Filipiniana in Madrid
Sightings
Alice G. Guillermo

Filipiniana was the title of the exhibition-conference that was held in Madrid from May 12 to 18 at the Museo de Conde Duque. The conference, although not the exhibit, was later brought to Barcelona from May 16 to 18. The occasion, said to be the biggest exposition of Philippine art in Spain, was sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Casa Asia, the Madrid Area de los Artes and the Conde Duque institution. The coordinator, as well as the author of the book-catalog, was Juan Guardiola, who has visited the Philippines a number of times. Indeed, the large scope of the show ranged from ethnic artifacts to contemporary installations, from the Ifugao bulol to Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan’s narratives of diaspora in the installation Dream Blanket Project. The conference, participated in by Filipino and Spanish writers and artists, ran parallel to the comprehensive course on Philippine art and culture that was held in Casa America in Madrid and Casa Asia in Barcelona.
       Juan Guardiola, the book’s author, states the underlying concept of the show in his introduction: “The notion of Philippiniana (sic) has pervaded the very exhibition space, as the show in itself is an archive. Unlike an exhibition, an archive is an open participation space that welcomes any object without prefiguring its meaning. With this in mind, the architect Angel Borrego has designed a space that resembles a large warehouse, envisaging our Philippiniana as an archive shipped from Manila to Madrid in the hold of a freighter. The outline sets up a certain space around which the 25 halls are strictly arranged, as if the space were indeed a filing cabinet. The dim light and the display material—chipboard panels made from recycled pinewood fibers from sustainably exploited forests (sic)—help to create a neutral atmosphere, warm and welcoming, similar to that of an archive, and make a direct reference to the Philippine ethics of reuse and adaptation.”
       However, it seems that the spirit of an exhibit of Philippine art should go beyond the concept of an archive. For it is easy to see how the colonial perspective can take an archival view of its former territories: complexes of cultures, at once friendly and hostile, that have broken away from “Madre España” and can thus subsequently be inserted as a file in the colonial archives and accordingly labeled and probably reopened at a later time for scholarly perusal.
       Even the term “Filipiniana” in our own usage—or “Philippiniana” from their perspective—has an unfortunate archival ring to it, like some entity, costumed and accessorized, and brought out to perform at a colorful spectacle for tourists. And in the intent to make neutral, to neutralize, there lies the tendency to reification, to render “documents” flat and two-dimensional, thus removing their explosive charges, potential or realized. Can revolutions be absorbed in one even narrative, belonging to the past and therefore removed of its sting, when like a volcano they simmer within and are ready to explode in an instant?
       There were, however, some lights in this dimly-lit show. These consisted mainly in the works which may not have been seen before in our country since they were brought early to museums in Spain. For instance, there was a large section of Cordillera artifacts which must have been sourced from the collection of the ethnological museum in Madrid, which reserves a large floor for its Philippine materials arrayed in a stunning display. An outstanding example is the Kankanay anito. There were numerous old maps, archival photographs of social life at the end of the Spanish colonial regime, as well as visual records of the Spanish-American encounter. Not to be overlooked were the photographs of women, alone or in sisterly groups, with their fluttering butterfly sleeves, yet the gracious woman on the cover of the Album de Vistas y Tipos de Filipinos shows a more casual and intimate pose. Of early modernism there are the best examples, including Galo Ocampo’s Dancer. The social realists, likewise, were fairly well-represented, beginning with Danny Dalena’s political cartoons for Asia-Philippines Leader, ending 13 years later with the portable mural “Justice for Ninoy, Justice for All” that presaged the downfall of the Marcos regime. There were likewise reverberations of Edsa in the photographs of nuns confronting the military with rosaries. In the central aisle was the latest metamorphoses of David Medalla’s Bubble Canyon and the Aquilizans’ Dream Blanket Project, which has already seen many countries. The book itself ends with vignettes of the city and its people slipping into the eerie surrealism of the commonplace. Over the entire exhibit in a space above the main gate was a video of the sea in Mindanao, the waves now rising and receding in an infinite rhythm with sometimes a boat or vinta braving the waters toward the far shore.
       The Filipino diaspora, one of the major themes of the show, is indeed a phenomenon of the times, though no longer as a romantic adventure but now viewed as a contingent measure to gain a more humane level of existence. Alas, it is so often an illusion. And although, as the author avers, it “relates the Philippine reality within an internationalist context in which there is an intensified exchange of ideas, goods and people,” one must strongly take issue with the author’s globalist statement that “the notion of culture and national heritage” can thus be rendered “obsolete.” In other words, it is suggested that national identity and culture can thus be summarily swept away in the euphoric embrace of the avalanche of imports, material and cultural, that would overwhelm all sense of identity, stultify local production, and reduce all to a homogenous landscape shaped by the dominant forces.
       In our times, the globalist interaction between the different forces in the economic arena is not neutral but manipulated by dominant interests. The “level playing field” or neutral ground is but a myth disseminated by the major players. The contemporary wherever you are in the world is an explosive concept, and to gloss over this fact—wittingly or unwittingly—is to align oneself with the forces that have wantonly destroyed the ancient resonating cities that border the Tigris and Euphrates.