05.01.08 kulturnatib

Midwives

Since the birth of humanity human birthing has always been facilitated through a person who has a proven competence, experience and knowledge of the birthing process.

Even in the Biblical creation story, humanity itself is said to have been born into existence through the divine handiwork of a person in God.

In many societies and cultures, these persons occupied a position of stature although not all of them wielded power commensurate with such status. Almost all of them, especially those who attended to the births, were women.

When the practice of medicine and its allied fields became professionalized and increasingly technology mediated the practice of the facilitation of births also became professionalized in a medical doctor specializing in gynecology who now worked with other specialists, anesthesiologists and pediatricians, among others.

This is most widespread and most entrenched in the West or the advanced capitalist countries with the East or the mostly Third World playing a game of catch-up, despite a history of the practice of medicine several centuries ahead and advanced of the West.

In the West with every advance in the science and technology of birth a new or several specializations are likewise born and in the East their best specialists end up in the West resulting in a handicap that irreversibly skews the playing field.

The East cannot win this game. Even staying in the game is often a doubtful and much too costly proposition.

The costliness of this in the current practice of medicine has kept the traditional birth facilitators or the hilots alive in our country and with them the tradition of home births especially in the rural areas. Not only that, they have become specialists in their own right, as officially recognized midwives trained to be such like that of any profession.

Recently, as well, the traditional home birth have also now become mostly private birthing centers outside of hospitals and government health centers of which there are now several in the city.

But, even in the West, this costliness is also now recognized. Not so much the upfront cost of professional and other services or medication but in the hidden cost of the various dysfunctions that have come about with the very impersonal medical machine and their professional minders.

Here in Quebec, Canada, this recognition has meant the official recognition of the midwife who in French are called by a nobler name: sage femme, or, literally, wise woman. Now part of the government health system is a network of birthing houses or maisons de naissance.

I have not been to any birthing house in the city. I imagine it would compare favorably with the birthing houses here, give or take a few of the amenities that would expectedly differentiate one from an advanced country and another from the Third World.

Still, I expect there would be the same emphasis on natural birth and home birth is very much an option here subject to certain factors like accessibility for emergency personnel and equipment should that become necessary and breastfeeding post partum.

For my partner and I these were attractive options. We happily attended the preparatory and check-up sessions with our primary and secondary midwives together with other 'specialists' in relaxation exercises and massages, birthing, breastfeeding and others.

But when the time came, it did not come. The birthing house is not allowed to handle situations that would require surgery although it does have the basic emergency equipment that the midwives are fully trained to use.

We agreed with the primary midwife that the hospital was our only choice although a semi-natural birth assisted by epidural and chemically induced would still be tried. That didn't work either.

So, Ceasar had to be called in. But the midwife stayed with us the whole time, though not in the operating room but she facilitated our transfer and got in touch with the hospital baby delivery team, which was a no mean feat at 5.30 in the morning.

In the end, all was well. As they, indeed, continue to despite the inevitable and attendant challenges and sometimes even irritations of newborns with the continuing assistance and support of the midwives.

04.10.08 kulturnatib

Reg'Art

Competition is not my thing. This does not make me, among other things, a good athlete even if sports has been and continues to be an abiding interest. This is also why, ever since my earliest days in art school, I have been rather reluctant to join art competitions.

It certainly didn't help my appetite for art competitions when, early on, during the inaugural Jose Joya awards competition, opened by no less than Dean Joya himself, my work was thrown out of the exhibit for reportedly not being aesthetically appetizing or uplifting.

Still, there were a few art competitions I remember joining; A poster competition in the flush of the high hopes for change soon after the people power revolt in 1986, a photo competition a few years later and still much later, the biggest art competition in the country, the Philip Morris Asean Art Awards.

Except for the last one, I did reasonably well. Well enough that the judges agreed with me. In the last one, however, the judges had other ideas. One person, though, thought otherwise and was willing to peel off some of her hard earned money to collect the work. The amount was a negligible fraction compared to what the judges were dispensing but the honor was just as much, well and earned.

Recently, bringing the number closer to the single handful that I might end up joining in my lifetime, I signed up for another art competition.

More than anything, what attracted me to this competition was how this coincided interestingly with some of my ideas about art. In particular, how art can be of the most ordinary thing, from the most ordinary thing and with the most ordinary thing.

In short, ordinary to extraordinary. Yet still maintaining its ordinariness, even if it could or does earn a prize, some money or notoriety, end up in a museum, find itself in the books or otherwise inspire an outpouring of everyday, ordinary art.

And what can be more ordinary than a sewer cover?

Playing on the French verb regarder or to look at – conjugated to regarde, pronounced regard --, the sewer cover design competition 'Reg 'Art d'égôut' or a sewer sight, was launched by the city of Gatineau late last year.

