Smart holds ‘Creativity Camp’ at Silliman University, Reinforcing Sustainability

PLDT’s wireless unit Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart), together with Silliman University (SU), continues to promote sustainability among the youth through Smart Creativity Camp.

Smart teamed up with SU’s Fine Arts Department to hold a three-day Creativity Camp at the Romeo Ariniego Art Gallery to inspire the youth to become champions for sustainability and environmental awareness while fostering their creativity.

“This campaign is inspired by the youth’s efforts to contribute to a more environmentally friendly world, such as carrying their metal flasks to school rather than always consuming beverages in plastic bottles. We took the camp to various schools nationwide to encourage more youth to practice sustainability while celebrating their passion for the arts and promoting student wellness,” said Antonette Orpilla, Senior Manager, Smart Go-To-Market and Subscriber Management.

The camp was held in time for the university’s Genesis Week and Hibalag Festival 2023, adding more meaning to SU’s school year opening activities and Founders’ Day celebrations.

"The project was able to facilitate a shared space for students from different colleges and departments where they may forge connections through art-making. The fellow-feeling and sense of community that this encourages are essential to the pursuit of sustainability," said W. Don Flores, Fine Arts Department chair at SU.

SU students expressed their commitment to sustainability through the designs they created on their metal beverage containers. Manta Cristina Macabali, an instructor at the Fine Arts Department, also delivered a talk about art patterns and designs to guide students in enhancing their creations.

The students with the best tumbler designs and their respective organizations received special prizes from Smart.

"The change that sustainability requires is only possible if we understand that the call toward it is not only directed to us as individual makers but more significantly as persons who are part of a larger whole. Through community, we share anxieties and hopes. By making art side-by-side, as Smart Creativity Camp has encouraged, we are able to cultivate this sense of a shared longing for a better, more sustainable world," added Flores.

The Smart Creativity Camp is part of the PLDT group’s broad range of activities that empower and build bridges of collaboration across sectors and communities towards a sustainable future. 

Explore the Different Dimensions of Art at the Most Anticipated Ortigas Art Festival From Bocetos to Multimedia Art Everything is Here

The Philippine art scene has just elevated itself a notch with the third run of the
award-winning Ortigas Art Festival, which has expanded Filipinos’ art consciousness and masterfully brought art within the grasp of more people.
Recognized and awarded in the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards and International Business Awards 2019 for their continuous and innovative effort in making art more accessible to ordinary people, this year’s art festival, that is again held at Estancia at the Commons, promises guests even more to enjoy this year.

For one, international artists have joined the exhibit, which was especially curated by the highly talented and multi-awarded Renato Habulan, resident curator of Eskinita Gallery. As an added plus, the festival is featuring bocetos through ​Papelismo Boceto for the first time, not only to highlight the artists’ creative process, but also to allow more art enthusiasts the opportunity to own the works of renowned artists at more affordable rates. Over 300 bocetos from over 100 artists will be showcased at the exhibit.

Among the artists whose works are on exhibit are independent artists Arnel Borja, Richard Buxani, Allison David, and Sam Penaso. Joining them are Arnel Agawin, Julio Austria, Jeho Bitancor, Gala Caki, Justo Cascante III, Reynold dela Cruz, Michelle Dawson, Feliciano Gallardo, Processo Gelladuga II, Katrinn Hamann, Sahid Kazi, Leonor RS Lim, Alfonso Medillo, Dengcoy Miel, Rey Padernilla, Made Palguna, Manuel Rubio, Joel Soliven, Art Zamora, and Jose Zulueta. Also on exhibit are works from three galleries, among them, Eskinita Art Gallery, Kaida Contemporary Gallery, and vMeme Contemporary Art Gallery.
“We have always believed that art should be enjoyed by people from all walks of life, and the best way to promote art appreciation is by bringing art exhibits right where people converge, which are malls. Over the past three years that we’ve had the art festival at Estancia, we were surprised to see the great and growing interest in art among Filipinos, both young and old. This is why we have continued with the art festival and added features which we think will be of added interest to more people,” said Arch. Renée Bacani, VP of Ortigas Malls.

Complementing the exhibit are workshops by local and international artists for those who are eager to develop their skills. Seven workshops have been lined up for learners of all skill levels. On Feb 29, there will be a Mixed Media demonstration by international artists Gala Caki, Sahid Kazi, and Katrinn Haman. On March 1, learn Multimedia from Michelle Dawson, Made Palguna, and Rey dela Cruz.

Get inspired by the sheer artistry and talent on show at the exhibit, which runs until March 8. Admission is free. And don’t forget to participate on the comment board by the entrance of the exhibit!

For more information on Estancia’s Ortigas Art Festival, visit their social media pages at https://www.facebook.com/EstanciaPH/ and  www.instagram.com/estanciaph​, and subscribe to their newsletter at​ ​www.ortigasmalls.com​.

