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If a child cries in a forest and no one is there to hear it, did it make a sound?

Balangiga: Howling Wilderness by Khavn is a poignant period film deserving of all the accolades it has since received and more. Originally debuted in QCinema last year, Balangiga makes another run for this month’s Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino. In between then and now, it has since been awarded Best Picture for the  Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences and Gawad Urian. This film focuses on an eight-year old boy, Kulas, who with his grandfather, an orphan, and a carabao attempt to navigate through the Philippine-American war to safety. Balangiga takes off shortly after the Balangiga massacre in 1901, in which 54 American soldiers were killed by townsfolk. Shortly after, Gen. Jacob H. Smith orders American soldiers to “kill and burn” in retaliation to the Samar people, instructing soldiers to “shoot down anyone capable or carrying arms, including boys over ten years old.” Kulas and his grandfather escape the Balangiga massacre and take off with their carabao in an attempt to find safer ground. Along the way, they pick up an infant orphan and together, they trudge through mountains and rivers. Balangiga was a wonderful ride of a film. Khavn is known to make off-beat, experimental, and unrehearsed films, often integrating unconventional editing techniques, camera angles, and dialogue. The real success in this film was Khavn’s portrayal of the peripheries in war. Too often we are exposed to wartime films exposing heroes, a strict depiction of historical events, and a didacticism that tells us that history repeats itself. Instead, Khavn gives us a tragic story of a young boy who, in the first place, was not in the middle of the massacre, but experiences displacement and trauma. At the same time, Kulas as the main character of the film provides a valuable viewpoint. Period films seem to concentrate their stories towards the experiences of adults, whereas Balangiga gave us the eyes of a child in these unfolding experiences. Kulas, despite having been thrown into a war reminds us of childhood fixations. Throughout the film, we are not only afforded with an interpretation of a loss of innocence, but also childhood desires. Kulas acts like an adult as the film progresses, but he often acts in a way that reminds me of actual children: he takes care of chickens and refuses to eat it when it is killed, he protects his carabao even if it is unsafe to do so. Balangiga manages to be a serious film that in no way takes itself too seriously. Khavn never sets the tone too dramatic, with emotional background music. Despite the heavy themes, Balangiga still remains to be whimsical and carefree, with bouncing music and blips of humorous dialogue. Balangiga never makes us feel sorry for ourselves or for anyone else. Khavn crafted a cleverly dense film that talks of many issues, without actually making these obvious to us in an unsightly exposition of shock value. Kulas and his trials, then, do not seem too fantastical and detached from real life. We empathize with him and throughout the journey, we can only hope he reaches to safety, because he is only a boy and this war is not his to fight. This essay was written in August 2018.

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diz iz mi lerning: Almost Doing Nothing by Nilo Ilarde

Recently, I visited Nilo Ilarde’s show at Finale Art File entitled Almost Doing Nothing. The space featured three installations of found objects: on the first floor, “Long Work, (There is a Labyritnh which is a Straight Line. — Borges), for Chabet;” on the mezzanine, “Place Rather Than Thing;” and in the small room, “Video with the Story of Its Own Making.”

A massive piece, “Long Work,” occupies the whole of the first floor, with a bronze-casted cinderblock with glass shards as its center piece. Two tall mirrors trap it, while large gallery lights spotlight the work. “Long Work,” serves as a homage to Chabet, as Chabet’s cinderblocks, arranged in a labyrinth, once occupied Finale’s gallery floor. In this piece, Ilarde monumentalizes Chabet’s cinderblock and gives it the illusion of length and boundlessness.

Chabet’s Labyrinth (2013), Finale Art File

On the mezzanine, Ilarde recreates a marquee sign of mag:net, a once popular gallery space located on Katipunan Avenue (and later on in Makati) and arranges the words: “Place Rather Than Thing.” Below the signage lies a platform constructed from debris of defunct and demolished galleries. From these materials and simulacra of Galleries That Have Gone Before Us, Ilarde wishes to comment on the commercialization of art and the institutions or systems that support it.

Lastly, “Video with the Story of Its Own Making” in the small room is not a video work at all (or anything, for that matter). Ilarde deconstructs the literal wall of the gallery space by carving out a hole in five parts, exposing the different parts of the wall before cutting through it completely. In all honesty, this exhibit was difficult—but probably just because of the way it was explained. Ilarde’s works are already concentrated with references and anecdotes that make it difficult to comprehend without supporting material. Unlike a portrait or painting, conceptual art puts importance on the idea behind it rather than the object itself. Therefore, it is critical for conceptual works to be explained coherently for its intent to be understood. The piece that accompanied the exhibit did not really help me navigate through the show nor did the prose help me understand the prose itself. Walking through the show and reading the essay felt like I was an acquaintance trying to understand a complex inside joke between two good friends. But was it just me? I feel like I already have a personal bias for conceptual pieces, but Almost Doing Nothing fell flat as it was trying to be explained with meandering sentences made dense by a multitude of references from different authors, philosophers, and theorists. In the end, I was not really left thinking about Ilarde’s works, but about how it was trying to be written about, and how I could not comprehend it. Am I just stupid or is it really that hard to read? Maybe it’s just something for me (or you) to reflect on in general: do references help to enhance the piece, or do they just make it more difficult for the viewer? Does a viewer necessarily have to have some knowledge on a particular philosophy, theory, etc. to be able to understand something that they see? And can’t these philosophies, theories, and stories necessary to the work be explained in a way that can be understood even if the viewer had not read the entire text? Almost Doing Nothing by Nilo Ilarde is on exhibit in Finale Art File, Makati from September 1 to 28, 2017.

