Integrating the Local and the

Contemporary
 Ojectives:

At the end of the session the students are

expected :

• Define Local Materials.

• State the main characteristics of local as
material for contemporary art
• Identify the local materials that can be
integrated into art
Activity : Group Work
 What is meant by the word “local” and
how can it be used as material for
contemporary art?
“Local” refers to material that is easily
available, like bamboo. It can also refer to
wherever the artist finds himself or
herself.
For example: Diokno Pasilan, a neo-ethnic
musician-visual/performance artist and
one time art director from Negros the
“local” involves various places: Baguio,
Bicol, Palawan (where he resided for a
long period),
and most recently Victoria, Western
Australia, where he resettled.
For example, in a performance for the Third
Bagasbas Beach International Environment
Art Festival in the Bicol region, Pasilan
communicates the need to be more aware
of our natural environment by painting his
body green, the color of the environmental
movement. Like a bungee jumping human
anchor, he thrust himself toward gongs ties
together unto bamboo structure-bamboo
being material that easily available around
bagasbas fisher folk communities.
Digital Tagalog- a collaboration between
Lani Maestro and Poklong Anading, artists
who are known for creating multi-sensory
environments that come out of their
research about the contexts of spaces and
communities. Digital Tagalog used bamboo
to construct physical nodes and create
sounds.
They also used found and crafted sounds,
some of which were inspired and sourced
out of the digitized audio files of National
Artist for Music Jose Maceda.
 This collaborative and combined use of
visual and musical made the work
particularly interactive.
Still other artists create work by
reinventing not just tangible objects like
bamboo, nut other artforms sourced from
the performing arts of ritual, music and
dance. Davao-based choreographer Agnes
Locsin used the techniques of modern
dance to reinterprete a component of the
Moriones Holy Week festival of
Marinduque.
 The Moriones narrates the story of
Roman centurion Longino’s conversion to
Christianity upon the healing of his
blindness by the dying Jesus whom the
soldier had been ordered to guard.
Performed in France (as Ballet Philippines’
entry to the Recontres Festival Du Danse)
by male dancers moving to “Serra Pelada”
of the avant-garde composer Philip Glass,
the dance reinterprets the story through
costumes and movements not associated
with classical ballet and folk dances.
 A similar example that involves
reinvention of festival is seen in a project
called “Lucban Assembly/Systems of
Irrigation Project”. Done during the annual
mid-May Pahiyas festival by Quezon-based
artists of Project Space Pilipinas and their
guest artists, this consisted of art installed
along the procession route. Curated by
another independent initiative of writers
called Disclab, the works were placed
strategically along that route so that
visitors and locals alike wouldn’t miss or
overlook them.