Overseas Filipino Workers, an A-Z of Cultural Exports

G is for John Gianvito, A-Z of Filipino Cultural Exports

Not strictly a Filipino Cultural Export, an exception has been made for US essay filmmaker John Gianvito, in gratitude to his 2010 film ‘Vapor Trail (Clark)’.

‘Vapor Trail (Clark)’ recently showed at the Tate Modern, in February 2015, as part of ‘Conflict, Time, Photography’, an exhibition surveying 150 years of conflict around the world. Gianvito’s ‘cinema of urgency’ examines the effects of war, on the Filipino’s 108 years after the US / Philippine war between 1899–1902. Working within the principles of Cinema Verite, Gianvito’s 4 ½ hour, essay film ‘combines interviews, historical texts and landscape photography to unravel the crippling effects of distant conflicts and legacy of colonialism on the present day’.

John Gianvito’s ‘cinema of urgency’ – I suppose it’s fair to say I’ve become, or at least aspire to be, some kind of agitator. I seek an agit-prop cinema in the original non-pejorative sense of the term—agitating emotions and propagating thoughts. As I see it, the world we find ourselves enmeshed in demands a cinema of urgency as opposed to the cinema of distraction and alienation.

Many of the Filipino artists, especially filmmakers that I have discovered through delivering this blog, are focused on delivering a truth through the lens of social realism. In order to understand the current political climate, a good deal of historical knowledge is required – which is not readily available throughout libraries, schools or mainstream press.

In an online video interview John Gianvito discusses his approach in making ‘Vapor Trail (Clark)’, through building online relations with Filipino indie media activist collective – ‘Peoples task force, for basis clean up’. Over a period of time, through sustained contact, both online and face time, Gianvito was able to gain the collective’s trust. He was thus granted access to a network of activists, where together they dedicated themselves in exposing the USA government for leaving behind a colonial trail of misery – the effects of which are still felt in the present day.

#OFW more than a country of good looking, half-wit, opportunistic terrorists

F is for Patrick Flores, A-Z of Filipino Cultural Exports

This post is less about Patrick Flores, than it is around the curatorial decisions made in representing the Philippines at Venice Biennale in 2015.

Although Flores is the official curator of the Philippine Pavillion 2015, as selected as by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, an earlier media announcement in March 2014, revealed the role was originally awarded to Pearlie Rose S. Baluyut, Ph.D. The contemporary art historian and author, along with a panel of 5 anonymous advisers, were to select a number of artists whose work fit within the designated theme of heterotopia, a theory developed by French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984).

“Heterot(r)opic,” which “revolves around the concept of the Philippines as a tropical heterotopia, a real space of crises where utopia — the myth of civilization and the project of progress — is simultaneously represented, negotiated, and/or subverted,”

The Philippines as a heterotopia, was the same theory, used by art critic Dan Kidner, to describe Lav Diaz’s new film ‘Storm Children: Book One’. Kidner recognised an evident overarching theme of ‘the more memorable films’ shown at ‘The Rotterdam International Film Festival’ 2015, by sub-classifying the film as a ‘crisis heterotopia’ – a world created by adolescents in the aftermath of a catastrophe (Typhoon Haiyan ,2013).

Tony Godfrey, author of ‘Conceptual Art’ (1998), made a set of curatorial propositions in ‘If The Philippines Were At The Venice Biennale’, an article published for international art magazine ‘Pipeline’, July 2013. He noted the difficulty of reducing a selection to 1 artist to represent a country whose international voice had been missing for 50 years. Instead he surveyed different movements or groups of artists working in the Philippine art world, in a hypothetical shortlists of ‘would be’ contenders. These included –

1. Social realists, a dominant grouping for many years, including leading lights Mark Justiniani (b.1966) and Alfredo Esquillo (b.1972)
2. Artists trained by Roberto Chabet (b.1937) at the University of Philippines – who, like their mentor, make conceptual art and installations
3. Loose grouping associated with the now defunct alternative gallery Surrounded by Water, including Mariano Ching (b.1971), Louie Cordero (b.1978) and Geraldine Javier (b.1970), who studied with Chabet but have re-embraced painting and object-making
4. A number of young artists who have become associated with Manuel Ocampo (b.1965), who has returned to Manila after years in the US and Europe, where he gained a reputation for rumbustious narrative paintings
5. Individuals that are more difficult to fit into any box: the current darling of the art market is Ronald Ventura (b.1973) with his hyper-realist paintings; Isabel & Alfredo Aquilizan (b.1965 and 1962) are perennial biennale favourites; and the painter Rodel Tapaya (b.1980)

And so the discussion concludes, with curator Patrick Flores proposition to – ‘Tie A String Around the World’. His selection includes feature film ‘Ghenghis Khan’, a restored film by deceased filmmaker Manuel Conde (1915- 1985). The film returns to Venice, 63 years after it was first shown to an international audience, in doing so will ‘reflect on the country’s modernity and the present scheme of a world redrawn on the surface of water’. Commissioned work by sculptor Jose Tence Ruiz (b.1958) and multimedia artist Manny Montelibano (b. 1971) will also address this premise.

