Alternative Cinema: History, Theory and Practice

Renowned filmmaker and film historian Nick Deocampo presents an overview of the development of alternative cinema in the Philippines. Using the metaphor of the rhizome, Deocampo explores the varied courses that the "alternative" has taken through film excerpts from his own practice as well as other Filipino filmmakers. The lecture presentation is based on his recently-published book of the same title.

About the Artist

Nick Deocampo is a prizewinning Filipino documentary filmmaker and film historian. He teaches at the University of the Philippines Film Institute. He took his Master of Arts degree in Cinema Studies from New York University under a Fulbright Scholarship Grant; got his Certificate in Film as a French Government scholar in Paris, France; and graduated cum laude with a degree in A.B. Theater Arts at the University of the Philippines.

As a filmmaker, he has won prizes for his trailblazing documentaries like Oliver (1983), Revolutions Happen like Refrains in a Song (1986 and The Sex Warriors and the Samurai (1995). As a film historian, he has authored books that won the Philippines’ National Book Awards like Cine: Spanish Influences on Philippine Cinema and Eiga: Cinema in the Philippines during World War II. His recent publications include Alternative Cinema: The Unchronicled History of Alternative Cinema in the Philippines and Keeping Memories: Cinema and Archiving in Asia Pacific. He has represented the country as a filmmaker or a member of the film jury in various film festivals held in Berlin, Tokyo, London, Brussels, Rome, Hawaii, the Czech Republic, and more.

Over the past forty years, he has advocated for alternative cinema, campaigning for the recognition of short films, documentaries and experimental cinema. Himself an active documentary filmmaker, he has pioneered workshops and organized festivals to bring to public consciousness the significance of alternative films that have been marginalized by the country’s popular commercial movie industry.

Deocampo was formerly the chair of the UNESCO Philippines Memory of the World Committee. He is this year’s recipient of the Premio Casa Asia, Spain’s major award for cultural work.

Selections from lumbung Film:

"Broken English" by Richard Bell

"A Flower Garden of All Kinds of Loveliness Without Sorrow" by Christian Nyampeta

"Requiem for M" by Kiri Dalena

Three short films were selected from lumbung Film, a repository of film and video works by lumbung members and artists featured in the recently-concluded "DOCUMENTA 15". The films were screened in Kassel during the 100 days of documenta fifteen complimenting and contextualizing the artists' and members' other exhibited works. Since lumbung continues in the aftermath of documenta fifteen, lumbung film is also programmed and screened in the locations of lumbung members. It is one way for the ecosystems of the artists and lumbung members to see each other's work and to continue connecting inter-locally immediately after the exhibition in Kassel.

Program co-organized with RESBAK and Lost Frames.

"Broken English"

Richard Bell

2009, 12 min

In Broken English, Bell centres his attention on what form Aboriginal political empowerment might take, posing the question against the backdrops of a game of chess, a gallery opening and an Australia Day re-enactment of Captain Cook’s landing.

A Flower Garden of All Kinds of Loveliness Without Sorrow

Christian Nyampeta, ARAC (Another Roadmap Africa Cluster)

2018, 28 min

[Subtitled in English]

Fragments of ongoing dialogues between philosophers, artists, translators, comedians, and mythologists about memory, language, learning and practice in the wake of radical ruptures. Recorded in the context of École du soir, the evening programme of the workweek, international meeting and exhibition of the Another Roadmap School for Art Education, of which ARAC is part, held between 27 August 2018 – 1 September 2018 in Huye, Rwanda.

Requiem for M

Kiri Dalena

2010, 7 min

Drawn from the aftermath of the Maguindanao massacre in which multiple journalists were killed, Requiem for M captures scenes from the funerals and the site of the massacre. The footage is played in reverse, in a wistful yearning to turn back time and undo the tragedy that has occurred.

About the Artist

lumbung Film is a repository of film and video works by lumbung members and artists featured in the recently-concluded "DOCUMENTA 15". The films were screened in Kassel during the 100 days of documenta fifteen complimenting and contextualizing the artists' and members' other exhibited works. Since lumbung continues in the aftermath of documenta fifteen, lumbung film is also programmed and screened in the locations of lumbung members. It is one way for the ecosystems of the artists and lumbung members to see each other's work and to continue connecting inter-locally immediately after the exhibition in Kassel. Program co-organized with RESBAK and Lost Frames.

