This interview was taken while Kawayan de Guia and Nona Garcia
were touring me in Baguio in their van, from Ben Cab Museum, Tam-Awan to
Katipunan Restaurant, where we shared drinks and had a karaoke session.
(December 7, 2013 in Baguio City, Philippines, interviewer:
Mayumi Hirano)
So now we
are in Tam-Awan Village.
Yeah,
Tam-Awan was started by BenCab and developed by other artists. I think it
started in mid ‘90s, around ‘95, ‘96. It started very casual. Many of the art
spaces start very organic. You know that’s how many artist run spaces grew. It
develops out of conversations among the guys hanging out together.
When the space is more and more developed, you get new headaches. You have to
find a way to survive by renting the space, organizing the program, managing
people etc.
You also
run some spaces. Vocas is one of them. Are you also suffering the headaches
from managing the space?
I don’t run
it any more. The space opened about 5 years ago. It also started very casual
but now it has established. I organized shows there for 3 to 4 years, and I got
tired. Just imagine I would prepare everything for the opening and the next morning I have
to mop the floor even having a hung over. Shit! So I resigned. Today, it's a vegetarian restaurant with a clean comfort room. Now we have another
space, because we wanted a more relaxed place for us to hang out.
What's
the name of the new space?
What I heard
is Ili-likha. I have nothing to do with it, but I go there. It's my brothers',
father's and other people’s community.
Going
back to your early days, did you study in Baguio or Manila?
In Laguna. I
only have a high school diploma. Makiling is a national high school for art
(Philippine High school for the Arts). It's a boarding school, so you go home
every weekend.
I heard
that the school is quite special. It’s far from the city, and it’s in an isolated
environment from the rest of the world. How was your experience there?
Nona: When I went there, I was 11 years old. We
have classmates from Mindanao, or the southern Philippines and all the way up
to the north. They are practicing different things. So at early age you
understand something.
Kawayan: When students come out from the school,
they think they are the best. It's a kind of brainwash, or an elitist mindset.
After
finishing up high school, did you return to Baguio?
No, I was in
Manila and I worked with Agnes Arellano. I lived in her house for two years.
She would tell me what to do at the same time I learnt different techniques and
her philosophy.
Then I
traveled to Nepal, Japan and Thailand. I was still young. In Japan, I stayed in
a temple in Saitama. I was very much interested in Buddhism, because of the
influence of Agnes. I was very angry at the world at that time. We were all
punk. We were really angry because we went through such a frustrating time in
school. You know it’s a sort of seeking yourself stuff.
After being
uprooted for 8 years from Baguio, I didn’t know anyone anymore here. All of my
friends were in Manila. So I had to start from scratch.
But you
still came back to Baguio. How did you start again?
Yeah, it’s
still my home. I love my grandmother, who was still alive at that time. I
stayed with my 98 year-old grandmother. She was almost like my mom. She was a
mayor, and beautiful, strong woman. She became the first female mayor in Asia
in 1946.
I got back
into the art community by smoking a joint. And then everyone is happy and you
have an exhibition. There was the Baguio Arts Guild once upon a time. I grew up
with this community. So I witnessed it. It’s a beautiful cultural organism.
Baguio is very interesting, and historically amazing. That's what I want to
share with others.
And you
started to organize AX(is) as the continuation of the old Baguio Arts Festival?
How did it all begin?
We started
with very minimum budget. We wanted to make it as a big celebration. The goal
of axis is to connect artists, like I know Mark Salvatus, and I know Nona
Garcia, but apparently Nona Garcia and Mark Salvatus don’t know each other.
Sometimes if you are away from your home ground, you have easier time to meet
new people and make friends. So we thought of throwing a party and invite our
friends. The party should present art, and we can talk about it. We wanted to
involve a dynamics of people not only “artists” but also the local artists, who
are not usually considered as artists, like wood carvers. You know, just
imagine people from different practices sit side by side, then they can learn
from each other. This is how we started.
I invited
most celebrated artists from Manila and put them in the restaurant, Katipunan,
which we will go next. We tried to break the stereotype of the audience who go
to art exhibitions. Art should be for everyone. Dex Fernandez made a mural
there, the Garapata man.
The choice
of Katipunan is like a cliché. Cafe by the Ruins was frequented by the Baguio
Arts Guild people before they started the guild. It was just ruins before it
turned into a café. Tam-Awan is the same, and they made bamboo huts and then
they became a popular spot for visitors from Manila. Local people don’t go
there often.
(Arrived
in Katipunan.) This is the hung out of the artists. It’s a classical
restaurant.
This is the
boss, Paolo- father, prince of Katipunan. He is the most frustrated artist.
That's why he offered this place for us just to do something.
