Welcome message from Dayang
We talk, we walk, we are cityzens!
To the representative of the Embassy of the
Republic of Singapore in the Philippines,
colleagues, family and friends.
Thank you all for coming over this afternoon.
Before I begin, I would like to thank the Vargas Museum of
the College of Arts and Letters for hosting Cityzening, the Singapore
International Foundation-Project Glocal partner, the Asian Cultural Council for
supporting the final leg of my research for this project, Tin-Aw Gallery and
Artinformal for hosting our first two satellite shows, the UP Artists Circle
for logistic support and my home unit, the U.P. Center for Ethnomusicology for
so many things.
This afternoon, we are fortunate to be joined by at least
80% of the Project Glocal artists. I would
like to introduce Tang Kwok Hin, Urich Lau, Tang Ling Nah, The Black Baroque Committee, Vichaya Mukdamanee,
Thosapol Boribon, Jittagarn Kaewtingkoy, Rutheirat Kumsrichan, Jaffa Lam, Tam
Wai Ping, Francis Yu, Esther Yip Lai Man, Preeyachanok Ketsuwan, Irma Lacorte,
Mark Salvatus, Mideo Cruz, Wesley Valenzuela and Anton del Castillo. Our artist
assistants RG Salazar, Roan Opiso, Anjo Bolarda, Marcel Gaspar and JM Cabling. And our
project assistant Philip Noveras and Mang Ed Carlos.
This exhibit that you are about to view is a product of an
18 month labor: tears, blood, sweat, bargaining, borrowing and begging. I started this project with a deranged ego,
that since I have multiple personalities, I would be able to multi-task
mentally and physically. And today, I
close a chapter of this Project, with a depleted ego and an even more depleted
bank account. I am an exhausted mortal. But an exhausted mortal with so much
joy in her heart.
I am a permanent resident of the cultural world, by choice
and default, and there is nothing more important for me than to learn and
experience culture—my own and that of my neighbours—and I was able to achieve that
by dragging along 28 other souls (at the very least), in this search of
“knowing”.
Reflecting on how this project transpired is a difficult
task. It is almost impossible to give
you an account or some sort of travelogue, in few minutes, that would actually
make sense, because Project Glocal is not just this exhibit. What I could share with you now are keywords
that could very well represent the process that we have all engaged in.
- Circumstances engineering: Project Glocal, the mothership of Cityzening is a scheme to engineer circumstances for artists to engage, not necessarily for an exhibit, but to engage with each other as colleagues, or even better, as friends;
- Committed conversation: This is the pretense of this project. Committed conversation is talking to another person with the full intention of understanding them and allowing them to enter you comfort zone, to the point of agreeing to subject your agenda (in our case, art) with his. Conversation is easy. The commitment is a whole different story, because it requires us to invest, which brings me to the final point.
- Investment: The artists, who are involved in this project, have invested their time, effort, money, patience, ears, kidney, lungs, and whatever else was required from them to enable us to make Project Glocal happen. At the same time, Project Glocal is an investment for us. Our bank book of relationships and experiences beefed up a plenty over the past months.
On this note, I invite you all to
Cityzening.
Again thank you for coming.
