Mideo M. Cruz is an interdisciplinary artist,
who combines painting, sculpture, installation, performance and activism.
Stemming from deep doubts, artwork of Cruz creates a provocative statement
about the social structure. This interview explores collectivism in his artist
practice. (Interviewed on November 22, 2013, in Makati City, Philippines,
Interviewer: Mayumi Hirano)
UGATLahi Artist Collective was formed in 1992, when you were still
an art student majoring in painting at University of Santo Thomas. How did it
all begin?
We were young activists and we learned the
value of the creatives in nurturing our ranks and expressing our thoughts. We
wanted to understand more about life, bothered by existentialist dilemma to search
the meaning of our existence and to see real things that were happening in
contrast from the sanitized declarations of the existing institution. With a group
of student activists/artists, we decided to establish a cultural group. We
named it “Ugnayan at Galian ng mga Artistang Tanod ng Lahi” which later become “UGATLahi
Artist Collective.” It started in a coffee shop in Malate on July 1992 after
attending an affair in CCP. It then followed with a series of meetings and
consultations in which during the process some suggested that we should be part
of the Central Student Council Cultural Arm so we can have easy access to the
school facilities in executing our programs. After then we started to formally
launch activities such as workshops, poetry readings, symposia, collaborations
among others. I remember one of our favorite descriptions of the aesthetic is
as an analogy to cooking, how you put the ingredients to satisfy your taste and
how your taste is appreciated by the others. Amidst the flood of discourses
among us the four corners of the pontifical school seems not enough for our craving
for learning and exploring more. In 1995 we decide to re-group outside the
walls of the university.
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| Photo courtesy Mideo M. Cruz |
From the beginning, did you work with the idea of effigy making
for the collective?
Effigy comes later with the group as a form
of collaboration with various advocacy groups and exploration on various media.
The first attempt was made in 1998. It was collaboration with the Children
Rehabilitation Center on the issue of militarization in Quezon Province. To be
more effective in expressing the people’s sentiments, we decided to make something
that people can move and choreograph. We thought of the dragon dance tradition,
and it ended up with two giant movable cow effigies. The next one was
collaboration with the workers represented by Kilusan Mayo Uno (May One
Movement) where we do more than life size moving monuments of the workers traditionally
called “higantes” (giants) dancing along with the people marching up to
Liwasang Bonifacio (Bonifacio Park) on May 1, 1999 in which later the “monuments/higantes”
were set up to the stage.
Effigy making is a living tradition in the
protest movement. In revolutionizing this tradition we tried to explore more,
making newer innovations after each effigy. Later you will see effigies blowing
fires, burning with fireworks, moving parts/animatronics, interacting with
people and others.
What makes the effigies more interesting is actually
the unseen and unheard stories from the countless debates before executing the
actual piece. Never-ending discussion on the effectivity in transcending the
message, we were always caught in between aesthetics and propaganda,
popular/familiar images versus introduction of newer icons/meanings. Sometimes
we bring the arguments in our home extending it trough the telephone lines
since the Internet is not yet popular during those time.
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| Photo courtesy Mideo M. Cruz |
After all the work, you burn the effigy. The act of burning
intensifies the performance in a symbolic way.
Most of the time you can’t stop the people’s disappointment
to the government, so they turn their sentiments and energies into destroying
the effigies. But burning is usually part of the whole conduct. There are also
times that there is no burning so we usually recycle it to innovate the
material to newer designs. During/after the burning some people will talk to us
with disappointment about how the effigy will/had end(ed). The makers are used
to it. We did it as an ephemeral display of people’s collective sentiments. And
the progression, starting from the concept building to the last flame and the
ashes, is part of the whole creative process. Some of the remaining monuments
are the photographs and stories of people who experienced and took part in the
process. But actually I have one secret. I’m still keeping a piece of residue
from the burnt “Erapzilla”, which was also exhibited before in the artist-run
space, Surrounded by Water. It is the biggest effigy ever made in the history
of Philippines protest scene.
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| Photo courtesy Mideo M. Cruz |
I guess artists have to be smart and stay away from getting into
trouble with the police in order to accomplish the performance and successfully
convey the message to the mass.
On the issue of security, artist may not be so
different from the others. However, there might be an advantage in strategies
with their application of creativity. I personally experience threatening
situations and it is not easy to get away from it. Complex issues are at hand
and it is not only about yourself. The hard part is when some others can easily
become involved, specially harassment to members of your immediate family.
