01.29.09 kulturnatib

A cup of sea
When in his last column, Raymund Fernandez, wrote about his mother reminding him to always make it or find his way home, I was reminded of my own mother.

She knows that home now is a different, far away address for me and she will want, pray even, for me to always make it to this home.

Yet, she was overjoyed when, just before Christmas, I told her that we were going to be home soon for a visit.

So the past week or so has been spent preparing for this visit, that includes winging across the Pacific with a child too young to have worked out the mechanics of walking yet old enough to try and launch her own flights of fancy. Or, daredevilry, more like.

This is challenging enough without having to also prepare for an exhibit that, by the time the visit is over, will have the preparation window of opportunity open for just a little under two months.

There is more. The exhibit – two simultaneous exhibits actually – is an undertaking of two artist run centers in Vancouver and Ottawa. The idea of the exhibit is to pair artist from both centers – 5 each – with each preparing a concept for a piece that the other of the pair will execute and vice-versa.

And, still more. The parameters, from the curators of the exhibit, state: The artists in this exhibition do not know one another and consequently cannot have a sense of how the artist that receives their instructions will respond. They are not necessarily collaborating, but instead releasing the idea for a work whose production is entirely out of their hands.

This is a double challenge multiplied many times over. There is, first, the blank sheet of the starting point for the initial piece whose end point can only be suggested or hoped for. Then, second, there is the filled up sheet whose final result is far from straightforward.

In fact, the curators allow for one of the pair – or even both -- rejecting the concept of the other but he or she must nevertheless produce a work that will give evidence of this rejection.

So, after many conceptual misses over the course of as many days, a hit. Or, so I hope.

The concept calls for a sculpture/installation entitled, 'A Cup of Sea.'

It states: A cup of tea is a social occasion for many, particularly in Asia. Yet it is also an occasion for personal reflection, inward and outward. While there are many ingredients for tea, the single indispensable ingredient that draws out the contribution of all the other ingredients is water; hot, preferably just before boiling water.

Water is, of course, the one ingredient that makes life as we know it possible. We are surrounded by, even constituted of water. The great Pacific Ocean is home to many. Humans as well as other creatures.

My birth and adopted homes are connected through the Manila-Vancouver route that arcs over the Pacific. Like water in general and the oceans and seas in particular, there are many threats and challenges to it or to them that impact on humans and other creatures. There is, now more than ever, a need for reflection on and about our cup of sea. The artwork is a contribution to or an invitation to such reflection.

While working out the possible elements to the work I came upon a fact that can only be considered serendipitous; Cebu City and Vancouver are close to being exactly positioned opposite each other on the globe.

Both lie close to longitude 123° though Vancouver is further north in latitude by more than 30°.

There are many things that can be said about this. The one I prefer is that with this exhibit I can't be too far from home in both art and life.