DEC13_SUPERDUPERFINAL

Meanwhile, raising the quotidian to the level of art, interviews
with and images of ten habitues of an actual coffee shop called
Maricel café were chronicled and tacked on the walls of a newly
built bamboo hut called Balay Sugilanon (Story House) near the
Ang Panublion Museum which simulated the ambiance of a coffee
shop, a traditional meeting place in Philippine culture where people
gather to exchange, analyze, and disseminate news. The concept
came from Japanese artist Tatsuo Inagaki who worked with people
“who made social contributions through art like students, local
painters, artists and educators from the town of Pila.” Inagaki first
came to the Philippines in 1992 during the second VIVA ExCon
and had been in and out of the country ever since.
As in past VIVA ExCons, one of the best-attended sessions was the
Island Reports because of the updates on the artists’ situations. This
year’s Island Reports reveal the same problems continue to bedevil
the provincial artists. These are the high cost and inaccessibility of
art materials, the lack of exhibition venues and spaces, the absence of
an art market, the lack of training programs for artists, indifference
of local government to art, the shabby treatment of artists by
government officials, etc. Veteran artists who have it down pat like
Irma Lacorte suggested to her colleagues not to limit themselves to
traditional art but instead explore nontraditional materials of which
there are plenty in the environment. Artists from Dumangas have
done this. So have student artists of John B. Lacson Foundation
Maritime University who during the Iloilo VIVA in 2014 exhibited
sand paintings in their school’s art gallery. Other artists have pointed
out the use of alternative materials like pina and abaca fabrics,
coffee, clay, driftwood, stones, graffiti, digital media and recyclable
electronic trash. If I recall right the last was done years ago by visual
artist Ral Arogante who taught it in one VIVA ExCon workshop).
Getting my vote for the most moving island report was Siquijor
poet, visual artist. Mystic, masseuse Jonel Tumarong who delivered
his in the form of a poem entitled The Legend of Molave Island
regarding how foreign intrusion destroyed their culture breeding
inequalities and reducing him from artist to mere craftsman. Thus,
describing his works on which he made money, he confesses with
perfect candor: “I don’t know if it’s art or just plain hunger.”
VIVA ExCon 2014 Bacolod
Impressed by the success of past VIVAs, participants were one
during the island report session in their suggestion that VIVA be
institutionalized within the NCCA so that among other things, the
release of funds for the conference exhibit every two years can be
expedited. Considering the present dynamism of VIVA, NCCA
commissioner Teddy Co said this was possible but it will take time
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