Sunday, November 4, 2012

smARTpower : Wearable, Portable Architecture - NY Artist Mary Mattingly's fellowship in Manila via Green Papaya Art Projects




Mary Mattingly’s fellowship to Manila, Philippines from September 15 to October 31, 2012 progressed from: 1. its Research Phase 2. Community Education and Engagement 3. Artist talks  4. Workshops  5. Street Intervention 6.Cumulative exhibition 7. Site specific interventions/projects for her final week (end of October).
The “Wearable/Portable Architecture project” discussed the possibilities of having a locale create portable architecture based on the conditions of its environmental, urban and cultural conditions. It is structured to find ways in providing new arguments and sustaining an artistic impetus to our immediate environment. It addresses the timely issues of flooding and mobility, engaging participants to come up with designs that would respond to current environmental disasters and if portable architecture is applicable in our urban landscape.



To make the project successful, the artist needed to have a strong sense of familiarity with what kind of City Manila is – its climate, the living conditions, the urban core and available resources.  The project required an interdisciplinary approach within the contemporary art community, local community, Manila's architecture demographic, university and high school students, as well as local non-government and government units. The diverse range of demographic were strategically tapped through a carefully planned programming scheme which developed from 1. Callouts 2. Networks 3. Interviews 4. Commitment of participants.  In the end,  20 participants were selected – (the maximum number of people that Green Papaya can accommodate) to have a comfortable yet rigorous workshop on Wearable/Portable Architecture in the gallery.





Green Papaya first and foremost begins within their own networks who are experts in their particular field.  The core team of smARTpower Manila is comprised of three independent curators who have been involved in contemporary exhibitions around Southeast Asia and beyond for the past years.  The artists’ research where done in public markets and local sources of raw materials in Manila, tenements around residential communities of the urban poor.  The artist talks and introduction to Mary Mattingly’s work and the project brief were held in two separate locations: One was at the Fine Arts Department of the University of the Philippines attended by students and academes, the other was an alternative art space in Manila attended by local artists, architects, designers and students from other schools.  





The workshops had in itself involve 20 selected participants to rigorously attend the four-part series.  These participants were selected through a call-for-participation announcement through social network sites and the gallery’s website.  20 out of 50 were selected in the manner of having equal representation from the high school sector, college, architecture, design, and artist participants.  Each of them were interviewed by Mary Mattingly in order to have an early exchange of ideas prior starting the workshop.  The first day of the workshop comprised of purely educational talks from key experts in three separate topics:  1. Climate Change (non-government)  2. Portable Architecture (professional architect) 3. Disaster Risk Management (government).  The workshop following the talks were focused on pattern making, designing, building.  










The last day was a street intervention connecting the 20 different components to form one sphere – travelling from the gallery to the local High School in the same location. The sphere was left in the High School for 24 hours to engage with the students, the next day a Q&A and public presentation with the artist and students of the local High School.   After the 4-part workshop series, the participants were encouraged to still visit the workshop space on a regular basis to work on their own designs at their own time until the climax of the project which is the Cumulative exhibition of the participants works. 





The exhibition at green papaya was held on Wednesday October 25, 2012 where the individual designs of the works of the participants were shown, photos of the process of Mary Mattingly’s project were mounted, as well as film clips as documentation of the project.  The sphere was also put inside the gallery where children and adults playfully climbed and engaged with during the duration of the exhibition.




smARTpower is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State's cultural diplomacy program. Administred by the Bronx Museum of Arts, New York. smArtpower is sending 15 American artists abroad to work with local artists and young people around the world to create community-based art projects. Selected artists will design and develop programs in cooperation with local arts organizations in host countries including China, Ecuador, Egypt, Ghana, India, Kosovo, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, The Philippines, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Venezuela.  Green Papaya Art Projects has been been appointed local partner organization in the Philippines.