In micro situations we have concrete
experiences one memorable event for UGATLahi is the Reclining Erap on July 24,
2000, during the State of the Nation Address of former President Joseph
Estrada. Upon arrival in the converging area where we were about to set up a
big wooden cut out painting on an eighteen wheeler truck, which would also
serve as the stage for the rally, the police came and secured our parameters. They
also impounded the truck. We were able to get out some of our things from the
truck but the police kept chasing us and tried to grab the big wood cut out
painting of the reclining president. Luckily some members of the media came and
the police slowed down a bit to avoid the TV cameras to catch them harassing us.
Time was running out. The march was cancelled, so people came to the main
protest site instead. We were stuck with a bunch of truncheon wielding police ahead
of us. What we did was with the help of some concerned members from the nearby
private village who approached us, we were able to sneak in to the main site by
passing trough their subdivision. And the next step was to set up, minus a lot
of materials that was taken away by the police. Instead of the eighteen-wheeler
truck we set it up on top of a jeepney. In situation like this, a lot of things
can happen and as an artist a lot of creativity is waiting to manifest.
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| Photo courtesy Mideo M. Cruz |
You eventually left the collective.
Yes, finally after working with the
collective for more than a decade, I started to keep distance to focus and
explore into other things. I made a short hibernation to where everything
started, my hometown. That’s where several decades ago inspired by “Artist
Club” my cousin organization during his college days in Central Luzon State
University (CLSU), I tried to simulate it as a cultural group in my secondary
school and named it Kulay Kabataan.
During my comeback I tried to start again my
exploration on the canvas and other media. I worked mostly on the immediate inspiration
and materials that are available in the backyard thus “poleteismo” was among
the works I was able to conceived. A bit later “neworldisorder” was born, an
international network of artists who illustrate and simulate neo liberalism. With
the expansion of the Internet, we got easier access to communication. We are
able to do international based projects and created simultaneous events,
interaction and intervention and physically collaborated in various media.
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| Untitled, 2014 |
Then in early 2000s, you started to travel abroad and show more
performance-oriented works.
I do performative projects since the early
years of UGATLahi, specially during our self-organized multi media events. This
further developed in protest action, where I would usually do my participation creatively.
In 2001, I was invited to do several projects in the first Philippine
International Performance Art Festival (PIPAF). During the festival I was
introduced to several artists-organizers and after they saw my work, they
became interested in inviting me to their respective festivals. Although not
all of my foreign travels are action art related but my invitations outside the
country started here. I first show my work to an international audience in
Japan in 2002, and then the history follows. Upon attending one festival
another organizer would be interested in my work and invite me to their
respective festival. The network grew alongside with the increase use of the Internet,
like-minded artists started to meet each other and work together. In parallel
neworldisorder also started to grew and expand its network. Later some people would
invite or suggest me to artists residencies and international exhibitions.
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| Devour, New World Disorder, 2006 |
You were also one of the early members of TUTOK Artist Collective?
TUTOK grew out from several productive
conversations in 2005 in Manny Garibay’s Sambalikhaan studio. He used to invite
us to eat, drink, talk and brew something. One of his proposal was to do
something about the growing cases of dessaparacidos (forced disappearances) and
extra judicial killings wherein more than a thousand activists became victims. I
myself experience harassment when the military came to my home looking for me. One
idea that came out from the meeting was a series of exhibition, and then the term
“Tutok” emerged. Tutok hold several layers of meaning. It can mean a threat and
it can also mean to focus. The latter translation will be reinforced later by
attaching another word to tutok, which serve as the name in every project.
Finally in 2006 a general planning was
scheduled in Dr. Cuanang summer residence in Tagaytay, where we discussed to
have fund raising activity and a program consisting of several exhibitions.
Several individuals we invited to the meeting took part in the next major
projects and few more willing individuals were invited to work with us. I was tasked
to be a curator to a certain exhibition which was later tagged as tutokPerspektiba
and which also became a touring exhibition in various major Universities in
Manila. The program had ended but we continue to do project initiatives under
the banner of Tutok. The last project I did was the Tutok/2talk Creative Convergence
in 2008, a multi media festival in sambalikhaan grounds.
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| Photo courtesy Mideo M. Cruz |
Today, you also oversee Kanto Artist Run Space. How did it start?
Do you curate shows for the space?
