Apologies!

Eep, I know I haven't posted anything in two months and I apologize for the delay! I had a wonderful trip to Australia and my cousin had a beautiful wedding there. I arrived back in Manila in November after a nearly 3-week trip there and the Philippine holiday madness was in full force! The Philippines is Christmas-crazy which makes for very fun holidays but very bad traffic... There were times when I'd spend four hours a day stuck in traffic o_O It's so difficult to get anything done during the holidays! It was still really fun though especially since my best friend who lives in the States came home! We were high school classmates and she left for the States after we graduated, eventually to become a Hollywood producer's assistant ;) She's a smartie, that one!

Anyway, I'm finally going to begin my studies for Master of Art Curatorship at the University of Melbourne this year! Classes start on 3 March and I'm scheduled to fly to Australia in mid-February. I've been really busy packing (or at least trying to pack) and I have some projects I'll be completing or working on till I leave.

These projects, which fall under Visual Pond activities, are
- curating masarapmatulog (that means "it's nice to sleep" in English. masarap = delicious; tulog = sleep). It's the solo video art exhibition of Andrei Salud opening on 24 January at the Cubicle Art Gallery (Stella Maris cor. C. Raymundo, Maybunga, Pasig). Show runs till 30 January.
- organizing a video art show curated by Jet Pascua, a Filipino artist based in Norway.
The show is called Garish Barish and is a collection of video artworks of different foreign artists based in Norway. You may view more at http://www.small-projects.org/frames/garish.htm. This show has a simultaneous run and venue with masarapmatulog. It will likely take the 1st floor of the gallery while masarap will take the 2nd floor.
- National Commission of Culture and the Arts Cinema Committee's offering for National Arts Month (which is February). Visual Pond was their first choice to act as a conduit for the project. We're basically the bankers and taking care of the money! It's a bit scary regarding the financial responsibility but it's about time that the organization makes a little money :)

Other projects include writing! I'll be continuing my writing from Australia as much as possible :) I actually think I'll be able to concentrate writing more from there!

Oh and very good news! I got a scholarship for my masters studies! I'm one of the international students granted the Endeavour Postgraduate Award and it covers nearly all of the expenses! I'm very grateful to the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training for the scholarship. The expenses to study abroad are really staggering and the scholarship is a lifesaver!

Oh, here's a link to the Endeavour program for Asian applicants if anyone's interested :)

http://www.endeavour.dest.gov.au/awards_by_country/for_internationals/for_asian_applicants/endeavour_postgraduate_awards.htm

Well, that's it for now! I'm a bit tired and I have an interview to do tomorrow plus an exhibit opening then a meeting. I hope to post some articles soon! Bear with me please :)

And a very happy new year to you all!!! :D

Child's Play

Yay! Christian Tamondong in Preview August 2007! Gosh, he has really developed over the years. The pictures, by the way, don't do his works justice. You really have to see it in person!

I'll probably type in more text next time, will run around like a headless chicken now to start writing/packing/whatever! Thought I'd post this already since I scanned it months ago.

Anybody want to recommend an art space in Sydney or Melbourne to visit? :)

Poet of Space

Here is the Leandro Locsin article at last! After I wrote this piece, I found out that my dad interviewed Locsin many years ago when he was delving into architecture for a change :) Recently, my friend and writing for the school paper. I should've used my dad's article as source! Oh well, it was still enjoyable Visual Pond org-mate/cofounder Tenten Mina came up with a fantabulous idea on a Philippine architecture project. A pop-up book!!!!!!! :D We're putting it in one of Visual Pond's to-do lists, hopefully it won't be a decade before we get to see that pop-up book dream come true!

END FRAME VIDEO ART PROJECT II: DAILY DISCLOSURES

The title of this post could also be "OR the reason I've been so busy and haven't updated this blog in a while!"

End Frame is the Philippine video art festival I started with my art management friends Rica Estrada and Tenten Mina last year with initial help by Cheska Tanada (who is currently working abroad till 2009). Together we make up Visual Pond, a non-profit organization committed to the visual arts :) We do work for our org in addition to our other work commitments (including full-time work) so it can get pretty crazy.

Anyway, last 12-16 October 2007, End Frame II took place at The Fifth, Shangri-La Plaza, EDSA cor. Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong, Metro Manila. (Shangri-La Plaza is a major shopping mall here in Metro Manila, easily accessibly by the MRT line) The festival was presented by Visual Pond, National Commission of Culture and the Arts, Listening in Style, Shangri-La Plaza, and Rodriguez de Alba Foundation for Creative Advocacy in partnership with The One Minutes, Pablo and Metro Home magazine with the support of the Ateneo Art Gallery :D

I should be writing more about it soon but for now please check out Visual Pond's multiply at http://visualpond.multiply.com to look at the pictures of opening night (good crowd!). Also uploaded in our multiply are PODCASTS - audio recordings of two talks that occurred during the festival. One is a talk on copyright issues of video art by Atty. Louie Calvario of Intellectual Property Office - Philippines and the other is an open forum on video art with resource speakers Teddy Co (Philippine video art historian and Member, Cinema Committee, National Commission of Culture and the Arts), Tad Ermitano (video artist who was part of both End Frame festivals) and Jun Sabayton (filmmaker, visual artist and independent curator who curated the all video art show Jumpcut 2 in Green Papaya in October 2006). The picture on the left shows Jun, Tad and Teddy during the talk.