Green Papaya Art Projects in itself is the longest running non-profit independent art space in Manila. For the project, Green Papaya put together a smARTpower Manila team to run the program. Green Papaya has been a contemporary art platform for cross-practices in contemporary art with unrestricted framework.  For the past 10 years, Green Papaya is known to uphold artists’ positions and interests by providing the most conducive and challenging conditions for both production and presentation of their works. It's programming attempts to be a crucial link between the platform and the community, between the mainstream art practice and the independent surge of experimentations, and between the traditional institutions and artist-run initiatives.




(All photos by Jed Escueta and Mary Mattingly, 2012)

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Generation Loss : Traditions in Experimental Cinema



GENERATION LOSS  PART 1
Experimental Cinema, Video, Time-based Media
Presented by GREEN PAPAYA ART PROJECTS
in cooperation with COLOGNE/OFF 2012 and ARTVIDEO KOELN
March 14-28, 2012

Generation Loss explores the development of experimental film and video, as well as their contributions to the current and new genres in art making particularly in the Southeast Asian region. Generation loss is a technical term referring to the loss of quality between subsequent copies of data. The project attempts to address issues of archiving and archive-usage, production, distribution, technology, education, piracy and intellectual copyright, among the various creative moving image practices employed in the region today. 

date - time - venue - event – title
March 14-30 - Green Papaya - exhibition - You have used me as a fish long enough
March 16 - 8pm - AS IN - screening -  MYSTERIOUS ENTANGLEMENTS (CologneOFF VII - Art & The City)
March 18 - 7pm - Sambalikhaan - screening - Roxlee's Super-8 BBQ Party
March 19 -  4:30 - UPFI - screening - AGWAT: early video experiments from the Mowelfund archives
March 19 -  6:30pm - UPFI - screening - AGWAT: early video experiments from the Mowelfund archives
March 23 - 8pm - 98B - presentation - [Tad Ermitano] THE UNSTABLE IMAGE: experiments in live cinema
March 24 - 8pm - Cinema is Incomplete - screening - A MATTER OF IDENTITY 
(CologneOFF VII - Art & The City)
March 25 - 8pm - Cinema is Incomplete - screening - TAPES, TRAINS, CHRONICLES & RAMBLINGS: HanoiDOCLAB selections
March 28 - 8pm - Sambalikhaan - presentation - [Sascha Pohle] THE RE-ENACTOR (or, How I wanted to be an actor but became an artist instead)


GENERATION LOSS PART2
Thai experimental films and videos curated by Mary Pasanga

Generation Loss is an ongoing series of dialogues, screenings and exhibitions that seek to posit parallel traditions and tendencies of experimental cinema, extended cinema, live cinema, video art and other creative practice spun from screen- and time-based media to coax/suggest a need to renegotiate imposed Western definitions of art based o
n format and schools of thought, versus the organic and culturally-directed development of these art forms elsewhere, and particularly in the context of the Philippines.

July 20 :  A History of Thai Experimental Film and Video
UP CMC AUDITORIUM, College of Mass Communications, UP DILIMAN
A group of Thai works from the previous two decades which explore the uncanny capacity of film and video to make the past present and elicit memory. 
TRT: 61min

Chulayarnnon, Chulayarnnon Siriphol, 2008, 5:00
Nang Sod, Dome Sukawong, 1985, 2:09
Madang Bo sai, Pasit Punpruksachat, 1999, 24:00
Boring Blinker, Surabongse Binichkhah, 1985, 2:40
Once Upon a Time, Panu Aree, 2000, 14:00
Loneliness is Everywhere, Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa, 2007, 9:35
Cutter, Trimmer and Chainsaw , Pathompon Tesprateep,  2011, 2:53 (Excerpt from 59 mins)

July 21: THAI EXPERIMENTAL, experimental screenings and talk with curator Mary Pasanga and filmmaker/artist Tanatchai Bandasak
98B ESCOLTA
Selections from 6th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (2012)
TRT: 60:19

Tanatchai Bandasak, Air Cowboy, 2010, 3:00
Taiki Sakpisit, A Ripe Volcano, 2011, 15:00
Ukrit Sa-nguanhai, Ghosts in the Classroom, 2011, 2:19
Chulayarnnon Siriphol, A Brief History of Memory, 2010, 14:00
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 0016643225059, 1994, 5min
Nitipong Thinthupthai, chai wan ni (Now Showing), 2009, 21min