Landscapes, Mindscapes & Inscapes

In the works of Faye Abantao, Mark Andy Garcia, Raymond Guevarra, and Peter Zimmermann the real and imaginary meld together to construct new terrains. These featured artists will talk about the concept of their special project for AFP 2023 and new trajectories of their respective art practices.

About the Speaker/s

Faye Abantao is a visual artist who was born and raised in Bacolod, Negros Occidental. Largely self-taught, Faye collects and deconstructs archival prints and expands their imagery with a cluster of disciplines which include origami, digital collage, image transfer and painting. In an overlapping sequence, the string of procedures begins with a camera and culminates with paint and brushes, giving her imagery their distinct visual form.

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Mark Andy Garcia’s work has been labeled as intuitive, naive, gestural, and expressionist; the marks and textures on the canvases leave evidence of the painter’s hand, presence, and persona. Painting for Garcia is a reflective practice, painfully honest at times. Without having to retell his experiences on his canvases, landscapes, sunflowers, and figures in interiors become representations of the inner self. Oil paint, his medium of choice, becomes a substance for inscribing his seasons, joys, crises, or moments of gratefulness, all the while acknowledging the relationship of the flesh to the eternal. It is in these ways that Garcia bridges the gap between faith and work in unexpected ways.

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Raymond Guevarra is a Valenzuela-based visual artist who specializes in sculpture and mechanical mixed media. Each artwork is a modular time capsule, a microcosm of pop culture that incorporates Filipino 90s toys as well as Western-influenced knick-knacks that trigger nostalgia for a pre-smart technology generation. Guevarra also includes cutouts of famous Filipino celebrities and other telenovela characters from the 80s and 90s television age as if to remind us that they were a part of our daily life--even if just in the background.

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Peter Zimmermann makes epoxy paintings that explore the visual effects of surface and material through glossy pour-like shapes of rich colors. His amorphous forms prompt endless interpretation, the depth and density of his materials creating visceral effects of shifting light and color, heightened by layered airbrushing. For source materials, Zimmermann repurposes book covers and old paintings, and uses Photoshop filters to manipulate found images from the Internet into unidentifiable abstractions. Zimmermann's work is to be found in numerous private and public collections, including Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Peter Zimmermann lives and works in Cologne, Germany

Source: https://www.nunufineart.com/peter-zimmermann

Design Panel: In conversation with Andy Locsin, Russell Smith, and Christian Salandanan

Moderated by Tina Bonoan

About the Speaker/s

Andy Locsin

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Russell Smith thinks of himself a Regenerative Entrepreneur, committed to promoting the use of timber grade bamboo for reforestation and business development. Russell is President & CEO of RIZOME where he leads a team of nearly 100 Filipino and American experts on a mission to help reforest the Philippines while developing engineered bamboo into a primary construction material. Russell has deep experience bringing new technology and products to market. He is inspired by the miraculous nature of bamboo as a structural building material and sees the Philippines leading the construction industry towards a greener future where bamboo is a reliable alternative to building with concrete, steel and wood.

RIZOME is planting bamboo at scale in partnership with ingenious communities and agriculture entrepreneurs to develop a robust bamboo value chain across the Philippines. RIZOME’s advanced manufacturing center in Cagayan De Oro City engineers Giant Bamboo into precision finished timber products for the construction industry. Collaborating with engineers and architects, RIZOME is progressing the use of Philippine bamboo into structural panels, beams and lumber products. RIZOME The Miracle Timber is here.

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Christian Salandanan is the principal architect at Sangay Architects. In 2012, he won the Archi-World Academy Awards 2 - International Architectural Student Design Competition in Munich Germany and third placer at World Bamboo Design Competition 2014, Architecture Division in Damyang, Korea.

He also received Ani ng Dangal Awardee in 2016 and Tatler Homes Philippines – Best Sustainable Design MLR Polo, Good Design Awards Philippines – Gold Awardee MLR Polo, Good Design Awards Japan – Awardee MLR Polo in 2022.

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Tina Bonoan is an accomplished architect and product designer with comprehensive experience in Architecture and Interiors, furniture and furnishings, houseware and jewelry design.

