This autumn starts off with some positive vibes around the Covid-19 pandemic, as more vaccinations mean less risks and more opening up and freedom of movement. Nonetheless, the gradual shifts towards a new normality also still require the observance of social distancing in most places around the world, and people still spend quite a bit of time in their homes. Here in the northern hemisphere, where the chill is closing in, we are more than ever drawn to our evenings on the couch watching tv shows and good films. The Museum of Contemporary Art And Design (MCAD), Manila proposes two events running from the end of October 2021 that accommodate both the social (albeit only local) animal and the more private (and worldwide-based) individual.
For the locally Manila-based artist film loving crowd, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila presents Artists’ Film International (AFI) within its MCAD Commons exhibition programme, which aims to expand the Museum’s reach beyond its own grounds and into the city, allowing for a larger audience involvement and expansion of the art discourse and process.
Artists’ Film International (AFI) was established in 2008 by London’s White Chapel Gallery as a collaborative project featuring film, video and animation from around the world. AFI includes 21 global partner organisations for each yearly edition. Each one of them selects a recent work by a regional artist, which is shared among the network and the annual programme, adapted to every venue over the course of a year.
In 2021, AFI explores the theme of ‘care’. In Manila, the programme takes place across two off-site venues: Sine Pop in Cubao, Metro Manila and Project Space Pilipinas in Lucban, Quezon. Films will be presented through on-site video installations as well as scheduled screenings. The films are also available for a limited time on the White Chapel website. Artists include Kiri Dalena, Mihály Stefanovicz, Rehana Zaman, Agnė Jokšė, Kenneth Tam, Julia Sbriller & Joaquin Wall, Victoria Verseau, Thania Petersen, Clare Langan, Patty Chang, Giulio Squillacciotti, Kerstin Honeit and Himali Singh Soin/David Soin Tappeser.
Filipino artist Kiri Dalena‘s Mag-uuma (Farmer) (2014) shows a woman singing a ballad about exploitation and poverty in her rural community, in a region of commercial plantations and mineral reserves. In an interview with Whitechap about the work, she reveals how her closeness to rural communities was possible through her work as a human rights volunteer. She had to document instances of human rights abuses, through interview and testimonies. Making songs such as the one in the video adds another dimension to her contribution, as, she says, “they can awaken something that I thought was impossible or rather, intangible, like hope”.
Another one not to miss is Patty Chang‘s 2016 work, Invocation for a Wandering Lake Part 1 & 2. The two-channel video shows the artist emotionally and physically care for ‘the other’. In the first part, Chang finds the lifeless body of a whale floating off the coast of Newfoundland’s Fogo Islands, a former fishing hub. Moved by deep sadness and a sense of loss, she decided to film herself washing the corpse of the whale, as an act of care for the deceased creature. A few years later, while working near the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, Chang spotted a fishing boat moored in the sand of the receded sea, surrounding by desert, helpless and lost. Again moved by a deep sense of loss, she decided wash it. The animate and the inanimate are here juxtaposed, and treated as one, both monuments to something past, lost and unrecoverable, but which can be celebrated and honoured through a simple, heartfelt act of ‘care’.
Included in the MCAD programme are also Hylozoic/Desires, a multimedia performance duo based between London and New Delhi and composed of artist and writer Himali Singh Soin and musician, composer and performance artist David Soin Tappeser. Their work Setting the Stage For a Gathering of Friends (2020) was made during the pandemic in Delhi when the Himali was confined to her home. The video shows an aerial view of a perdon drawing a circle on the roof of a building, and is meant to explore uncertainty, chance, missed connections and a return to something we once felt.
MCAD is also presenting the Watch and Chill programme, in collaboration with three other major Asian institutions, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Korea, in Seoul, the M+ West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong and MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
The exhibition shares video works by major artists active in Asia through its online platform, as well as on-site presentations specific to each city. In Manila, the local screenings will take place at the CSB carpark as a drive-in cinema from 29 October through to early December. The physical exhibition, which was on view at MMCA until 24 October, will move to Thailand in December 2021 and to Hong Kong in January 2022.