This place
feels like the old Baguio. It is the last remaining unsanitized place. Baguio
is becoming more like a Disneyland, and this is the last place where ordinary
people from the land - vegetable farmers and gold miners come.
The root
word of katipunan is tipon, meaning to gather. Ka tipunan means we all come
together. Actually right here at this table in this moment, in a very informal
manner, is the point of discourse to share all the problems of whatever. Maybe the
catalyst is drinking and dog meat.
Eating dog
meat became illegal all the sudden, but I’m not questioning about the dog meat
itself. Paolo is not questioning the dog meat either. We are arguing about the
vital importance of cultural heritage. Before dogs, there are many other things
being sacrificed. Jollibee is one cause. SM is another cause.
About the
dog meat, Paolo can tell you a story like a young girl came here to look for
dog meat, because her old grandpa is going to die. All he wants to taste is the
dog. Actually it is a part of our culture, tradition. Before sacrificing a dog
was to give an offer to the ancestors especially in the time of tragedy or
sickness. What happened was new restaurants started to serve dog meat and it
became commercial. Katipunan didn’t advertise that they serve dog meat on
newspaper or radio. There is a joke. How can this be commercial? Where is the
commercial thing? Paolo doesn’t even encourage anyone to come and eat at his
restaurant.
You can see
how many starving dogs out there. I hate to say this and I know it's really a
sketchy subject, but it is the reality. We have to talk about it. The problem
is that we are never given a proper opportunity to discuss about what's right
and what's wrong. They make a law without hearing people’s voices.
What are
the activities held here at Katipunan during the AX(is)?
It's a very
messy story. We popularized all abandoned places, which were really many
places. Some artists were giving workshops, also doing really good hip-hop music.
Just imagine that I was running around in the middle of organizing, Paolo was
taking care of artists’ workshops. So many things were happening all at once.
An uncountable number of visitors came everyday. The police began following us,
trying to find an excuse to stop the event. We got into troubles because of them
for no reason. We were innocent, but they even took out guns in front of the children
who were in the event .
This compelled
me to gather all the artists in Baguio to curve the oldest pine tree in the
city. It's a 400-year-old pine tree, which had died. We always go to this
special pine tree. What we usually do is to go there make fire and do ritual,
drink and talk. This is the Baguio style. So we curved this tree and made a
totem pole to say that we are people of the community. We felt the need to make
a monument to protect us. That was the dark side of such a public festival.
Spirituality
seems to be a central idea that artists in Baguio share. Art does not only
exist in the museum or artist studio. It can intervene into the everyday life.
I believe this was the philosophy of BAG. What do you think was the positive
effect of AX(is)?
Beautiful
thing was that people came everyday to help make a huge tent by sewing unused
T-shirts together, which was presented in the park. Through this process,
networks were created. It created a kind of collective understanding about art.
Even a person who sells peanuts, or even the school children recognize us as
“artists”. This morning I was literally called as artists by a student of grade
five. Even if they don't understand what art history is, they regularly see
what we do so they start to wonder. Art is not only something beautiful or not
only about drawing and painting.
Baguio is a
university town. It has nine universities. We really tried to get the kids
involved. Some of our friends who teach at universities are really frustrated
because school is separated from the actual art community. Even when Baguio
Arts Guild was active, the situation was the same. Together with my friends, we
try to open up by running workshops, but the problem is about 80% of the kids
are not from here so they don’t care about Baguio.
What’s
the future plan for AX(is)?
We are
trying to finish the book by February. Languages spoken in this place and in
the village 15 km away are different. It’s incredible. You know the Philippines
has 73 languages, not dialects. It is crazy. This is what we want to bring out
in the book that you have to travel.
(Starting
of Karaoke session) Do
you know the song Ang Himig Natin? Do you know the story behind the song?
No.
A man was
going to be killed. He was threatened by a gunpoint. You better sober up
motherfucker. So he went to the bathroom and took a shit. He composed this song
secretly in the toilet. It was during the Marcos time. It is kind of like
Imagine by John Lennon. But this song was written ten years before Imagine was
made, and he did it while taking shit.
x
Kawayan de
Guia was Born 1979 in Baguio, Luzon, Philippines. Based in Baguio City, the
Philippines, de Guia works across painting, installation and sculpture. His
works proffer ironic and sometimes comedic perceptions of sociopolitical issues
in contemporary Philippine society and the colonial past, and often make
reference to or draw materially from his hometown. His deep interest in the
heritage and indigenous culture of the Cordilleras can be traced to his family,
which has been a longstanding advocate for the arts and cultural scene in
Baguio. In 2011, de Guia initiated AX(iS) Art Project, a bi-annual arts
festival that is guided by the belief that art is not exclusive and, therefore,
posited outside institutional norms. (Taken from ARNDT)
© Kawayan de Guia and Mayumi Hirano