I’ve had the honor and privilege to be one of the resource persons invited to the Philippine Visual Arts Summit – Visayas Leg organized by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts – National Committee on Visual Arts.
The summit was headed by NCCA-NCVA Head Dr. Dennis “Sio” E. Montera who is also the coordinator of the Bachelor of Fine Arts program of University of the Philippines Cebu and featured the workshop facilitator NCCA Commissioner for the Arts Arvin Manuel R. Villalon with the agenda entitled “Towards the Creation of a Roadmap for the Visual Arts Sector of the Philippines”. The forum is formed in partnership with Holy Child Central Colleges, Inc. with support from NCVA Secretary Al Nezzar Ali and other NCVA ExeCom members.
Objectives of the summit include “to engage in meaningful discussion and planning related to the issues and concerns of the visual arts sector from both regional and national perspectives.” The activity is aimed to create a roadmap that ensures future policies, programs, and advocacies in the visual arts will be truly representative and grounded.
The delegation from Region VI – Western Visayas was invited and headed by NCVA ExeCom Member Moreen Austria and included 4 artists from Panay namely, including yours truly, Ed Defensor, Martin Genodepa, and PG Zoluaga, and 2 others from Bacolod, former NCVA Representative Manny Montelibano and Jade Snow. The rest of the participants included artists, cultural workers, art writers, museum directors, gallerists, and art educators from Negros Oriental, Cebu, Bohol, Leyte, and Samar.
Artists were presented with a template to discuss various and prominent concerns of the Visual Arts Community in Visayas, which the NCCA narrowed down into 9 major points. The artists were then divided into 3 groups to discuss 3 major concerns with the objective of coming up with Short and Medium-Term Goals and formulate its corresponding Success Indicators.
After more than an hour of brainstorming and sharing our individual concerns that echo those of the communities that we belong in, the artists were then given the task of coming up with PPAs or Policies, Programs, and Activities with corresponding strategies that are needed to achieve those Short and Medium-Term Goals.
While discussing these Goals and PAPs are important, they may be too long to discuss in this article. I will just share one of the 9 major concerns and the first one that we tackled was the theme of “Economic Challenges and Opprtunities” such as in the creative industry, art funding, sustaining galleries and the art ecosystem. The various goals that our team came up with include: 1)To improve information dissemination and access to flexible funding sources, 2)To leverage opportunities for creative tourism, 3)To strengthen collaborations and partnerships within the art ecosystem (with other galleries, art agencies, LCACs, and inter-island initiatives), and 4)To develop local collector base. Each one of these goals were then provided with necessary PPAs (Policies, Programs, and Activities) needed to achieve them.
A longer report on this summit may be crafted soon upon receipt of the full documentation of the 3 legs that will cover Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Perhaps a talk in a local gallery will be organized to disseminate these information to all interested artists and other stakeholders. Looking back and going over one of the goals which is “to strengthen collaborations within the art ecosystem”, I came to the realization that these festivals, biennials, and conferences are really important in strengthening the art community. I have now recognized the relevance of events such as the Iloilo Arts Festival, Western Visayas Art Congress (Natundan), the Visayas Islands Visual Arts Exhibitions and Conference, and the various initiatives of independent artists, collectives, galleries, museums, academic institutions among others as powerful catalysts for our art community. Cheers to more collaborations!
Photos: Jear Lopez, Kristoffer Brasileño, Benj Pore