She is a licensed architect with a degree from the University of the Philippines. While working in the Design Center Philippines from 1984-1987, she broke new grounds in the field of exhibition and product design. From 1988-1994, Bonoan joined Taller Natural, S.A. – Centro de Diseno in Madrid, Spain, where she cultivated a style that imprinted her modernist virtues in interior and furniture design for international clients, primarily in residential, hospitality and institutional projects.

Upon her return to the Philippines, she established a design oriented furniture-export company, Diseño En Asia, Inc., with innovative rattan furniture and natural shell lighting fixtures. In 1999, she embarked on architectural journalism and created the foremost design magazine for professionals, Bluprint, under the group, Mega Magazine Publications , Inc. As its editor in chief from 1999-2002, the magazine occupied the firmament as the premier design sourcebook in the country. During the same period, she founded another publication, My

Home, a consumer magazine on residential interiors. In 2002, she became a design consultant to CITEM ( Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions) Manila’s Manila FAME Gift Fair.

Recipients of the 2022 Artist Residency Grant

Sponsored by Don Papa. Artists who have completed their residencies last year present their respective experiences during their engagement with the local community and resources offered by the residency hosts.

About the Speaker/s

Jonathan Baldonado commonly known as Jeeb, is a Manila-based photographer. He is currently the printer of Silver, a fine art print studio based in Manila, while working at Silver Jeeb had the opportunity to work with and print the works of Arturo Luz. During the pandemic Silver launched Shelter Fund, an initiative to help photographers and artists to produce and sell their prints. He is also a member of the Fotomoto PH Team.

Highly curious with the technicalities of technology has taken to 3D printing as a hobby and is currently crafting his own camera using old large format lenses and using film as the medium of capturing the imagery.

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E.S.L Chen is a self-taught photographer who has previously worked in the editorial field with an emphasis on portraiture. His first experiences with photography were during the advent of ubiquitous digital imaging. He took up digital photography as a hobby in his years as an economics major at De La Salle University Manila. Over time, he discovered printing and has kept on experimenting with the medium. He is a founding member of FotomotoPH. His primary interest lies in the interface of the old and the new, i.e., how analog and digital processes meld with each other. The aspect of interface is now propelling itself to the forefront of modern society as the world tackles with issues around algorithms and the commercial push to discard the physical world.

Currently, he is rediscovering analog photography of which he had a strong interest in before it became nearly extinct in the Philippines. The resurgence of photographic film has been a constant source of inspiration for Chen as he reimagines the roles of image capture, digitization, digital interpolation, and the presentation of ideas in viewable forms.

Thematically, Chen's work is an amalgamation of paradox, time and impulse. His photographs can be described as personal experiences preserved as visual memories. An early obsession with the art of improvisation in both music and theater has greatly impacted his working philosophy.

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James Clar is interested in the narrative potential of materials and technology. He received his Masters from New York University in Media Art after graduating from NYU Film. He was born in the USA to immigrant Filipino parents and recently relocated back to Manila in 2021.

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An alumnus of Intercultural Theatre Institute (Singapore) and Dance Program (Folk Dance) at the Philippine High School for the Arts with a strong background in folk/contemporary dances and theatre, Aaron Kaiser Garcia has gone on to explore contemporary performance-making.

While training in Philippine Folk Dance, Odissi, Chhau, and immersing in different traditional forms like Kuttiyatam, Beijing Opera, Wayang Wong, and Noh Theatre, there lies an ongoing inquiry between his body’s relationship with contemporary folk dance; the nature of the ‘contemporary’ today and what constitutes ‘folk dance’ by challenging fabricated political narratives of the past.

Aaron’s work currently explores the potentiality of the body to exist consciously to understand its embodied culture and function as a microcosmic investigation into meaning-making in the evolving social and political landscape of the Philippines via choreographic means.

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Nicolei Buendia Gupit is a contemporary Filipina American artist working across installation, sculpture, painting, and video to probe questions on cultural belonging. Her multidisciplinary practice speculates on diasporic futures and entangles the relationship between ecologies, foods, histories, and cultures. Presently, she lives and works in the Philippines as a Fulbright Research Grantee pursuing transdisciplinary projects on the human toll of climate change in the Philippines.

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Ian Carlo Jaucian is a visual artist, educator, and designer who lives and works in the Philippines.

