LS Projection Space: A survey of videos from Manila, Philippines

Luggage Store Projection Space (1007 Market St.) is pleased to feature new media work directly from the Philippines and hand picked by curator, Lian Ladia. absolutely-NO-liability is the first of many programs featuring international artists. Projections can only be viewed from the street –from dusk until dawn. (We use our second floor windows for the projections).

absolutely-NO-liability
A survey of videos from Manila, Philippines curated by Lian Ladia , Resident Curator for Green Papaya Projects (Philippines)

Featuring Artists: Roxlee, Jon Red, Jun Sabayton, Kaloy Olavides, Vic Balanon & Ferdz Valencia, Kiri Dalena, Lyra Garcellano, Ling Quisumbing, Kawayan & Kidlat De Guia

The Hellish history of tropical storms, neo-colonial vices and an experimental verve are key ingredients to the survey of videos from Manila, Philippines.  The attractiveness of video™s immediacy to artists involved in development, performance and film provided extensions and new supports for expansion to the artists™ creative process.[1]

When Filipino film-maker and installation artist, Kidlat Tahimik™s œPerfumed Nightmare gained recognition in 1977, this ignited the spark for most artists working on film or video.  Kidlat Tahimik™s personal epic on the history of a changing nation (during the Martial Law years) juxtaposed with his own personal existential struggles were signifying characteristics to a constant alter-ego present in most Filipino cinematic or video experiments.  [2]The gene-pool has been passed on to his sons, Kidlat De Guia and Kawayan De Guia who are both artists to their own right, and have used video in their contemporary practice.

Access and accessibility to the digital age just made it easier for everyone and provided a singular common ground for a rapidly growing movement [3]“ to name one, the Philippine New Wave phenomenon where Jon Red, Roxlee and Jun Sabayton belongs to.  Third world conditions where no barriers to art-making, and only fueled for more interesting plots peppered with fiendish ethos and glee.  Roxlee for one, provides the key ingredients to a splendid cult following: creepy, funny, unsettling and oh-so-human.  John Red™s Holden Caulfield/Hunter S. Thompson characterization and plot in his film-short, œTrip,  provides a glimpse a young boy™s awakening to the realities of life and its vices.  More than the satirist/social constructs in the films of Roxlee and John Red – Jun Sabayton touches on that same element, yet extends his photographic background by providing a subject, and angle to the quotidian act of eating Filipino smoked fish and rice.  Sabayton also belongs to the group of artists who have been trained and influenced by Filipino Contemporary Modern Artist, Roberto Chabet, alternative artistic community-camaraderie and artist residency recipients abroad.  This period of conceptual movement in Manila™s underbelly are also home to artists™ Kiri Dalena, Ling Quisumbing Ramilo, Lyra Garcellano, Vic Balanon, Ferdz Valencia and Kaloy Olavides.  These artists have acknowledged the subject as both satellites to political power or existential alternative  to self- representation.   Video works are used as documentation to performances, surveillance,  installations, or avenues legitimizing participatory works.

Video works which are proponents of the Philippine New Wave, or representatives of the alternative art underbelly  in Manila“  include film, installations, photography, social sculpture, or concept based art projects.   All of which provide poetic displays of emotional stress, cultural displacement or  perception-related issues which oscillates a background charged with chaos and narratives strange in their complications yet delivers synergy, complete freedom and placard waving: absolutely-NO-liability.  “ Lian Ladia, March 2011

Lian Ladia (b. 1979, Manila, Philippines) is an independent curator, writer and artist.  She has a BA in Philosophy which she completed in DLSU Manila Philippines and later on acquired a Post Baccalaureate in Photography at the San Francisco Art Institute.  In 2006, Lian co-founded Kwatro-Kantos a Filipino American artist collective who has curated, programmed, and exhibited at alternative art spaces in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Philippines. From July 2010 to March 2011, Lian became resident curator of Green Papaya Art Projects. She is currently taking part on the first curatorial residency program at the Node Curatorial Studies in Berlin, Germany.

Acknowledgements:  Kokoroworks.com and Dart Tiglao, Green Papaya Art Projects, Peewee Roldan, England Hidalgo, Sidd Perez, Guido Maria and Gari Buenavista, Padma Perez and Ferdie Balanag.

 

 

*please click here to download pdf for individual artists’ bios and stills.