Presentations

Impoverishment as Lament to the Tragic: Marciano Galang’s 1960s Paintings in the Lens of Samuel Beckett’s Theatre, at International Federation of Theatre Research 2024, University of the Philippines Diliman, Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Modernist playwright Samuel Beckett has characterized his theatre to be a form of ‘impoverishment’—a gesture that runs along the streams of the absurd and the minimal. Threading these and informed by his experiences of the war, the emptiness in his theatre has been dominantly interpreted to comment on human existence as suffering amidst the wretchedness of living. The study argues that this gesture of impoverishment can be observed in the abstraction of painter Marciano Galang, specifically in his late student years during the latter half of the 1960s—the time when he disclosed... Read more about Impoverishment as Lament to the Tragic: Marciano Galang’s 1960s Paintings in the Lens of Samuel Beckett’s Theatre
Zen Influence and Denial: Ambivalence in the Painting Practice of Lao Lianben, at International Academic Forum, Tokyo, Japan, Friday, May 26, 2023
Filipino artist Lao Lianben’s practice (b. 1948) has been highly associated with the aesthetics of Zen (translated ‘Chan’ from Chinese, 禪宗), which subsequently hardened into an individual artistic style. The paper locates it alongside the geopolitical history of Zen and what is now called ‘Zen art’ through tracing the practices that the artist categorically cited as his influences: painter-monk Fachang Muqi (牧谿, b. unknown, d. 1269) and painter Mark Tobey (b. 1890, d. 1976). Viewing how Zen was remediated from China to Japan and to the United States of America through this gesture, Lao’s... Read more about Zen Influence and Denial: Ambivalence in the Painting Practice of Lao Lianben
Notes on Eco-eschatology in the Practice of Painter Glenn Bautista, at College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines Diliman, Monday, May 22, 2023
One of the postcolonial critiques of Christianity was articulated by environmental historian Donald Worster, who wrote that Christian imperialism “stripped from nature all spiritual qualities” (Nature’s Economy, 29). For one, traditional Christian eschatology previously and dominantly emphasized on a new future prepared by God for humanity beyond this world during the Final Judgment. It has been argued that this encouraged a degree of human exceptionalism and anthropocentrism. This paper relays preliminary notes that attempt to uncover additional texture to the relationship between... Read more about Notes on Eco-eschatology in the Practice of Painter Glenn Bautista
Reminiscing and Rearticulating: Glenn Bautista's Gesture of Personal and Self Archiving, at De La Salle University, Manila, Wednesday, February 22, 2023

The practice of artist Glenn Bautista (b. 1947, d. 2014) plies multiple forms, content, and media. This has been outlined in a 1997 survey monograph penned by art historian Alice Guillermo. As if acting as supplement to the monograph, a blog was created by the artist a decade later. Written in his perspective, the blog contains stories about his life and practice; intimate correspondences with family, friends, and fellow artists;...

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Facilitating Workshops with Community of Practice of Pamagpande (Blacksmithing) in Apalit, Pampanga, at Ahmedabad University, India, Thursday, November 18, 2021
The pamagpande (blacksmithing) tradition of Apalit, Pampanga has been one of the prominent cottage industries in the town since the colonial period. Certain oral accounts imply that this practice may have originated from the metallurgical practice of 16th century cannon maker, Panday Pira, who resided in the town after fleeing a battle from Manila. Earliest ethnographic research however can be traced to the efforts of the students of H. Otley Beyer in 1913. According to the earliest ethnographic manuscript on the practice, although men are usually involved in the actual making of the palang (... Read more about Facilitating Workshops with Community of Practice of Pamagpande (Blacksmithing) in Apalit, Pampanga
The Philippine Registry of Cultural Property (PRECUP): Premise, Promise, and Precaution on the Utilization of Cultural Heritage Databases, at University of the Philippines Diliman, Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Republic Act 10066 or the “National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009” enacts all Local Government Units (LGUs) to submit their Local Cultural Inventory (LCI) that holds documented information on cultural properties under their jurisdiction that are “deemed important” to cultural heritage. Defined by this republic act, cultural heritage pertains to “the totality of cultural property preserved and developed through time and passed on to posterity.” The information from LGUs—together with those from other units, such as: cultural agencies, government agencies and instrumentalities, and private...

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Figuring the Philippine Nation in/through Abstraction in Painting: A Sketch of Discourses from the 1950s to the 1970s, at Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Among countries that have been part of Euro-american colonial empires, such as most of the Southeast Asian region, the quest for independence and self-determination has been pinned to respond to multi-layered urgencies that have been experienced since a collective imagination of a new—that is, anti-colonial—order has been conceived. This quest imbricates the pluralization of the concept of modernity that departs from the tyranny of its industrial connotations, which have for long been the territory of the more developed countries in the Global North. It likewise was a means to identify...

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