The open forum, which revolved mainly on a question of the definition of video art, will particularly give foreign artists/writers/curators an insight to what is the state of the video art scene here. It is I think the first formal discussion on video art held in Manila.

You may also check out Tad Ermitano's blog at http://cavemanifesto.blogspot.com as he blogged about the forum. His work is the one you can seen on the left at the first photo above.

For those who really want to see more about the art scene here in Manila but are unable to come over, I suggest you create an account in multiply and start networking with many of us scenesters in the Manila visual arts scene. We often take pictures of the exhibitions we go to (praise the digital revolution!) and upload these on our multiply accounts. It's a great way to keep updated too since people often post announcements of their shows or friends' shows in their multiply's. And if some of us were unable to go to an exhibit, well, usually one who did get to go has uploaded pictures so we can check out the show at least through the documentation.

My multiply is http://lisachiki.multiply.com. I also upload non-art stuff there so don't be surprised :)

Now I'm leaving everyone with a pic of Visual Pond! :) Rica, Tenten and me in that order. Thanks to my mom who took the picture, haha! Good night and hope to post again soon :)

Between Intersections

This is a rather belated post because I only realized recently that I haven't posted the text I wrote for the brochure-catalogue of the exhibition, Between Intersections, which Poklong Anading (2006 Ateneo Art Awards Winner & Recipient, 2006 Ateneo Art Gallery Sydney Studio Residency Grant) held last April 2007 at the Ateneo Art Gallery. I particularly like this piece of writing of mine so thought I'd include it here :)
*The picture above shows two walls/projections of the exhibit but there were projections as well on the two other surrounding walls not seen in the picture.

State of the Art

Preview's July 2007 issue features Jason Moss in the Artscene! :) Please check out more of his stuff at http://weloveintimidation.com/jasonmoss! He's just got an overwhelming lot of experience and friends at such young an age, it'll be interesting to see how he progresses :) Some of his works kind of remind me of the late Onib Olmedo, THE Filipino expressionist who I think should be named a National Artist. (The very much awaited retrospective of Olmedo, by the way, opens on 27 September 2007, Thursday, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Come and see the show!)

This issue marks a whole year of my writing for Preview magazine since my first issue was July last year. This is actually only my 10th Artscene article (Artscene was absent August 2006 and April 2007). It's great to find a magazine that really recognizes creativity especially with their annual Creative IT list (and I loooooove the artists that I wrote about this year - it comes out in October)! Funny how things come full circle - the title of my first article for Preview was Starter Art and now for my 12th, it's State of the Art!

I'm very excited about Preview's November issue - it's on video art, woohoo! Visual Pond, the non-profit organization that Rica Estrada, Tenten Mina and I set-up (with initial help from Cheska Tanada) is busy full throttle with our second video art festival, End Frame Video Art Project II: Daily Disclosures, which opens on 12 October 2007. You can check out our website at http://endframe.visualpond.org.

3:17 AM - another late night for me! I still owe everyone a post on my article in Metro Society June-July 2007 issue which is on the National Artist for Architecture Leandro Locsin. The current Metro Society issue out has my article on glass sculptor Ramon Orlina (and I'll be posting pics here I personally took!).

All right, that's it for me tonight. Two articles due for another publication this week o_O Time to up the caffeine!

Blanc, Art Informal, Heavenly Lightness + Faking It

Hello, it's September! As some of you have noticed, I have been delinquent in posting my writings lately. Last month was the completion of the Ateneo Art Awards 2007 - the exhibition and awards ceremony - and of course as coordinator of the project, that became the priority!

Well, I'll be posting a backlog of stuff this month! For right at this moment, I'm posting my articles from Metro Home's June - August 2007 issue. There are 2 gallery pieces - one on Blanc run by Jay Amante and another on Art Informal. Both galleries are relatively new and very welcome additions in the pluralism that is the Philippine art scene!

I also wrote a short piece, "Heavenly Lightness," on a talk given by Dr. Abraham Sakili on Philippine Muslim art at Lopez Museum. There's also another article on Tata Montilla, which is more of an artsy design article. I heard he was reunited with artists Cesare and Jean Marie Syjuco, old friends of his, through our interview!

Well, do pop over an email to letterstolisa@gmail.com to just say hi or whatever else. Getting these emails (knowing people are reading my writings!) always gives me the extra encouragement I need to keep on writing as it is difficult doing a full time job + managing a video art festival (we're only a group of 3!) + writing + going to all the art exhibitions that I possibly can, taking pictures while there for personal documentation! o_O Sleep? What is that again? Haha!

I've also posted more links to galleries, institutions, artist pages and will continually add more. Thanks to all the readers who are patient with my choppy posting. Hope you continue checking back the site :) I also regularly upload pictures from exhibitions that I go to on another site - email me if you want to check it out and I'll send the address.

It's 2:45 am. So good night and happy grandparents' day to all your lovely grandmas and grandpas! :)