started the series in 2010 and considers it as a continuing
process as its installation adapts to the provided space. This version in
Baluarte de San Diego is the largest staging of the work as it responds to
the hidden histories within the walls of the chamber. Formed through the
combination of materials that are by-products of capitalism and
globalization, Golgotha retells an archetypical biblical story. It tackles
similar tales of atonement, sacrifices and achievements by both the losers
and the victors. CC
ADVISORY: This installation includes sensitive content and may not be
suitable for all audiences. Viewer discretion advised.
PLAZA DE ROMA
AIGARS BIKSE
(Latvia)
Red Slide
2012
Polyurethane
The work Red Slide by Latvian artist Aigars Bikse was created in 2012 for
Rauma Biennial Balticum, Finland under the theme of human nature,
focusing on the essence of the human mind. The interactive sculpture is
a working slide that depicts a wounded soldier. Made in Soviet
monument style, Bikse represents in this figure both the aggressor and
protector reflecting his interest in social problems of formation of and
struggle between identities. When in use, the contrast between the
innocence of the users of the interactive sculpture and what the work
symbolizes is brought to the fore. CC
Red Slide is transported to the Philippines through the generous
support from the Latvian Ministry of Culture and Latvian Center for
Contemporary Art.
CARINA EVANGELISTA
(Philippines / USA)
Liwayway ng Kalayaan
2018
Acrylic on canvas
Sa Ngalan ng Ama
2018
Digital print on tarpaulin
in Liwayway ng Kalayaan (The Dawn of Freedom), Carina Evangelista
creates for us a nostalgic viewing through the rendering of the work in
the traditional style of hand-painted billboards. Challenging our notion
of patriotism and nationalism, she commissioned stage actor and scene
painter Will Casero to paint the billboard based on an advertisement in
an issue of Liwayway magazine sourced from Pinoy Kollektor. The ads
were for the 1944 film The Dawn of Freedom by Gerardo de Leon and
Yutaka Abe, bringing into light discussions that surrounded the making
and impetus of the Japanese propaganda film. Sa Ngalan ng Ama (In
the Name of the Father) on the other hand, is a digital composite of stills
from the film and attempts to speak to us through a familiar gesture
that masks the underlying questions on human faults both in the past
and present. CC