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Portia Placino is an arts educator and writer based in Manila. She received the Ateneo Art Awards – Purita Kalaw Ledesma Prize for Art Criticism in 2021. Previous engagements include a writing fellowship for Kritika and a research fellowship at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Korea. She contributes to ArtAsiaPacific and lectures on art history and research in various art schools and institutions. Her recent projects contemplate the position and influence of contemporary art, new media, art history, and theory in an embattled and oppressed society.

Mortal Wanderings

Kiko Escora, Pow Martinez, and Yeo Kaa imagine and re-imagine the human body as a persona or a metaphor of society. In this panel conversation, each artist will talk about the concept of their special project for #ArtFairPH 2023 and new trajectories of their respective art practices.

About the Speaker/s

Kiko Escora’s subjects stand very near to the surface of each picture – as in a close-up camera shot. Severe-looking, quietly dignified and standoffish, they are all confidently attired in the latest fashion. Brash surfaces of modernity pose as the new iconography. Escora has chosen to paint his subjects as they turn away; their faces are concealed in one way or another. Instead, he has concentrated on their gestures and poses. All together, there is almost a sense of complicity among them, as they idly gaze through or away from the viewer. Charged with an unnerving energy, Escora’s characters suggest remoteness from the viewer. Their stance is so consuming that the viewer could be left with a desire to unlock the mystery of the subject’s identity.

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Pow Martinez is a recipient of the 2010 Ateneo Art Award for his exhibition 1 Billion Years at West Gallery, Philippines. He exhibits internationally and has worked with different media, from painting to sound. Martinez’s paintings belie their grotesque subject matter with indelibly beautiful surfaces and a wide-ranging, daring use of color. Mutants, monsters, demons, deviants, and freaks lurch, sit, and appear to transform amidst weirdly lit landscapes or disintegrating urban scenarios, or emerge from a painterly graffito mess, but, as his more abstracted works insist, Martinez’s ability to render intriguing relationships between forms and surfaces ensure his works are endlessly compelling—an experience akin to a beautiful nightmare.

Pow Martinez lives and works in Manila, Philippines.

Provided by: Erlyz Santos, Silverlens

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A perfect dichotomy of color and torment, Yeo Kaa paints deceptively candy-coloured characters stuck in violent states of reality. Her stylised figuration brings to mind animation and fictional characters from children’s books, a fantasy world that exists only in dreams and imagination. Yet these elements cleverly camouflage haunting and daring images: a tableau reminiscent of a crime scene, decapitated and dismembered bodies, or an insane person out of a killing spree. Such a provocative combination of contrasting temperaments may well refer to a world full of contradictions, a world where darker tendencies of human nature are masked by misleading façades and are lurking beneath pleasant veneers.

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Carla Gamalinda is an artist, writer, cultural heritage worker, and art teacher.

All these occupations allow her to work towards her cause of making art more accessible to the common Filipino.

Gamalinda graduated from University of Santo Tomas with a BFA and a Master of Arts degree in Cultural Heritage Studies. She won the 2021 Ateneo Art awards Purita Kalaw Ledesma Prize for Art Criticism and was a national finalist for the 2022 Metrobank Art and Design Excellence. Currently, she is developing artworks under the Linangan Art Residency program in Cavite.

Tonalities of Voices from the Regions

As the art community rallies back from the effects of the pandemic, artists and collectives share their experiences and encounters that resulted to and enriched a thriving art scene in their respective regions.

Art Fair Philippines 2023 Regional Focus Exhibitors: no space (Luzon), Orange Project (Visayas), and Panit Bukog (Mindanao) / Moderated by Boots Herrera

About the Speaker/s

Kawayan De Guia (no space)

Working across painting, installation and sculpture, Kawayan De Guia incorporates an eclectic mix of objects into his wall-based works and art projects, including Ifugao rice gods, decorative torpedo bombs, and American jukeboxes transformed into Pinoy jeepneys. His works humorously and piquantly comment on a multitude of issues, from the histories of occupation, trade and exchange that have influenced Philippine history and culture, to the relationships between community and commodities. Kawayan lives in Baguio City, a key alternative art centre to Manila, situated in the mountainous region of Cordillera in the northern central part of the island of Luzon. Like his mentors Santiago Bose, Bencab and Robert Villanueva—who were part of the Baguio Arts Guild—he is deeply embedded in Cordilleran culture and interested in the heritage and indigenous cultures of the region. Kawayan is also a curator and author of key projects presenting the artists of his community.