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Becoming-home: distance makes the heart by Alfred Marasigan

“HOME IS WHERE,” Alfred Marasigan scribbles on one of his works—when you’re always in transit, how will you know what place to call home? Marasigan’s latest show, distance makes the heart is a continuation of Marasigan’s Places series, featuring both old and new works. Places is a series of landscape works Marasigan had painted from camera phone photos he had taken while in transit. These landscapes feature both bucolic scenes of the countryside and cityscapes taken from the seat on the bus, car, or train. Marasigan mostly uses acrylic for these works, with an occasional graphite or oil pastel, jotting down some words on the edges or over the canvas. For the most part, these works are pretty much faceless: they leave us with no clue for where they could be, and neither does Marasigan signify its location in the title.

In some ways, Marasigan’s work is impressionistic. Through painting, he is able to capture the intricacies of motion and light, providing the viewer with a blur similar to a slight tremble in the hands while taking a photo or the pausing of a film amidst a dynamic action scene. Marasigan also leaves most of his canvasses unfinished and far from perfect, having strewn landscapes that are chaotic and rushed, exposing the dripping of paint across the edges of the canvas. Through this series, Marasigan explores placelessness—of anonymity of landscapes and routines and of the constant search for somewhere to call a home. Although Marasigan often employs bright blues and warm tones for his Places series, there is something about his works that leaves me feeling somber. In Places, Marasigan is able to capture not only placelessness, but also what it feels like to be waiting. He paints landscapes of being in transit, but where are we going, exactly? Where are these buses and trains taking us? How long will it take us to get there, anyway? French philosopher Gilles Deleuze once talked about “becoming-” as an object’s constant state of transformation, while not reaching an ultimate end. Distance makes the heart shows us two things: that Marasigan’s transitory landscapes will always be becoming-paintings as they are traditionally unfinished, and that they are becoming-places, as they promise a destination that we or he will never reach. Fittingly, distance makes the heart, opens with Marasigan’s absence. For now, he is located in a small city in northern Norway called Tromsø completing his masters degree. Who knows how long he will be in transit, but hopefully he finds his way home soon—wherever that may be. distance makes the heart by Alfred Marasigan is on exhibit in Altro Mondo (Picasso), Makati from August 30 to September 24, 2017.

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The Tide Is High But I’m Holding On: ‘Waves’ by Roberto Chabet

MO_Space inaugurates its 10th anniversary with a singular work by Roberto Chabet. Entitled Waves, this piece features 21 light blue plywood slabs suspended from the ceiling imitating the undulation of bodies of water. Here, Chabet’s work blurs the line between sculpture and theater, presenting the audience with something reminiscent of a theatrical set that allows for engagement and participation. I suppose it’s rather apt for MO_Space to inaugurate its series of anniversary exhibitions with an artist like Chabet, who has influenced generations of artists in the Philippines to pursue nontraditional fields of art. Born in 1936, Chabet is often considered to have pioneered conceptualism in the Philippines, invigorating the use of readymades, simple materials, and collage. Up until his death in 2013, Chabet has worked both as the first curator of the Cultural Center of the Philippines and as a professor in UP College of Fine Arts. Personally, I have always pegged Chabet as a serious artist. Having heard nightmarish (maybe even urban legend type) stories of him requiring his students paint with their non-dominant hand or foot (I don’t remember which) or him fiercely criticizing not just his colleagues, but those much less experienced than him, I have always thought of him as a stern figure in the Philippine art scene. However, having seen Waves, I was pleasantly surprised to have seen something so playful and light-hearted coming from The Father of Philippine Conceptual Art. Throughout his career, Chabet often experimented with “environmental art,” mounting large-scale sculptures made of simple material like plywood. These sculptures would be so large and expansive that it often felt like you were walking onto a stage, instead of a gallery space. Chabet’s sculptural work, in a sense, becomes experiential as the viewer is required to navigate through the spaces that it creates. Waves, of course, is no exception to this. From one end of the room, you see an amalgamation of the waves and its oscillations. However, walking through the gallery, the viewer inadvertently continues to dissect the sculpture, now seeing it in its value as parts rather than just as a whole. Chabet’s Waves surprisingly leaves hardly any questions for the viewer. Waves does not force upon any interpretation, takeaway, or lesson from its form or history. It is what it is. Chabet does not leave us to consider any bigger meaning from the art piece, he instead, presents us with a simple object to interact with and does not try to go beyond its physical limitations and composition. Which, I think, presents a valuable question in itself: is art even meant to teach or represent something outside of what it is? I guess it depends on whom you’re asking. Waves by Roberto Chabet was on exhibit in MO_Space, BGC from July 1 to 30, 2017.