Generation Loss is jointly organized by new media artist/curator MERV ESPINA (PH)  and CologneOFF curator AGRICOLA DE COLOGNE (DE)

Berlin-based Lizza May David takes up residency at Green Papaya Art Projects




On Surface
Lizza May David
March 14, 6pm

Berlin based artist Lizza May David takes residence at Green Papaya Art Projects for two weeks exploring the modes of understanding between the subject and nation beyond its symbolic realms.  The exhibition, “On Surface” will be presenting the beggining of David's research on movements of anarchism in times of early globalization relating to German and Filipino perspectives as well as a new photo work. 



ARTIST TALK: diaspora, post colonialism and memory 
Lizza May David
February 16, 6pm
AS IN SHOP
59 Mahabagin St., Teachers Village East, Quezon City

The artist talk will give an insight to her work-in-progress pieces, videos, installations and collaborations, which are often dealing with issues of migration ("Cycles of Care" 2011, "Model Family Award" 2008, "Two Years More" 2006), memory and diaspora. 

Lizza May David (b. 1975 in the Philippines) is an artist based in Berlin. She studied Fine Arts in Nuremberg, Lyon and Berlin and works on issues of migration, memory and nationhood, especially relating to her filipino and german experiences. Her works explore strategies of image production, projection surfaces and idealogical worlds. Since 2007 she has been a member of Global Alien, a Berlin based artist group actively working, participating, planning, and organising exhibitions and events concerning the fragmentary nature, and effects of globalisation.




Organized by Lian Ladia
Acknowledgements: MM Yu, Maria Cruz, Robert Langenegger, Shireen Seno and John Torres.

Maria Taniguchi and Pio Abad co-curate the Manila leg of Alptraum


Manila and London based artists Maria Taniguchi and Pio Abad are curating the next installment of ALPTRAUM at Green Papaya Art Projects with kind invitation by director Norberto Roldan. Green Papaya Art Projects is the longest running alternative art space in the Philippines, and collaborate with many independent art organisations around Asia. In 2010 they represented artist-run activity from The Philippines in the No Soul for Sale exhibition at the Tate Modern, London. Artists based in Manila have joined the line up and will continue to tour.

Pio Abad . Yason Banal . Mariano Ching . Lena Cobangbang . Patricia Eustauqio . Robert Gutierrez . Maria Jeona . Pow Martinez . Luisa Medina . Raul Rodriguez . Maria Taniguchi . Conrado Velasco . Paulo Vinluan


ALPTRAUM is an artists' project which started in Washington DC, at Transformer. The works on paper travelled to Cell Project Space, London to ‘Projektraum Deutscher Kunstlerbund e.v.’, Berlin, 'The Company', Los Angeles, May 2011, Blank Projects, Cape Town, Katharina von Ruckteschell, The Goethe Institute, Johanesburg and will now open in Manila in April 2012.