It seems fitting that Flores has selected water as a bridging medium to draw together complex histories and aesthetics used by artists working in the Philippines, for reasons which fit my limited understanding of the country –

1 – Water as an analogy for income. Beaches – the No 1 sales pitch used by Filipino tourist boards to sell the Philippines as a tourist destination.

2 – Water as an analogy for migration. Having grown up in Australia, a country known for its racial injustices, I was branded by kids at school as a ‘boat person’. Perhaps the colour of my skin and colour of my hair suggested I was an asylum seeker?

As an artist, all these suggestions – will of course inform my take and understanding on the Filipino national identity, as it comes from a place outside the mainstream vehicle of propaganda. However the thematic focus tends to be concerned with social history,  be it reactionary or documentary. Thus I can’t help but wonder how Filipino’s, born outside of the Philippines perceive the country – from the outside looking in.

#OFW more than a country of good looking, half-wit, opportunistic terrorists

E is for Exploitation,  A-Z of Filipino Cultural Exports

…as seen in feature documentary ‘Machete Maidens Unleashed’ (2010), by Australian film director Mark Hartley. This film is a fan-based tribute to the endless number of exploitation films made in the provinces of the Philippines, throughout the 1970’s. Capitalising on cheap labour and exotic landscapes, the Marcos’ presented the Philippines as a filmmaker’s paradise, offering creative refuge to horror genre directors/ producers such as Roger Corman. It was here that Corman went on to co-produce cult film ‘Women in Cages’, a blaxploitation classic, starring Pam Greer. The effects of this film continue to inspire directors today, with postmodern filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, citing ‘Women in Cages’ (1971) as a key influence to ‘Planet Terror’ (2007). A full list of films referenced in this doco can be found here. Look out for unlikely action man hero, Weng Weng – a national treasure.

#OFW more than a country of good looking, half-wit, opportunistic terrorists

D is for Lav Diaz, A-Z of Filipino Cultural Exports

b. 1958. We live in a post-internet age, as such we want questions to answers immediately. Our broadband providers update our internet speed, thus we accelerate. We want things now. Being forced to wait we become impatient. Through technological advancement, have we forgotten how to be patient?

Lav Diaz shows us how in slow cinema. Arguably a resistance to the status quo, slow cinema challenges the pace of modernity, celebrating a deferred pleasure through the act of looking. Diaz is a disciple of Lino Brocka, with his films taking on a social realist tone, giving voice to the plight of the Filipino’s who suffer in poverty, as a result of continued political corruption.

Surveying ‘Rotterdam International Film Festival’ 2015, Dan Kidner, Artist Moving Image Curator and Critic, notes Lav Diaz’s new film Storm Children: Book One, 143 mins, 2014. The film explores both environmental and physiological spaces, in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan 2013. This article can be read at the Frieze blog.

#OFW more than a country of good looking, half-wit, opportunistic terrorists

C is for Manuel Conde, A-Z of Filipino Cultural Exports

Patrick Flores, Curator of the Filipino Pavilion at ‘The 56th Venice Biennial’ presents ‘Tie A String Around the World’, a group exhibition featuring 4 Filipino artists including, Manuel Conde, Carlos Francisco, Manny Montelibano and Jose Tence Ruiz (2 living/ 2 deceased). Positioning the Philippines transition to modernity, through contemporary artistic practice, Flores’ title points to dialogue from Manuel Conde’s ‘Ghenghis Khan’ (1950). ‘Surveying his dominion at the end of the seminal film, Genghis Khan professes to his beloved that he would tie a string around the world and lay it at her feet, a gesture of intense affection, of breathtaking hubris’.

Manuel Conde (1915- 1985), Filipino actor, director and producer is a true Filipino cultural export. With support from writer-critic James Agee (USA), ‘Ghenghis Khan’ , a biopic of emperor of the Mongol Empire (1206 – 1368) was re-edited, narrated and translated to 16 languages. Conde was the first Filipino artist filmmaker to compete at The Venice Film Festival, with ‘Ghenghis Khan’ showing 60 years earlier, in 1952. Spanning 90 minutes in length, the work has been digitally re-mastered for The Venice Biennial. A viewing copy exists on youtube, but for art’s sake I have decided to abstain.

A review of ‘The Cinema of Manuel Conde’ by Nicanor G. Tiongson (2008) can be assessed at Rolando Tolentino’s independent blog. According to Filipino Wiki Conde’s practice examined ‘Filipino cultural history, depicted and critiqued local customs and traditions, foregrounded and examined contemporary political and social issues, employed but innovated on the commercial genres of his time, and opened Filipino cinema to the world’. A definite highlight for Venice 2015.

#OFW more than a country of good looking, half-wit, opportunistic terrorists