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Errol Balcos (Panit Bukog)

Errol Balcos participated in the first edition of Panit Bukog in 2000 and has since organized its subsequent editions. He was part of the curatorial team of Panit Bukog 4 in 2019. He serves as a representative of Northern Mindanao on the visual arts committee of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

His current projects include public art in Bukidnon and Cagayan de Oro. His works have been shown in group exhibitions in local galleries, art festivals, and local and international museums. These include the West Gallery, Eskinita Gallery, Sungduan 5, the Ortigas Art Festival, the Yuchengco Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, and the National Museum in both Manila and Singapore. He was awarded the juror’s choice award of merit in the 2008 Philippine Art Awards and was a finalist in the 2007 Philippine Art Awards selection for Mindanao. He received a grant for an artist residency program in Angono in 2006. Balcos is formally trained in architectural drafting and is a largely self-taught artist. His works explore social issues through a figuratively symbolic approach.

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Charlie Co (Orange Project)

Charlie S. Co (b.1960, Negros) has produced more than 40 solo exhibitions since 1983, presented internationally in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and The Philippines. A mature and prolific career, Co established his own distinctive style early on, an individuality that has awarded him many accolades among them the 13 Artists Award (1990), Juror’s Choice of The 6th Philip Morris ASEAN Art Awards (1999), an Artist in Residence in Japan, China and Australia, Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan (Pintura) (2003), and the Dr. Jose Rizal Award for Excellence (2007). Furthermore, Co has represented the Philippines in important regional surveys including Brazil’s 23rd Sao Paulo Biennale (1996), 2nd Asia Pacific Triennial (Australia 1996), “Asian Modernism” at the Japan Foundation Asian Cultural Centre, Tokyo (1995, traveling to Bangkok and Jakarta).

Despite his successes Co’s practice has remained deeply rooted to his home of Bacolod City, where he runs and co-owns Orange Project supporting emerging Visayan talent. Co was pivotal in establishing VIVA EX-CON (Visayan Visual Art Exhibition and Conference) in 1990 and is currently the longest running biennial in the Philippines.

Through his career, Co has consistently recorded our times: socially alert, politically astute, and globally concerned. His paintings are loaded with symbols, deeply personal and allegorical with a vibrant palette and quick sketchy style. Co is also known for his multi-disciplinary works, turning to clay and mixed media, oil pastel, pen and ink and most recently, acrylic on modelling paste on canvas. Charlie Co is represented in major public collections including the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Singapore Art Museum, Queensland Art Gallery Australia, Metropolitan Muse- um and Lopez Museum Manila, the BenCab Museum Baguio, Philippines and private collections globally.

Collecting Photography for the J. Paul Getty Museum

On photo: Hippolyte Bayard, Arrangement of Specimens, ca. 1842

Passions & Points-of-View: A Collectors Talk

This panel features Filipino collectors who have created important assemblies of contemporary art both by Philippine and international artists.

Join Anton Ramos, Carmen Jimenez-Ong, and Bryan Villanueva as they share the excitement, exuberance, lessons learned, and memorable experiences in the course of putting together three very distinct but equally remarkable art collections. Moderator Sandra Palou will delve deeper into the kind of work that appeals to each one, as well as probe their motivations and the criteria they employ in their acquisition process.

On photo:

"Sitting Still II"

Nona Garcia

Oil on canvas

2009

From the Bryan Villanueva Collection

About the Speaker/s

Music, and now, art figure prominently for Anton Ramos. As Chairman and COO of National Book Store, he is part of the senior management team of the country’s leading purveyor of books, school and office supplies. Twenty years ago, while still an active DJ, he started Music One, then the only large scale music store in the country. He also produced The Chillout Project, a radio show on 99.5 RT and also the best selling electronica series in the Philippines on CD.

In 2010, a move into what is now the family home he shares with wife, Gia, and their twin daughters, led him on the road to another passion. As an art collector for thirteen years now, he has assembled an impressive array of contemporary art that features important Filipino and global names. He also founded Art Bar, a retail brand for artist supplies and art books, in the hopes of fostering the next generation of creatives.

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Carmen Jimenez-Ong is the founder and CEO of Menarco Development Corporation.

