DEC13_SUPERDUPERFINAL

–products that appeal to a discriminating notion of taste. The
emergency as the exception that interrupts everyday life can be the
emergency needed to chart alternative directions to art-making in
Cebu.
Anderson however does not only end in diagnosing the emergency
rather he prompts the need for a range of actions to meet immediately
the exception to ‘normal life’. This idea becomes a compelling guide
for me in selecting and engaging with artists and art groups for the
Kalibutan project.
The COVID pandemic becomes the very emergency that reshaped
the direction of VIVA ExCon 2020. The normal modes of artistic
production, as well as the methods of exhibitions and knowledge
dissemination, were put into serious rethinking. The ‘emergency’
has provided unexpected challenges and surprising opportunities for
curators and festival organizers to shift programing and to reinvent
the normal conduct of the biennale.
For us in Cebu, the sudden naming of Cebu City as a COVID
epicenter had compelled us to realize that art and artists have the
responsibility to harness creativity to meet the exception. For Mona
Alcudia, her immediate response was to design and produce PPEs
for front liners and community organizers when these protective
gears were very difficult to procure. Bastinuod of Solitaryo Cinco
led an illustration project in social media to honor the hard work of
pandemic front liners and direct attention to the difficult and unjust
conditions that they are in.
Actions to Meet the Exception
In consideration of the character of Cebu’s creative scene, it
becomes imperative that the Kalibutan project should look into the
world of its creative industry as well as the world of its burgeoning
contemporary art scene. We decided to collaborate with Mona
Alcudia, a design practitioner who has extensive experience working
with Cebu’s furniture and home accessories industry and with the
art collective, Solitaryo Cinco which had considerable experience
in street art production. Their interdisciplinary modes of practice
hope to elucidate Cebu’s creative Kalibutan both as a field of ideas
in mind, and a space-time reality that molds social relationships.
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