Through the Spectacles

Manila City, Philippines, 2010. I was with my mother and my father as they accompany me through the process of enrolling at a university in which an acquaintance of mine is also a student - a graduating student at that time. I was so naive, a young boy without a hint of what it's like to be in college or how to deal with Manila traffic and so on. While filling out some pertinent documents t the registrar's office, I was asked, "what course are you going to take?" Then the registrar staff handed over a list of all the available courses that this university offers.   My first choice was Bachelor of Fine Arts major in Advertising, followed by Nutrition and Food Technology, a technical course. As an innate lover of the arts, I was drawn instantly to the name and to the anticipation of what BFA has to offer to an aspiring creative like me.  Fast forward to 2014, I finally graduated with a degree in Fine Arts. The prior anticipation and excitement during my admission days a...

People often think the art market is glamorous—full of collectors, exhibitions, and expensive artworks. But from an artist’s point of view, the reality is often very different. From what I have seen in the Philippines, many artists are often taken advantage of, especially in larger and more established art spaces. Decisions about pricing, exhibitions, and visibility are usually controlled by people with power—such as dealers, gallery owners, curators, and collectors—rather than by the artists themselves. This creates a system where artists have limited control over how their work is presented and valued. This creates a system where artists have limited control over how their work is presented and valued. For a long time, the art market has been seen as elitist. It feels exclusive, closed, and sometimes even intimidating. Fine art is usually expensive, which automatically limits who can participate as buyers. As a result, the market mostly serves the wealthy. The irony is that many art...

Dada or Dadaism, is quite a topic to be discussed especially in an art or design class. In all honesty, the notion and concepts surrounding the Dada movement are still, by far, one of the most interesting art-related topics for me because it questions the way we are being introduced to art, beauty, society, and even power itself. It is also a tool not just to show the critiques of their time; I mean, the first world war, but the works linked to Dada also show the progression of the Western art scene into modernity. The movement can also be considered a part of the many art movements during the Avant-garde period. To answer the question of whether Dada is an art or a design movement, let us define the term first - for us to have a better understanding of the subject matter. According to the MoMA Learning website, Dada emerged amid the brutality of World War I (1914–18)—a conflict that claimed the lives of eight million military personnel and an estimated equal number of civilians. ...

    Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the human consequences of the control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a critical theory analysis of the history, culture, literature, and discourse of (usually European) imperial power. Postcolonialism encompasses a wide variety of approaches, and theoreticians may not always agree on a common set of definitions. Raja, Masood (2019). "What is Postcolonial Studies?". Postcolonial Space. Masood Raja. Retrieved 16 July 2019. Postcolonialism states that universal claims are mistaken since they assume that a certain white, Western identity or position is the template for all people and that cultural differences are ignored. It is more of a set of interests or viewpoints than a single theory. Postcolonial theory is related to political struggles in various parts of the world – the fight for racial and ethnic equality a...

Graphic design is a very interesting topic for me because of its impact in my personal and professional life. This is my practice and my main discipline in the creative industry and I am glad that there is a topic for it, and it helped me quite a lot because of the new learnings from the reading. I would like to start with the gist of the reading edited by Helen Armstrong entitled: Graphic Design Theory: Readings from the Field. In this book, Armstrong compiled and edited the most important documents in line with the theories and concepts encircling the field and discipline of graphic design in a scholarly and academic manner. The book discussed the timeline of the development of graphic design, cited key personalities that contributed to the development and movements of the field, and gave some examples of the important design era. It has been said in the book that during the early 1900s, the avant-garde in graphic design emerges. The designers of the old world turned their backs on ...

       I would like to share our community theater experience. In my own opinion, I can relate and consider that endeavor as postmodern art. My main aim of our community theater company is to teach, inform, and involve the young people in our area in the art of drama and performance art. We conduct workshops, seminars, and free stageplay for the residents in our community for them to appreciate art and the theater arts as well. The workshops are being conducted during the summer because this is the time when our participants are mostly free from their academic obligations – we also welcome out-of-school youth to save them from the harm of the challenging communal norms of Manila.       In teaching them, we are using a combination of talks and practicums, and since the pedagogical nature of the entire undertaking is a workshop, we are training them most of the time in the dramatic arts using staple pieces and some materials that I’ve written...