Category Archive for: kultura

kultura

Oca Villamiel, art and magnitude

NOTE: An old piece remembered because Oca Villamiel’s “Back To Nature” just ended its run at Finale Art File, and still takes from this kind of magnitude. 

In 2012, I happened upon Oca Villamiel’s “Stories Of Our Time,” which was a deceptively simple set of art assemblages made from old dolls, with expectedly missing heads and limbs. I was on a gallery run with Singapore art journalist Mayo Martin, driving all the way to Fairview for Light and Space Contemporary to prove a point: look at how large this city is, and how difficult it is to even look at all exhibits at any given time. It’s so unlike Singapore! I was telling Mayo.

But of course there’s the kind of art one encounters in Manila so distinctly different from SG. Specifically, there was Villamiel’s work, filling up the various galleries of this art space, playing with old dolls not just through framed and contained assemblages, but also by filling up a whole space with dolls hanging from the ceiling. The effect was an eerie curtain of bright wide eyes and lifeless bodies.

We were on our way out when someone from Light and Space told us there was more outside, in one of the warehouse-spaces. We followed him down some steps, and as he opened the warehouse doors, our jaws dropped. Within that large space was a garden-like installation of doll’s heads and body parts attached to flimsy sticks. At the center of this garden was a shanty filled with dolls and doll parts. Walking around the garden, walls were filled with shadows of uncanny flowers and growth, almost pretty, absolutely breathtaking. This work was entitled “Payatas.” (more…)

kultura

The refusal to give up today

This was published on July 27 2012, after the premier of the documentary “Give Up Tomorrow” at the 2012 Cinemalaya in CCP. Remembered it today, and reposting it, because for whatever reason, there is a film on the Chiong Sisters coming out this week. — KSS.

On the evening of July 16 1997, Paco Larrañaga was having drinks with his classmates from culinary school after a full day of exams. He went home at 2AM and was back in school at 8AM on July 17, for more exams. The teacher who proctors the tests swears that Paco was present in that classroom, his classmates are witness to his attendance – in school and for drinks the night before, official school records prove his presence, too. Paco was in Manila, and nowhere else, on July 16 and July 17 1997.

I insist on beginning this story this way, not because “Give Up Tomorrow” has successfully swayed me into believing that Paco’s innocent. This documentary’s power in fact is that it wasn’t out to sway anyone into believing anything, as it could and will only bring you to the point of disbelief, that slowly moves towards the territory of dismay, and then into that space that you know to be anger. Interwoven with a whole lot of shame, and plenty of sadness, here is a documentary that can only be heart-wrenching not because it might bring you to tears, but because it will tug at both emotion and rationality, heart and common sense. (more…)

kultura

When gender allies are enemies: Liza Diño defends Duterte

It is clear now, more than ever, that President Duterte is a misogynist and chauvinist. He likes to say he loves women — just yesterday he joked that his “expertise” is women, then proceeded to objectify the GSIS employees in front of him — but it’s all just to cloak the fact of a deep-seated hatred of women that is revealed when he articulates how we do not deserve to be in positions of power, how we are to be used for entertainment, how he offers us as “reward” for soldiers, how he condones rape in a time of war (will even joke about it), how we  shouldn’t be too critical and if we are, we will pay for it.

Asking for that kiss from the Filipina migrant in South Korea, on a stage, in front of a cheering crowd, was proof positive of Duterte’s views about women: in that situation he had the woman in the palm of his hand, his position as President assured him that kiss. That we are being told now to forget it, because it was just entertainment, it’s “Filipino culture,” just rubs salt on the wound that is the shameless performance of machismo and kabastusan. 

It is clear that women have had enough, even as there are women who will expectedly defend him, because they are indebted to him, keeping them in positions of power, their salaries coming from taxpayers’ money. But while someone like Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Assistant Secretary Marjorie Jalosjos and her words supporting Duterte is expected, I take umbrage at someone like Liza Diño of the Film Development Council of the Philippines’ (FDCP) — a worker of culture as she is, a gender rights advocate too — defending Duterte by turning women’s rights on its head, discrediting the fight of generations of women against the systemic abuse of power that has oppressed us all.

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kultura

Refusing accountability: Liza Diño and PPP Year 2

President Duterte insists that there is no corruption in his government, because (1) just a whiff of corruption and you’re out, (2) there is transparency, and (3) there is an anti-corruption agency — that can even look into his bank accounts if they want (he of course appointed the people in that commission, so really).

But there are many instances in which this has been proven questionable, in fact many instances in which Duterte’s own people discredit the President’s pronouncements, not just because they are not held accountable, but also because they are far from being transparent. We could be talking about Wanda Teo and how she has brushed off even a major complaint against her by DoT employees — officially received and stamped by the Office of the President from June 2017. But it could also be as simple as Liza Diño, chairperson of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), who cannot for the life of her respond properly to valid criticism and questions about her leadership and projects.  (more…)

kultura

Pinay call-out culture: the good, bad, ugly

Without a doubt, there is power to be had in having social media, through which we can articulate our grievances, question our leaders, call out oppressors, demand accountability. Here is a medium that cradles our voice, and depending on what it is we’re talking about, we find allies in other voices, named and anonymous, supporting what we say, adding onto our narratives. It’s a sense of community, sure. It’s a sense of belonging, absolutely. It is power, undeniably.

This is at the heart of the Twitter thread of Adrienne Onday that wanted to talk about “misogyny, sexism, and predatory / manipulative behavior in the local independent music scene in my experience.” I myself had read the first set of tweets, which was her speaking in broad strokes — nothing specific, no names, and heavily contextualized when she was doing the gig scene regularly enough to become friends with the bands she idolized.

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