05.09.07 kulturnatib

An invitation

Some weeks back I received an invitation. This same invitation was sent, I believe, to other artist-colleagues in the network of the Visayas Island Visual Arts Association (VIVAa) of which the groups I belong to, the Lunâ Art Collective and Pusod, Inc, are active members. The invitation was to participate in an exhibit in Davao City.

This exhibit is organized by the Davao Artist Foundation, Inc. (DAFI). It is entitled, Miting de Abanse 2007: An Art Exhibit. This will be the 3rd of such exhibits that have been organized by this group and have been timed to coincide with national elections such as that in 2004 and 2001.

The title is obviously taken from the very language of our political exercise. Although, in recent years with the weakening or even disappearance of a clear-cut party system, the miting de abanse hasn't been the grand election campaign opening salvos of yesteryears.

Thus, while the miting de abanse of the politicians have been on the wane and going on its way to becoming a political – and expensive – curiosity, or even memory, the miting de abanse of the artists – a threadbare affair, if I know anything about these efforts - are making a headway into the consciousness of the general public, at least in that part of the country.

Abe Garcia, a leading member of DAFI, claims that the immediately previous miting de abanse, 'Miting de Abanse : A Satiric Exhibit of 2004, at the MatinaTown Square, a leading commercial establishment in the city, was such a hit, that it caused heavy vehicular and human traffic. It continues to inspire many of the Davao youth especially the artists, according to him.

The DAFI is among the growing number of art groups in the country who, though eschewing the often exclusivist label of 'social realism,' believe that art does have something to say about the life and times of a people, of persons and even individual artists and that relevance is an important yardstick by which art and artists should be measured.

Thus, this show as with the previous ones, encourages the participating artists to be at their critical best. These are the critical votes in the ballot of paintings, sculptures, prints and other media, that could help inform or influence the actual votes. More than fifty of such votes are expected to be cast in this exhibit.

Mine is going to be one of them. I have accepted the invitation. I am doing a performance piece entitled, 'Piggy Party : Yet Another Year of Our Piggetry.' This performance was originally done during an art event, at the Tapas Lounge, Crossroads, Banilad.

As with many of my performance pieces, this is an interactive piece, where audience participation is a critical element of the entire work. The audience is going to made to swallow a piece of wafer. The host partaken during holy communion.

These will be taken from a ballot box where earlier a poster calendar from one of those liquor companies that feature a bikini clad girl is paraded around then torn to bits and, like ballots, stuffed into the ballot box.

The entire performance will be accompanied in the background by the most famous soundtrack cum ringtone of the 2004 elections featuring the incomparable voices of Garci – who is running for congress in his home district a few hundred kilometers from Davao City – and GMA who is running for her political life in a continuing drama about the open secret of how elections are massively manipulated and cheated in this country and by her highness then and, widely expected again, now.

Along with DAFI and the participating artists, I am or should be under no illusion that we will be no more than flies in the ointment in this thoroughly cynical electoral exercise. If, even that.

But, we should also be able to say, especially to ourselves, that we did not just curse the darkness. We lit our lights. Even if these will cast the hues of sarcasm, irony, confrontation, denunciation and, yes, disillusionment and hopelessness.