Posts tagged ‘philippines’
Know Your Enemy: Factsheet at International Hotel Manilatown Center
untitled, Zeus Bascon, 2010, International Hotel Manilatown Center
Just peeped an excellent show at the Manilatown Heritage Foundation’s gallery at the International Hotel. Entitled Factsheet: Activism Is Not A Crime, the exhibit includes thirty posters decrying human rights abuses in the Philippines.
The posters were created by artists both in the Philippines and the U.S. and represent a broad range of styles and approaches. Epjay’s Silencio uses straight-up graphics and text in the tradition of the best agit-prop one-sheets. England Hidalgo’s Cleansing takes after punk’s DIY aesthetic, combining line drawing, painting, photocopying, and collage. By hanging them side-by-side the exhibit presents two very different but equally effective visions of what a political poster can be.
Silencio, Epjay, 2010, and Cleansing, England Hidalgo, 2010, International Hotel Manilatown Center
The show is chock-full of these types of juxtapositions, and is a testament to the talent and vision of the artists included. Factsheet is an excellent example of the many ways that artists can conceptualize and produce forceful pieces of political art.
Each poster in the show has a small factsheet that concisely identifies the title, artist, and incident that inspired it. Together with the expressionistic artwork they accompany, these simply worded placards are explosive examples of the power of words and images to define and illuminate injustices.
136th Noli Capulong, J. Pacena, 2010, International Hotel Manilatown Center
For instance, J. Pacena’s 136th Noli Capulong , states “Noli Capulong, Deputy Secretary-General of Bayan Muna’s Southern Tagalog chapter assassinated Calamba, 2006.” The poster it accompanies is a simple image of a bound man in a Jeep, his body pierced in four places by a sinuous orange line. The title refers to Capulong’s status as the 136th victim of state-sponsored assassination in the Southern Tagalog region—a human-rights activist, he was shot four times while driving his Jeep after meeting with tenants who were fighting eviction.
Through their work the artists in the show are bringing to light and surfacing the wrongdoings of the government, police, church, and military in the Philippines. They’re using their skill and vision to continue pressuring President Gloria Arroyo to correct these abuses and to bring those responsible to justice. Which is pretty cool if you think about it, and a nice way to make significant and meaningful work in an artworld that is all too often narcissistic and irrelevant.
Factsheet: Activism Is Not A Crime
Through April 24, 2010
Closing reception, Sat. April 24, 4-6p
International Hotel Manilatown Center
868 Kearny Street @ Jackson Street
San Francisco CA 94108 | 415-777-1130 Office | 415-399-9580 Gallery
Gallery hours: 1PM – 6PM, Tuesday – Saturday
Admission: Free
UPDATE: from one of the organizers of the show. Closing reception Saturday, April 24th, from 4:00 – 6:00 PM, featuring live performance by Diskarte Namin and food for sale by Coco Lim (partial proceeds benefiting Manilatown Heritage Foundation). Be there!
UPDATE 2: Factsheet has moved across the Bay to Oakland for a run.
Factsheet: Activism is NOT a Crime
May thru June 2010
Asian Resource Gallery
310 Eighth Street, Oakland Chinatown
Open Monday thru Friday, 9am to 6pm
Artists/ curators Lian Ladia and Con Cabrera from Filipino cultural activist collectives in the U.S. (Kwatro Kantos) and the Philippines (ARREST) initiated this project, which is traveling to different cities across the globe.
RECEPTION: Thursday, May 27th, 6 pm • FREE to the public
Featuring speakers from the recent People’s International Observers Mission and performances by Yaminah Lunar, The Kasamas, and AYPAL dance crew.
For more information, contact:
Greg Jung Morozumi c/o Asian Resource Gallery, 510/532-9692
FACTSHEET is co-sponsored by Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines(SF), Anakbayan (East Bay), BAYAN USA, & Filipino Advocates for Justice
Violence Grows: Kinatay and the Abduction of Melissa Roxas
Kinatay, still from movie, 2009, Brillante Mendoza
When I first read the description of Pilipino director Brillante Mendoza’s new film Kinatay (Butchered) I thought, “That sounds kind of wack.” Shot on HD video with a budget of $100,000, it’s a down-and-dirty, graphic representation of the rape, murder and dismemberment of a prostitute in the Philippines through the eyes of an idealistic, greenhorn cop. The controversial film just won the Best Director award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, where the announcement of the award was greeted by boos and gasps of shock. Roger Ebert calls it “the worst film in the history of the Cannes Film Festival,” and extensively details his disdain for the picture in his blog.
But after I read a few interviews with Mendoza about the film, I started to change my opinion of it (though still sight-unseen; the film will probably receive pretty limited distribution in the U.S., if at all). Mendoza claims that the movie is based on a true-life event and that it reflects the rampant police corruption and unchecked military violence in the Philippines. “This is not just entertainment, these kinds of stories are real,” Mendoza said after winning his award at Cannes.
Surface Melissa Roxas, online poster, 2009
This was borne out by an email blast I received on the same day that Kinatay won at Cannes. On May 19 Pilipino American Melissa Roxas, a poet and human rights activist from BAYAN-USA, a non-government organization (NGO), was kidnapped along with two co-workers while doing volunteer health work in the Tarlac Province in the Philippines. The email I received stated that BAYAN-USA was mounting a campaign to demand the Pilipino government aid in searching for and surfacing her. Thankfully, Roxas surfaced after a week of captivity, although her compatriots are still missing. What’s interesting in light of the accolades that Kinatay received is that Roxas and BAYAN-USA have claimed that she was abducted and tortured by the Pilipino police and military and that this event is the latest in a series of abuses against political activists by government agencies in the Philippines. The New York Times notes:
“According to the human rights group Karapatan, more than 200 Filipino activists have been kidnapped and never heard from since 2001, the year President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to power. Others have turned up dead or showing signs of torture.”
If the claims by Roxas, Karapatan, and BAYAN-USA are true, then Mendoza’s film takes on an added significance. Most of the film’s detractors criticized it for its graphic, unvarnished depiction of violence and brutality, with Ebert in particular scorning its rough-hewn soundtrack and cinematography. What Ebert might not understand is that Mendoza is making a conscious decision not to sanitize the film’s violent events. Movie violence is nothing new, but it’s usually presented with a patina of glamour and unreality, an aestheticization that distances the viewer and sanctions the viewing of the violence, making it an acceptable form of entertainment.
By denying his film the glossy sheen of conventional filmic violence, Mendoza forces viewers out of their complacent moviewatching habits, taking them out of their comfort zone and making them realize that, as in the case of Melissa Roxas and many others around the globe, violence is not a form of entertainment but a dire part of everyday life. In this case, Mendoza is working toward the same goal as Roxas—to expose and eradicate the corruption and human-rights abuses of the power structure in the Philippines.
UPDATE: Here’s the transcript of Melissa Roxas’ June 28 press conference in which she describes her ordeal.
beyondasiaphilia 
Recent Comments