The city of Gatineau has decided to follow the example of other cities in taking the branding of their city seriously. This concept of 'branding' a city started in the 80s and takes the idea of a city from a hodge-podge of largely unplanned developments into the city as a 'product' with a unique, unified identity exemplified by a 'brand.'

This idea of branding encourages the utilization or even creation of every opportunity to promote itself, which, by so doing, enhances the 'brand' and increasing its value that range from the abstract concept of attractiveness to the more concrete measure of economic growth or the increase of the standard of living.

A sewer cover might not be as imposing as a large-print billboard or as sexy as a lighted sign or as technologically advanced as a giant LCD screen, but people, at least here and in cities with extensive sewer systems – which I hazard to guess that Cebu City does not really have yet – do get to see them, a few times a day, day in and day out.

Its drawbacks are also its very strengths. They are everywhere, they are unavoidable, extremely durable, maintenance-free and, for all that, comparatively cheap. And then, they are expected to be, or people are used to their being ordinary, unobtrusive, unexciting and even, for their bulk and numbers, invisible.

So then, one morning, people will wake up and head to work, play or wherever they head for for the day and step onto or drive over the sewer covers and, hey, this is something new! There is some design here. What is it? It's a bird, it's a plane, it's SuperSewer!

They will be the talk of the town. There will be a buzz that will hit the media that will then be amplified by the media far and wide. Gatineau's brand will be enhanced, will be more recognized, will earn even more value.

That is the city's hope and, with my entry, my bet.

04.03.08 kulturnatib

Magnet

Of the exhibits that we have calendared for viewing this year two have been designated as 'absolute must-views.'

The first or earlier exhibit comes from and is of a country closer in distance than France, the origin or organizational provenance of the later exhibit (which will still be in June). But in spirit, it cannot be any closer since all modern art in any country will have had some roots or will have been influenced by the modernist movement starting with the French impressionists.

Historically, too, this country, has ties to the Philippines though these are often unacknowledged and even little known. Rizal was, for example, on his way to this country, volunteering to do medical service for the Spanish authorities there when his trip was interrupted and he was eventually executed soon after.

'Cuba : Art and History from 1868 to Today,' is an exhibit, we viewed two weeks ago at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. This exhibit shines a fine-focus light on while at the same time sweeps a broad panorama of this island that Columbus has described as “the most beautiful land eyes have ever seen,” and walks the viewer through Cuban history as is reflected in its visual arts.

I found close parallels with the development of Philippine visual arts except that Cuban artists, as a result of their closer proximity to Europe particularly the political developments there, developed a sharper artistic vernacular expressed through the prism of a particularly political or nationalist sentiment coinciding with artistic ferment and their historical experience.

In the Philippines the schism between the older, naturalist or realist school and the moderns were expressed almost exclusively along stylistic discourses although the radicalization of 70s pushed by the ferment of the Martial Law years developed an overtly political or nationalist viewpoint in Philippine art.

Cuba, by this time however, was firmly along the project of what the exhibit notes call the period of political utopias making her a major toothache for the U.S. only a spit away. This was also the beginning of Che Guevara, a major figure in the Cuban revolution, becoming a worldwide cult figure that up till now sees cycles of baffling popularity even simply as iconic symbol in shirts and other consumer goods.

Incidentally, in this exhibit I learned, as quoted in one of accompanying explanatory text, that Che Guevara 'ridiculed' social-realism, calling it, “the art of the frozen form gird only for expressing what everybody already knows.”

While the full context of this quote might not support the position that Guevara was an anti-social realist, it still could serve as among the transition points towards what, again, the exhibit notes as the present period of ideological, historical and aesthetic challenges.

Having taken up performance art in recent years my personal inclination leans towards this period which I surmise to include the period with establishment of the Havana Biennale in 1984, which, surprisingly, was not given much attention, if there was even any mention at all, in the exhibit.

This bienniale is now recognized as one of the most important for 'third-world' artists, and a number of Filipino artists I know have represented the country in this bienniale notably the '01 and 03' editions.

The works of this period I found the most engaging. Most of these were multimedia pieces, installations and, of course, performances. The most notable for me here is the performance piece by Tania Vigilantes performed inside a jetliner. While not explicitly stated, I think the title of the work has reference a work by Goya “The Dream of Reason,” which, incidentally and with a completely different trajectory, is also the title of another performance work by Raymund Fernandez.

In the video documentation, the artist wears a contraption that forcibly keeps her mouth open during what could be the duration of the flight. She is wearing a black tshirt with a print on it that says: DISSENT WITHOUT FEAR.

Many of the works here are frankly critical of the present Cuban regime and some poke what some people – the authorities – might not be inclined to call gentle, harmless fun, notably a video animation of the word REVOLUCION in different fonts from Aachen to Zurich, which is also its title.

With further research after viewing this exhibit I have learned that next year will be the 10th anniversary of the Havana Bienniale, which prior to this exhibit had only been a soft-focus dream for me.

This time around with circumstances that are now slightly favorable, this can very well become a powerful magnet.