%2Bcopy.jpg) |
| Photo by Jaime Pacena II |
The Lizard Says You're a Liar!
-- Narratives of the Universe
Vargas Museum, University of the Philippines
Manila, Philippines
December 2, 2014 to January 28, 2015
Co-organized by Vargas Museum, Japan Foundation
Curatorial Statement by Mayumi Hirano
Regardless of time, place
and circumstance, people create and practice beliefs in order to face and
understand unknown events in their life. Religion, mythology, folklore and
superstition — the modern society attempts to scientifically and rationally
sort out various beliefs into a hierarchy, however faith can be so powerful
that it could be a rival force that challenges the legitimacy of scientific
reasoning.
This exhibition introduces works by five
artists, who explore the process of negotiations among various degrees of
beliefs and doubts. Based on the artist’s memory of growing-up, Maria Victoria
Beltran's short film “Pigadagit” (Taken) portrays a monster believed to exist
in a logging camp in Butuan during the 1980’s. Another filmmaker in the
exhibition, Santiphap Inkongngam tries to capture invisible power that surrounds
people’s lives. In this exhibition, he presents a new video installation, “Grow
in the Dark,” which approaches voice as a medium between the inner self and the
outer world. Site-specific installation of Kanade Yagi, “O’s World” conceives
the people, space and works in the library and archives collection of Vargas
Museum as a galaxy and takes us to a journey of wonders. Through an
anthropological approach, Elia Nurvista’s “A Conversation: Ons Indisch Erfgoed”
investigates the rituals and beliefs about rice that have been practiced for so
many years in her home country of Indonesia. Zeus Bascon presents a new
sculpture based on stories around the sudden appearance of a mound of soil or punso
(dwelling place) that people in the community in Sta. Rosa, Laguna are hesitant
to remove. What is reflected in the artworks presented here is the in-between
psychological state of individuals, experiencing the sudden change of life
values caused by rapid urbanization and globalization. Here a question arises: Is
the modern scientific method, which determins the world by numbers, sufficient
to measure the quality of individual life?
Artists
Maria Victoria “Bambi”
Beltran is a multi-awarded literary, visual and film artist. She finished
Bachelor of Science in Biology at the University of the Philippines Cebu and
attended the Bachelor of Science in Fine Arts Program in the same school. In
2006, she acted in the Cebuano film Pagbalik,
which won the Best Regional Film Award at the Gawad CCP Short Film competition.
This started her interest in filmmaking and was immediately followed by Babaylan (2007), a Cebuano short film
that she wrote and acted in. A string of films followed
like Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria (Story
Writer, 2011), Di Ingon Nato (Associate
Producer, 2012), and Cartas de la Soledad
(Actress, 2012), among others. She also directed a segment of the omnibus
full length film Byernes, Byernes in
2011. Her latest film is Mula Sa Kung Ano
Ang Noon (Actress, 2014), a film directed by Lav Dias, which won the grand
prize at the World Premiere Film Festival in the Philippines, Locarno Film
Festival in Switzerland and Sao Paulo International Film Festival in Brazil.
Elia Nurvista graduated
from Indonesia Institute of Fine Art in 2010. Often involving other people as
collaborators and/or participants, her work explores issues arisen as a result
of cooking and eating, which can be connected to political situations, historical
background or simply personal memories of someone we love. She has participated
in various international residency programs including the programs at Taipei
Artist Village, Taiwan (2014), Delfina Foundation, England (2014) and Koganecho
Bazaar, Japan (2012). Her projects were featured at Kedai Kebun Forum,
Yogyakarta (2013) and Jakarta Biennale (2013).
Santiphap Inkong-ngam
was born in Lamphun, Thailand in 1973. He has studied filmmaking independently
since he was young. After getting his formal art training in Chiang Mai
University, he began his experimentations in film and video installations at
independent art spaces, including the legendary Project 304 in Bangkok. Inkong-ngam
also has been creating films in collaboration with unique groups of people,
such as monks, minorities and ethnic communities. Besides his career as an
independent filmmaker and video artists, Inkong-ngam takes initiative in the
educational projects to creatively raise awareness toward various social issues.
Kanade Yagi was born in
Saitama, Japan. She studied contemporary art in Tokyo Zokei University and CCA
Kitakyushu. Since 1999, she has been creating time-based artwork for public
spaces while exploring situational concepts. Her artworks often focus on shifting
the relationships between subject and object, as she traverses between the
human timescale and other timescales (for example, astronomical timescale). She
began to travel abroad extensively in 2013 to research various socio-cultural
conditions and to widen the scope of her art practice. The first country she
visited for research was the Philippines, where she worked on “Escolta
Biennale,” a continuing project with 98B Collaboratory. In 2014, she started to
do research in Jogjakarta, Indonesia. Influenced by the independent spirit of
artists from both Philippines and Indonesia, she put up Tokyo Independent
Collaboratory (-TIC), a platform to make projects across disciplines. -TIC's
first project was held in December 2014 for Pesta Boneka #4 in Jogjakarta.
Zeus Bascon has been
participating in Manila’s exhibit circuit since 2006. Bascon treats his works
as reflections of the continuous exploration to the wholeness of our nature,
concentrating on the idea of the self and its relationship to the supernaturals
/ spiritual affecting the conditions of existence. Through a range of medium, he
forms narratives – abstracted from different personal life histories that
somehow define a current state of being.