Christian Achenbach . Sanell Aggenbach . Victor Aguilar . Pablo Alonso . Kai Althoff . Salvatore Arancio . Petra Johanna Barfs . Alexandra Baumgartner . Matthias Beckmann . April Behnke . Joe Biel . Marc Bijl . Zander Blom . Armin Boehm . Erin Boland . Jan-Henri Booyens . Derek Boshier . Wim Botha . Lutz Braun . Reuben Breslar . Alan Brown . Amanda Leigh Burnham . Stuart Cairns . Ellen Cantor . Jessica Cebra . Natalie Robyn Nesbitt . W. Cheung . Bradley Chriss . Ben Cottrell . Keith Coventry . Jason David . Thomas Draschan . Sven Drühl . Peter Duka . Benjamin Edmiston . Elisophie Eulenburg . Jonathan Garnham . Alexa Gerrity . Stephen Gibson . Georgina Gratrix . Adam Griffiths . Liza Grobler . Ian Grose . Florian Heinke . Trasi Henen . Lori Hersberger . Sean Higgins . Gregor Hildebrandt . Ryan Hill . Stefan Hirsig . Johannes Hueppi . Birgit Jensen . Lisa Junghanss . Andy Kozlowski . Clemens Krauss . Moshekwa Langa . Anders Lansing . Xenia Lesniewski . Cedar Lewisohn . Joep van Liefland . Marissa Long . Mara Lonner . Jörg Mandernach . Sandra Mann . Josh Mannis . Maki Maruyama . Nomthunzi Mashalaba . John McAllister . Mery Lynn McCorkle . Bill McRight . Mohau Modisakeng . Aaron Morse . Jan Muche . Mario Neugebauer . Timothy Nolan . Adam Pape . Christopher Pate . Manfred Peckl . Mick Peter . Carl Pomposelli . Richard Priestley . Clunie Reid . Rob Reynolds . Lauren Rice . Nora Riggs . Tanja Rochelmeyer . Jenny Rosemeyer . Dennis Rudolph . Ruth Sacks . Jamison Sarteschi . Jaco van Schalkwyk . Maik Schierloh . Andreas Schlaegel . Bonnie Brenda Scott . Marcus Sendlinger . Carole Silverstein . Jessica Simmons . Jen Smith . Kathryn Smith . Sober & Lonely . Cammie Staros . Jennifer Stefanisko . Zach Storm . Jay Stuckey . Linda Stupart . Caro Suerkemper . Alex Tennigkeit . Lisa Marie Thalhammer . Peter Thol . Klaus-Martin Treder . Tamzyn Varney . Rachel Waldron . Martin Westwood . Allison Wiese . Maik Wolf . Renate Wolff . Michael Wutz . Jacob Yeager . Ed Young . Phillip Zaiser . Frank Michael Zeidler . Jody Zellon . Thomas Zipp.


Conceived by artists, Marcus Sendlinger, Berlin Jay Stuckey, Los Angeles the artists invited to contribute to this exhibition have been asked only to submit a work which has their direct hand in it, so physical contact and mark making on the surface of the material is implied in a manner, within this context, akin to the skrier, an ‘automatic writer’, a pyromancer’s stirring of the hot embers, an ectoplasmic medium the hand that re-creates the subconscious wanderings of its owner. This naturally excludes many types of process, but rather than excluding artists because their process prevents them from physical contact with their final piece, the artists invited to contribute have simply been asked to experiment within the pre-requisits of the theme. This offers them the opportunity to break the mould of their practice and try something slightly new, or indeed, old but discarded.

Like George Orwell’s Room 101, in his predictive tale, ‘1984’, we all have our own version of what constitutes a nightmare, and for this reason, the project has been opened to a large number of artists whose many and varied personal nightmare versions, or visions, act to reflect this hugely variable human state of fears and fobias, pain and panic.

Alptraum, the German of Nightmare, is an artist led project. It is a model which utilises global communication between localized artist hubs and clusters to form an international grouping with the intent of opening a dialogue about this subject across borders and cultures in order to delve into the stuff and mind murk that is collectively shared or completely random and unrelated, or individual specific within the syndrome of ‘The Nightmare’. Each artist draws on their own personal experience in order to visualize those anxieties, which take them beyond everyday dreams. Working within the remit of the ‘artist curated project’, all of the works in Alptraum have been restricted in size and material in order to facilitate the low cost postal transportation of the show from country to country, with each exhibition site taking responsibility to pass the show on to the next host the number of works and artists may change or grow, and the approach to interpreting and hanging the show vary from space to space as the body of work meanders on from country to country, like a trans-global nimbostratus formation; Alptraum is the exhibition equivalent of Stephen Kings ‘The Fog’

This project is co curated by Victoria Reis and Marissa Long, Transformer, Washington, Richard Priestley, Cell Project Space, London, Anat Egbi, The Company, Los Angeles, Katja Hesch, Projektraum Deutscher Kuenstlerbund e. v., Berlin and Jonathan Garnham, Blank Projects, Cape Town and The Goethe Institute, Johannesburg