ARTS | Filipino artists explore democracy through SPRINTS
The artists worked around this year’s global theme, “Reimagining Democracy,” with the challenge focusing on ways people can participate, deliberate, make decisions and shape the societies in which they live.
Ten Filipino illustrators and visual artists from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao are presenting works exploring democracy through SPRINTS, a 48-hour creative challenge and bootcamp held Aug. 21-23 at Alon and Araw.
Organized by DAKILA – Philippine Collective for Modern Heroism with global creative studio Fine Acts and the One World or None initiative, the Philippine edition brought together Cyrill Acuña, Jill Arteche, Alyssa Babasa, Maki Cabrera, Anjella Cruz, Ed Empemano, Ish Flores, Kieltokki, Kirsten Mago and Ruer Torculas.
The artists worked around this year’s global theme, “Reimagining Democracy,” with the challenge focusing on ways people can participate, deliberate, make decisions and shape the societies in which they live.
The resulting works are being exhibited simultaneously in three locations in celebration of the International Day of Democracy: Commune in Metro Manila; Arts and Design Collective in Dumaguete for the Visayas; and La Herencia in Davao for Mindanao.
The exhibitions run throughout September and include works by the 10 participating artists, five collaborative pieces produced during the bootcamp, and additional works by homegrown and guest artists including Red Genotiva, Noi Narciso, Jonas Tugab, Cleo Manansala and Airish Tayag.
“Together, these exhibitions form a kind of creative flag planted across the archipelago: a declaration from Filipino artists that democracy is not a finished picture. It is something we can question, redraw, and build again,” said Elvin Macanlalay, creative director of DAKILA.
The exhibition format is also part of the organizers’ effort to make art more accessible to the public. Macanlalay said the use of outdoor spaces and banner materials was intended to move the presentation away from the conventional gallery setting.
“The outdoors, the banner material, and the overall exhibit design are also intended as a way to reimagine democracy. Particularly, with the idea of art having more open access to the public, in contrast to the traditional white-walled spaces which can unintentionally be exclusive,” he said.
Ralph Eya, artist-organizer and SPRINTS coordinator in the Philippines, said bringing the international creative format into local and community spaces was intended to connect the theme with everyday experiences.
“By bringing in this kind of art activation format in our country and intentionally contextualizing it on a local and community level, we have created a more grounding space to work on something genuinely close to most people’s lived experiences during a critical period wherein our democracy should be felt and not just remain as discussion points within the confines of high-profile symposiums, international convenings, and the like,” Eya said.
He added that SPRINTS demonstrates how artists can use creative work to examine systems, encourage dialogue and make complex ideas more accessible.
Full disclosure: All news articles published on the TechSabado website are written by human journalists, unless otherwise specified. Final text editing is also performed by human editors, with artificial intelligence (AI) used only to assist with additional grammar and style guide corrections..
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