In 2011, filmmaker Onin Tagaro introduced me
to a Japanese film maker Toshi Uriu. They asked me to help start running an
alternative space for artists, an extension of a production house, which intended
to established an Internet TV channel. We talked and we agreed to establish
Kanto, a community space, an alternative to the usual commercial gallery, where
profit is more important than interaction. We want no pretension. The space is
an exploratory venue where people (artists or not) do cultural exchanges. We welcome
various groups and talented individuals from different subcultures to meet,
discuss and possibly collaborate. We encourage them to take the initiative and
the space will cater their experiments and parties.
I do personal projects with the space at
times although we intend to be more Aristotelian midwifes, so we encourage that
the initiative to be born within the community. I believe that a nuclear family
was already established with people in various media/discplines who belong to
various subcultures. So the curatorial perspective here is not a predetermined
future but a continuous progress of historical development, subject to all the
living characters involved in the process. The space became a hub, not just a
business space for tangible things but an interactive venue for people
exchanges.
Kanto is a counter culture in its own geographical
location. It is an arena of experiments not only for material but importantly for
none material interactions.
About 10 years ago, there were more artist-run spaces in Manila
that played important roles in facilitating experiments and nurturing artist
communities. Today, I see a boom of commercial galleries in Manila instead.
Alternative spaces keep trying to exist
despite the economic difficulties. It is commendable that they are able to
stand up among the growing numbers of commercial galleries. Some are even
trying to ignore the mainstream creative industry and nurture their own
subculture. But despite their existence there is still a big absence of
critical discourses. It is drowned in the flood of commercial interest. Money
promotes creative production but the repercussion is the effect in motivation
of the aesthetic progression. Profit remains the main culprit of dialectical
development, where even critical actions are mostly coopted. The common rule is
the establishment always disrupts changes and preserves the existing norms. It freezes
rather than promotes debates; this is how the society works most of the time. Internationalism
is very prevalent. The economic cloning “Californication” reflects well to the
creative industry. Familiarization sells. We see a lot of copies, not only works
that are very convenient to the market, but copy of the market methodology in itself,
the law of supply and demand, the strategy of hoarding and selling art
commodities, and recently the power of the auction market. Uniqueness of the
locality is somehow lost in the highway of neo liberalism. By the power of
mainstream media, the control of images should be similar and familiar with
each other, visual realization of doublespeak. Commercial success stories remain
one of the main obstacles to focus on the empirical stimulus brought by the
immediate environment. It also motivates to produce copies of the familiar. There
are always arguments with originality and locality but the ingenuity of
available resources always give a genuine representation. The situation deletes
the existing empirical data but rather the equilibrium was replaced by man-made
stories thus creating a matrix of legendary tales. Critical reviews seem things
of the past and the so-called ethical discourses became a new commodity. The
arena for intellectual discourses is running out, but of course there always several
exceptions. There are individuals, groups, spaces who are still trying to swim
against the tide whenever they can get the real chances.
Now I’m back again from my beginning, my
comfort zone, 89 kilometers away from Manila, trying to avoid the influence of
the commercial aspect of the industry. While doing backyard gardening with my
fully grown organic herbs, I’m trying to restore my grandfather’s old rice
storage called bangan. I’m transforming it to a project space. We had just finished
the first ArtCampLaboratory last summer where around 300 individuals, young and
old, participated. Around 100 people camp out for three days and despite the
summer heat we were able to introduce basic creative workshop for children and
adults. This can be a good introduction to the community that another arena for
interaction is brewing. My long time
vision of community creative interactions is slowly starting and taking shape.
We are now trying to explore the possibilities of getting enough funds to run
the projects. We aim to have more exchanges in the near future, planning to
develop artist residency that can be available for two seasons.
Aside from envisioning these social projects,
I’m now preoccupied doing objects from the bulk of materials I gathered around
the community. Already accumulated trough the years, some of the collections
dating back to my elementary days. With the materials, space and time I have
now no reason not to contemplate on doing major projects again. Going back to
my tons of unfinished projects in a contrasting environment against the
confined and congested spaces of the city. Major works are on the way. It might
take time to complete but it is starting.
Mideo M. Cruz
is an active cross-disciplinary artist-organizer
based in Southeast Asia. His works shows strong allegorical images of the
social order. In 2011 he became controversial when his installation
“Poleteismo” in Cultural Center of the Philippines was strongly objected by the
Catholic Church which ended up in exorcism rituals and a Senate hearing. Among
his merits is the 2003 Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists
Award, the 2003 Sungduan Grant and the 2006 Ateneo Art Award.
© Mideo M. Cruz and Mayumi Hirano