CONFLUENCE/CONFERENCE (November 09, 2009)

You have exactly a week to catch one of the most successful National Commission for Culture and the Arts projects, in terms of “impact or effect on the community and the number of people who will benefit from it.”

are referring to Sungdu-an, a Waray word for “confluence,” the legacy of NCCA Committee on Visual Arts that started as a “supplement “ to the first National Visual Arts Congress at the University of the Philippine in Diliman, Quezon City from November 30 to December 3, 1995.
Formally, “Sungdu-an 1” was born after a year -- subtitled Pagtatagpo -- to nurture more than 100 works from all over the country at the NCCA building.

Then in 2000, Sungdu-an 2 evolved into traveling show of sorts to 11 sites in the Philippines from February to December 2000 when it became a major component of the Sambayan: Philippine Culture and Arts Festival 2000, an NCCA-initiated multi-disciplinary endeavor, featuring 40 artists with 10 artists from each major island group.

From 2002 to 2004, the longest and the most extensive Sungdu-an 3 was implemented under its theme Making the Local, with three significant components -- namely curatorial research, regional exhibition and national traveling exhibition -- visiting 12 sites and featuring five artists from Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao and NCR for a total of 20!

Two years ago in Cagayan de Oro City, Sungdu-an 4 was scaled down to just one national exhibition known as ExTensions – extending to 12 projects (three each from the four regions) that were encapsulated inside the Museum of Three Cultures at Capitol University from August 17 to September 18, 2007.

Now, on its 14th year, Sungdu-an 5 is participated in by 20 artists (five from each region) at the North Wing, 4th floor of the Museum of the Filipino People , National Art Gallery of the National Museum of the Philippines until this coming Sunday!

Called Current: Daloy ng Dunong, it features a dynamic mix of installation, mixed media (including soil as pigment from Bukidnon), painting, video, and sound art on current issues such as poverty and the environment.

Aiming to develop artists and curators on a long-term basis, the series – that was a product of research and consultations with artists from the different regions -- has provided a platform for trailblazing works of young artists across the islands.

It is curated by the crème de la crème in art studies namely Dennis Ascalon (Visayas), Irma Lacorte (Luzon), Cris Rollo (Mindanao) Claro Ramirez (National Capital Region), and U.P. Vargas Museum's new curator Patrick Flores, who will be with us in an Asian art conference on Public Art that dreams of Angono, Rizal to become one of the creative cities in the world!

Yes, a Multi-lateral Country Conference and Feasibility Workshop on Public Art as a Step towards Creative City Development will be held on 17-24 November.

The Neo-Angono Artists Collective and Japan Foundation-Tokyo will sponsor a three-day art seminar/conference in cooperation with the University of Rizal System-Angono and the Office of the Municipal Mayor Hon. Aurora Villamayor.

According to poet Richard Gappi, first and founding president of Neo-Angono as well as its project director, the conference -- that revolves around the theme “Ciudad/Pueblo: Beyond Folklore and Surface Painting” -- is open to scholars and academicians, artists, delegates and speakers from Asian countries and the Philippines.

Cultural Center of the Philippines' 13 Artists awardee Rommel “Wire” Tuazon, this year’s director of the art festival, added: “The public art festival, meanwhile, presents various art performances, painting exhibits, poetry and music, and theater and film showing usually done in public spaces such as national road, bridge, river, public market and town plaza where the town “perya” or Ferris Wheel is located.”

We, as practitioner of expressive arts therapy, got an invitation talk about “Tapping the Human Artistry and Creativity” with National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera, art critic Alice Guillermo, poet Roberto Anonuevo, artist Nemesio Miranda Jr., playwright/lawyer Nicolas Pichay singer/songwriter Jesus Manuel Santiago, and NCCA Bids and Awards Committee chair Marichu Tellano.

Expected to arrive, too, are Cultural Conservation architect Vijaya Amujure from India; media reporter Than Htike Oo and Nyunt Win from Myanmar; artist Iani Arahmaiani from Indonesia; scholar Dr. Mayasuki Sasaki and music scholar Shimoda Nobuhisa from Japan; artist, curator, and scholar Jang Un Kim and writer Kim Jang Un from South Korea.

The Neo-Angono Artists Collective Inc. was established in November 2004. It is both a movement and an organization founded by visual artists, writers, poets, musicians, theater people, film makers, cultural workers, art enthusiasts, critics, and researchers
totalling to 60, not exclusively from Angono but from other parts of the world, like Japan and the United States.

Ramon Zapata, its Chairman of the Board, stressed: “As a movement, Neo-Angono strives to render modernist visual and artistic language responsive to the times by articulating and invigorating contemporary Angono experience, sensibility and consciousness. It observes the intricate engagement and interplay of various creative art forms wedded in the local community and people.”

His vice chair, Carlos “Totong” Francisco II, grandson of National Artist Carlos “Botong” Francisco, did not simply second: “As an organization, Neo-Angono has been consistent in its annual Public Art Festival for the past five years. It is non-profit, artist-centered, committed to experimentation. It recognizes the need to contribute to art research and education so we give free art workshops. It was commissioned in 2007 to paint a mural on press freedom, which gained national prominence and controversial because it was altered and defaced.”
By supposedly freedom fighters?

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