City of Bawal

Group Exhibition

27 April to 8 June 2019

1335Mabini
Karrivin Plaza, Chino Roces Ave. Extn, Makati City

Participating artists: Brisa Amir, Datu Arellano, Kristoffer Ardena, Jan Balquin, Lesley-Anne Cao, Miggy Inumerable, Czar Kristoff, Celine Lee, Cris Mora, Indy Paredes, Mark Salvatus, Jel Suarez and Jose Tong

How to grasp the everyday minutiae of the city, our city, the city of of bawal?

No jaywalking. No trespassing. No littering. No loitering. No loading and unloading. No parking. No U-turn. No texting and driving. No drinking and driving. No entry. No guns allowed. No smoking. No illegal vendors. Not for hire. Post no bill. Do not blow horn. Obey speed limit. Do not delay. Obey god. Slow down.

Someone discarded a slipper on the street. Did she or he return home on one bare foot? What will happen to the discarded slipper? A pothole is so wide and deep, can it swallow an automobile or dead bodies whole? An ambulance is stuck in traffic, who prays for the passenger-patient to reach the hospital in time? Why do security guards yield shotguns? Do they ever have to draw their weapons? Why does it smell like piss right next to the bawal umihi signage? Who is the ‘we’ in the neon ‘in god we trust’? Who writes of revolt and revolution on the city’s walls? Who reads these messages? How to respond?

The city of bawal – the seemingly trivial and futile, the fragments… Can the city of bawal be made to stutter? And can the city of bawal be opened up to a different realm of perplexing possibilities. This becoming, stuttering becoming, is set in the messy, mesmerizing, chaotic, cacophonic city.

This group of thirteen artists is on purpose large and diverse as navigating our city requires multiple angles – including contradictions. Each of the artists – young and upcoming to emerging artists – has her or his own poetic sensibility to show different urban questions concerning the everyday minutiae of the city, our city, the city of of bawal.

The title of the exhibition is a reference to the short story Library of Babel by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, in which the narrator attempts to find meaning in what appears to be vast randomness.

The exhibition opens on Saturday 27 April, 2019, at 6pm