The online streaming is already live and will continue up to February 2022, with new content uploaded every Friday. The online viewing is by (free) subscription. To access the platform, one needs to subscribe with their email address, create a password and answer the question “What does your average evening look like?” with one of the four multiple choice answers provided, which range from tidying up the house, to going out with friends and watching films. After confirmation of one’s subscription, the access is free.
The programme features four sections: Things in my Living Room, By the Other Being, Community of Houses and Meta-Home. Watch and Chill considers the notion of home and how it has transformed into a media environment, moving away from the private sphere and entering the public realm. This new reality has been activated even more during the pandemic, when ‘home’ has become office, and here, museum. The platform also allows for an exploration of how our media consumption has changed.
With all the unmissable gems on view, we are going to highlight one work for each section, and let you discover the rest through surprise and awe.
Things in my Living Room looks at objects in our everyday life, and how these ‘things’ relate to one another and their impact on people and society. The inevitable intimacy between the object and the individual that the pandemic has heightened is the inspiration for this section, featuring explorations on the material and the individual and collective experience, unconsciousness and identity it represents.
The section features Taiwanese video art pioneer Yuan Goang-ming and his poetically disturbing Dwelling (2014). The work shows an ordinary living room, with its sofas, books, shelves and toys. The camera is still, capturing the same angle throughout. The scene is tranquil, the living room devoid of human presence, the only perceptible movement coming from what seem dust particles falling down, or maybe water bubbles. The living room in fact seems to be underwater, things lightly floating around, ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly. The sounds are those of a daily neighbourhood, cars passing, a dog barking, and the clock on the wall ticking. Suddenly, an explosion destroys the tranquillity of the scene, furniture and objects flying/floating around, eventually resting and returning, again suddenly, to normal. Although the video was made in 2014, it can be associated with the current pandemic and how it has disrupted our everyday life, until we will again return to our normality.
By the Other Being examines the notion of companionship and looks at what/who we share our everyday with and features fictional narratives about our relationships — to partners, animals, plants, robots, guests and intruders.
Here, Cao Fei‘s Haze and Fog (2013) also seems a pandemic-inspired (sur)reality. In the 12-minute video, delivery people, cleaners, babysitters, security workers and real estate agents appear as zombies, their individuality erased, and replaced by an empty collective identity. Through this work, the artist represents the modern individual permeated by its repetitive routine in the big city, where everyday is like yesterday, and tomorrow, only at times disrupted by an unlikely, impossible or unexpected event. The resulting humour is certainly unmissable.
Community of Houses proposes alternative forms of living together that differ from the traditional community of physical neighbours. Artists explore the changes in environment experienced by communities of varying regions, generations and typologies, along with the different forms of living that emerge as they adapt in their own ways.
Within this section, Mark Salvatus‘ That Day Most Eagerly Awaited (2020) talks about the mountain in Salvatus’ hometown, Mount Bahanau. Considered a haven for the New People’s Army, a militant camp of the Communist Party, as well as a place where UFOs are believed to refuel. The mountain is richly biodiverse and is considered as a home for those communities that do not want to be ruled and aspire to a revolution. Produced during the pandemic restrictions, and combined with original files, the video is also an expression of the artist’s longing for a new freedom of movement and meeting everyone again in the future.
Meta-Home is a home away from home. This last section, examines the hyper-connectivity of homes within a vast interconnected, invisible network. Various forms of metaphysical imagination are touched upon, like homes connected to the virtual world, the various ways of existing in the digital era, spatial expansion into different dimensions, as well as mental and spiritual connections transcending technology.
Cici Wu‘s Unfinished Return of Yu Man Hon (2019) crosses time and space, connecting the real and the imagined, the past and the present. The video is inspired by the real-life disappearance of Yu Man-hon, an autistic boy who, in 2000, crossed the Hong Kong-Shenzhen border, and was never found again. The film reimagines the return of Yu Man-hon as an elightened spirit, through an abstract narrative in which the boy returns to the world of the living to retrieve the lost memories of his own disappearence.
MCAD Commons: Artists’ Film International Programme 2021 runs from 30 October to 4 December 2021 at Sine Pop in Cubao, Metro Manila and Project Space Pilipinas in Lucban, Quezon. Watch and Chill runs at MCAD’s car park drive-in theatre from 29 October to 5 December 2021, while the streaming service will run until February 2022.