What sets her apart from other industry leaders is the fresh perspective she brings to everything she does. After receiving her Bachelor’s degree in Management from the Ateneo de Manila University, she pursued higher learning in Japanese Business and SEA Economics at Sophia University in Japan. She then pursued Art Studies at the Art Institute of Florence in Italy, and finally, she completed a series of Executive Education Business Courses at the Harvard Business School in the states.

She then served as Executive Director for the GMA Foundation under the guidance of her father, Menarco Development Corporation Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Menardo R. Jimenez. In 2001, decades preceding the current global health and fitness explosion, Carmen brought the world famous Stott Pilates phenomenon to the Philippines and founded the Balanced Bodies Studio which still operates to this day.

Thirteen years later in 2014, fueled by this burning passion for wellness and health, and after weaning her third child, she finally accepted her father’s loving challenge of constructing Menarco Tower in BGC, the family corporation’s first high-rise office tower. It now stands as the Healthiest Building in Southeast Asia, receiving the highest certifications from LEED and WELL, one that meets only the highest international standards of wellness, safety and sustainability. It is now home to the Menarco Vertical Museum. Launched last February 11, it is first of its kind in the country, with over 39 of the most thought provoking pieces of Filipino Contemporary Art pieces on display for the public to appreciate. This 7-year labor of love was carefully curated in collaboration with Silverlens Gallery and the Ateneo Art Gallery.

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Bryan Villanueva has made his career in finance. After taking post-graduate studies in Wharton Business School, he has spent the last 20 years with Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Standard Chartered Bank, raising his family in New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In 2017, he and his wife, Dinggay, relocated to Manila to allow their sons to reconnect with their roots, spend time with extended family, and open their eyes to the socio-economic realities of the Philippines.

As a couple, they started their collecting journey and appreciation for art and other beautiful objects in October 2000 when they moved to Hong Kong. Dinggay gave the movers all of Bryan’s second-hand IKEA furniture that he had owned since business school. This meant an empty house with empty walls.

Today, they continue to collect primarily Filipino art, mostly contemporary, with a few foreign names. In the pandemic, they began work on a private space where pieces that have been in storage will finally hang for their viewing pleasure and the enjoyment of guests. This has been a passion project and the culmination of a dream come true.

Bryan says “while I find finance and banking enjoyable, if I were to have another life, it would probably be more on the creative side - architecture, interior design and/or art.”

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Sandra Palou, who has been involved in the visual arts since the age of 17, finished her AB History of Art with electives at the Graduate Program of Museology at Lone Mountain College in San Francisco and received her MA in Museology from Bank Street College in New York. From the late 1970s to early 1980s, she worked as a curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila and, under National Artist Arturo Luz, as the Assistant Director of the Museum of Philippine Art. Through her marriage to Paul Schwartzbaum, the former chief conservator of the Guggenheim Museum, she has been in close contact with great art for thirty years.

A Conversation on ‘YUNIZAR: New Perspectives’

In conjunction with the special solo exhibition of Yunizar at Art Fair Philippines 2023, Gajah Gallery is hosting a conversation between Jasdeep Sandhu, Gajah’s founder and director; Carlos Quijon, Jr., art historian, critic, and curator; and Nicole Soriano, Gajah’s writer and researcher, to discuss the practice of renowned Indonesian artist, Yunizar.

The talk follows the launch of the major book ‘YUNIZAR: New Perspectives’ (2022), which features essays by renowned scholars: T.K. Sabapathy, Ahmad Mashadi, Aminudin T.H. Siregar, and Katherine Bruhn. The conversation will discuss critical themes and perspectives tackled in the book, such as the singularity of Yunizar’s work amidst the socio-political art that pervaded Indonesia in the late 1990s, Yunizar’s involvement with the pioneering art collective the Kelompok Seni Rupa Jendela (KSR Jendela), and his unexpected expansion to sculpture. The conversation will also touch on Yunizar’s broader relevance in Southeast Asia, and in particular, the Philippines.