“Portraits by Andres Barrioquinto” goes to National Museum this November

In partnership with the National Museum,“Portraits by Andres Barrioquinto” goes for a special week-long run from November 8-15, 2018 at the Pres. Sergio Osmeña Hall, National Museum of Fine Arts, Padre Burgos Avenue, Manila. Part of the sales will be donated to ACC and its beneficiaries.

After having more than 25 solo exhibitions and several group shows in the Philippines, Singapore, Japan, United Kingdom, Indonesia, Hongkong, Taiwan, and South Korea, Barrioquinto made a special collection entitled “Portraits by Andres Barrioquinto”, featuring his remarkable take on contemporary portraiture, in the hopes of helping ACC grantees.

The show features a collection of eighteen (18) portraits, representing a cross-section of industry leaders, patrons, creatives, and connoisseurs, among them, Cecile Ang, Grace Ang, Grace Barbers–Baja, Abigail Binay-Campos, Ben Chan, Angelita Almeda-Cruz, Baby Araneta-Forés, Juliana Gomez, Richard Gomez, Lucy Torres-Gomez, Small Laude, Jessica Kienle-Maxwell, Josie Cruz Natori, Sheila Romero, Robbie Santos, Audrey Tan-Zubiri, Bea Zobel, and Kevin Zonnenberg.

With his immense talent, Barrioquinto has received various awards and recognitions such as the MetroBank Foundation’s Aces Award for Continuing Excellence (2009), Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Thirteen Artist’s award in 2003, and a back-to-back recipient of the UST Benavidez Awards in 1999 and 2000. Greater things await this seasoned artist next year, where he is set to hold his first solo show in New York City in March and another solo exhibition in London in September.

Sounds Like Home at Galleria Duemila by Jay Ticar and Amy Aragon

In their recent exhibit at Galleria Duemila, Jay Ticar and Amy Aragon works on paintings that connect to the visual roots of sound art. The Vancouver-based artist couple articulates their response to this global interest through painterly abstractions and their ongoing theme of home.
Informed by ideas obtained through The 2017 Asia Center Fellowship held in 3 countries, the artists devised a creative structure that proposes a conversation on the non-musical aspect of sound art. They constructed house-like architectural models that are processed through the ideas of fragmentation and painting. This is to relate to abstraction and conceptualism as sound art fundamentals.

Some of the works will be the following:

“Place of Sonority: On full view at Galleria Duemila, the latest works of Jay Ticar and Amy Aragon are spellbinding visual constructs emanating from the nooks and crannies of an imagination latched on an archetypal locality. This archetype of the home has been chosen as an endearing topic of the artists for more than two decades. Home is the residence from which metaphors of domestic wakefulness begin and to where areas of the unconsciousness find momentary berth. 

“Clues From The Past: We can find clues more than 10 years ago. To fathom where we can see Jay Ticar and Amy Aragon’s “Sounds Like Home” exhibition as their latest art evolution, let’s backtrack circa 2007. Jay assembled “Frangible Armor Piercing Inside A Single Round Bold Action Bull Barrel” installation work in Mag:Net Katipunan to reimagine the fragmentary explosion occurring inside a barrel chamber of a gun. Using hundreds of wooden arrows and colored feathers as if flinging to space, secured by strings attached on the ceiling and gallery walls, this work captured in freeze frame the splintering blast that also fill one’s sense of peril. The Ticar-Aragon art duo produced decades ago oil paintings in large formats portraits and sceneries fragmented by simulated broken glass reflections that dissect the pictorial plane in quasi-Cubist fashion. Then there’s this series of photos in blogspot.com documenting Jay performing an art action in Japan entitled “School Yard Fight AK.A. Vision After Vision” (2005). In this performance piece, Jay, donning only a pair of shorts used his entire body to wrestle with a paint-drenched canvas lying on a ground clearing in the middle of a forest, rolled with it and breaking its wood frame in the process. With upper torso and limbs smudged with wet pigment, Jay strode off the scene back to a well-lit building leaving a brood of students playing violin.” — Raul G. Rodriguez

Jay Ticar and Amy Aragon has been exhibiting individually and as a tandem in respected venues and events of art here and abroad. After The University of the Philippines, Jay finished MFA at Tama Art University in Tokyo as Monbukagakusho scholar and Amy finished her post graduate program at Seneca College in Toronto. The couple is a combination of individual citations for their artistic practice. This includes being featured in publications, being Ateneo Art Awards finalists, and being recipient of Asian Public Intellectual Fellowship Awards to name a few. 

Sounds Like Home
Jay Ticar and Amy Aragon
Exhibition Period: October 13 – November 3 2018
Galleria Duemila
210 Loring St. 1300 Pasay City
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For more information, you may contact them at 831-9990 or 833-9815, or visit our website at www.galleriaduemila.com and follow us on our social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram): @galleriaduemila @ Galleria Duemila