The Philippine Pavilion At The 59th Venice Art Biennale Shows A Convergence of Cultural Expressions

The Philippines opened its National Pavilion at the 59th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia on April 21, 2022. It will be open for public viewing until November 27, 2022. 

Located in the Arsenale – a main exhibition space in la Biennale alongside other national pavilions – the Philippine Pavilion features Andi taku e sana, Amung taku di sana / All of us present, This is our gathering, curated by Yael Buencamino Borromeo and Arvin Flores, featuring the works of Sammy N. Buhle, Felicidad A. Prudente and Gerry Tan. 

The exhibition performs a convergence of cultural expressions that creates spaces for inquiry into traditional and contemporary art forms. The first work, Speaking in Tongue, is a two-channel video installation featuring the translation of a traditional chant into performative painting using squid ink as a medium. It is followed by Renderings, which shows the transmission of sound made from traditional weaving practices remediated in video and textile material. Throughout the process of production, translation and rendering, the work lends itself to the artists’ agency through improvisation and an open interpretation of the audience, thus creating space for investigation and exchange.

Andi taku e sana, Amung taku di sana are the opening lines of a Sogna, a chant performed extemporaneously to express the self to participants in a gathering and forms part of important Madukayan occasions. It translates to “All of us present, This is our gathering.” The chant is performed prior to a peaceful dialogue among the members of the community. It is from the performed chant of esteemed chanter Jose Pangsiw wherein Felicidad A. Prudente, one of the leading ethnomusicologists in the country, created a transcription which was subsequently depicted as a performative painting by visual artist Gerry Tan for the work, Speaking in Tongue. 

The exhibition involves an interdisciplinary approach to transmitting culture with sound and textile, weaving the customary and the contemporary across the archipelago. The process of creating Renderings began with an audio recording of weaving sounds in different weaving houses around the Philippines, which was then notated by Prudente, providing visual representation to the soundscapes. It is then sketched by Tan, in consultation with established Ifugao weaver Sammy N. Buhle, before the latter transformed it into an elaborate woven fabric. “In my designs, the music is articulated,” explains Buhle.  It then results in an expression of a series of translations – completed by the textile-cum-musical score; yet offering itself for further translation and rendition by its viewer. In this multi-disciplinary collaboration, Buhle, Prudente and Tan – three artists with completely diverse practices – created new forms of knowledge, process and language. 

Andi taku e sana, Amung taku di sana / All of us present, This is our gathering, presents a highly mediated process of generating sound, performance, image and object by conveying the production and translation of the source cultural sounds of chanting and weaving into notations, visual art and textiles. Tan explains, “A lot of my work has this self-referential aspect to them. It feeds back on itself. There’s a loop that’s being created. As a viewer, when you approach the work, you present it with different realities at the same time. There’s a dialogue between materials and processes.” 

In their curatorial statement, Yael Buencamino and Arvin Flores state, “Through the exploration of sound material and field recordings of indigenous weaving practices across the Philippines, the exhibit aims to represent the translation of cultural data into visual communication, collectively promoting Philippine traditions and ensuring its endurance through universal exchange.” Prudente adds, “the exhibition encourages one to be open to collaborative work because when you create new knowledge, you are able to produce something unique, like what we are presenting in the Venice Biennale.” Flores agrees, “You look at the original sources, then you look at the offspring, then you see connections. Then from there you can create a new language.”

Project visionary Deputy Speaker and Congresswoman Loren Legarda shares, Among the many issues it seeks to take up, the Philippine Pavilion exhibition hopes to start a discussion on the formation of communities through experimentation and exchange. And thus, through this exhibition of the Philippines in this important platform, we share with the world how we can keep the essence of communities alive.” 

“Through the works of Filipino artists, curators and thinkers, we hope to inspire ways of doing and being so as to try to address the globe’s most pressing problems and to be once again be able to see the value of community and to work with others,” stated National Commission of Culture and the Arts Chairman and Philippine Pavilion Commissioner Arsenio “Nick” Lizaso.

The Philippine participation at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia is a collaborative undertaking of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), and the Office of Deputy Speaker and Congresswoman Loren Legarda. The Commissioner of the Philippine Pavilion is Arsenio “Nick” J. Lizaso, Chairman of the NCCA. 

The Philippine Pavilion will also be made accessible through its digital programs and virtual tours, which will be accessible to the public, anywhere in the world.  To learn more about this, visit philartsvenicebiennale.org. See updates on Facebook and Instagram via @philartsvenice.