Current Current

PJ Andayran, Kendall Colindon, Mark Martinez

November 22, 2020

Kaida Contemporary
45 Scout Madriñan St., South Triangle, 1103 Quezon City, Philippines

Current Current tells the story of today as it unfolds against the backdrop of a country changing amidst a pandemic. A play on the word “current,” as it pertains to events occurring in the present, as well as the ebb and flow of tides as they weave their way through bodies of water, artists PJ Andayran, Kendall Colindon, and Mark Martinez chart the everyday movements of people as they try to adapt and sustain themselves in these trying times.

Jeepneys serve as the main figures in Andayran’s works. While it is often depicted as in transit, Andayran presents them as the central axes on which people’s lives revolve around. For many, it is a source of income; for others, a means of transport. But in his piece titled Sojourn, he also presents the jeepney as a form of shelter, both literally and figuratively. It protects and, in some sense, provides warmth and comfort.

Colindon’s works dive right into what he refers to as the “flow of poverty” that continues to permeate society. The figures in his works are either occupied with work, or sitting in wait as they anticipate promised help which rarely, if ever, comes. Colindon alludes to poverty as a cyclical phenomenon, where those who are at its mercy remain to be so especially in times of distress such as these, and where collective catastrophic events only serve to heighten the social inequality, thus making it virtually impossible for many to ever break from this vicious pattern.

Bringing the exhibition full circle, Martinez’ pieces pay homage to the many sacrifices that this pandemic has called for. Like the currents at sea, we find that all these individual sacrifices—from delivery couriers who tirelessly attend to their jobs, to taho vendors who still venture into the streets in the hopes of yielding profit—affect us in some way, no matter the distance and breadth of our perception.

Current Current is an ode to the present, a rendering of today as it is, in all its desolation and despondency. The pieces in the exhibition call for an awareness and a heightened consciousness of how our current situation has upturned the lives of many Filipinos, and how despite the bleakness of the situation, in some remarkable way, we still manage to keep on going. As we’ve come to learn, it is often in these strange times that it becomes truly discernible just how connected we are to one another as a people.

Words by Elle Lucena