About the Speaker/s

JASDEEP SANDHU founded Gajah Gallery in 1996. Dedicated to promoting regional artists and highlighting their international relevance, the gallery has reinvigorated academic contributions to Southeast Asian art history. Over the years, it has supported the production of extensive printed publications on seminal Indonesian artists and collectives, and held landmark shows such as ‘5th Passage: In Search of Lost Time’; ‘Ashley Bickerton: Heresy or Codswallop’; and ‘Semsar Siahaan: Art, Liberation’. The gallery has collaborated with national institutions such as the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum. In 2008, Sandhu was awarded the Patron of Heritage Award by Singapore’s National Heritage Board.

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CARLOS QUIJON, JR. is an art historian, critic, and curator based in Manila. He was a fellow of the research platform Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast Asia (MAHASSA), convened by the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories project. Quijon writes exhibition reviews for Artforum (NY) and CNN Philippines. He curated ‘Courses of Action’ (Para Site and Goethe-Institut Hong Kong, 2019); co-curated ‘Minor Infelicities’ (Post Territory Ujeongguk, Seoul, 2020); ‘A Global South Cosmology of Capitalism’ (El Espacio 23, Miami, 2022); ‘Synthetic Condition’ (UP Vargas Museum, Manila, 2022); and ‘To A Faraway Friend’ (ASEAN Cultural House, Busan, 2022).

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NICOLE SORIANO is a writer focused on the intersections between art, gender, and faith. She currently writes and researches for Gajah Gallery, where one of her major projects involved writing the biography of artist I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih. Her work has appeared in Plural Art Magazine, Art & Market, CNN Philippines, and the Philippine Star, among others. In 2022, she won the Ateneo Art Awards - Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize for Art Criticism. She received her BFA in Art Management from the Ateneo de Manila University. She is based in Manila, Philippines

Art Fair Philippines 2023 Daily Tour

View gallery exhibitions and #ArtFairPH sections through an hour-long guided tour around Art Fair Philippines 2023.

Tour is complimentary for Art Fair Philippines ticket holders.

The tour can accommodate a maximum of twenty (20) participants, first come, first served.

Filipino artists in the world of NFTs on Tezos: A conversation about crypto art in the Philippines

This panel delves into the exciting world of NFTs in the Philippines. How is blockchain technology impacting the traditional notion of art and incorporating itself into the contemporary art scene and practices of artists in the country? From opportunities and challenges, to present and future projects, we explore the crypto art scene in the Philippines and how Filipino artists are navigating through this new environment.

About the Speaker/s

Bjorn Calleja (b. 1981, Manila, Philippines) is a Filipino contemporary painter and interdisciplinary artist. He earned his BFA from Far Eastern University, where he later became a part-time lecturer. Aside from exhibiting his work, his early career involved corporate jobs and stints as a graphic designer. He also co-founded Design. Other Things. (‪2012-2014‬), a design studio that worked with a team of visual artists.

Calleja's work draws on identity, spirituality, art, general and personal history, and the everyday politics, utilizing perspective and a play of scale as metaphor to how we as humans affect the world at large. His paintings, sculptures, installations, and animations are heavily influenced by 80’s and 90’s popular culture, kitsch, the internet, and the aesthetics and textures of Manila’s landscape.

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Sheila Aurelio Ledesma is a graphic artist based in Manila. She work on collage as her primary source of self-expression. Rooted in play, she explore how disparate pieces can form a whole and find the real in the surreal. Smudge, scribble, stick. Look closer and you might just see her fingerprint. Primal in approach, she is inspired by abstract expressionism, the Dadaist movement and good old child-like wonder. She's a big believer that art has the power to transform and this has enabled her to discover herself in her most authentic form.

Her work has been part of Crypto Art Week Asia 2021, DoinGud Origins Exhibit 2021, Art Fair Philippines NFT 2022 JStudio, Galeria Paloma 1/1 Exhibit 2022, Philippine Blockchain Week 2022.

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Andre Baldovino

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Jopet Arias is a digital nomad and forerunner in the world of art, with over a decade of experience as a visual artist. In late 2020, he became a crypto artist, exploring the fusion of digital and traditional media through augmented reality.

His works often depict metaphysical subjects, delving into the themes of spirit, body, and soul. In the age of artificial intelligence, Arias is particularly interested in what makes humans human, and he often explores questions of meaning, destiny, origin, and morality in his art.

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ABOUT TZ APAC

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About the Speaker/s

John Verlin Santos, founder and CEO of Titik Poetry, a non-government organisation Cavite-based art collective, talks about his journey entering the world of Web3 as an artist.