Isola Tong
October 27 to December 11, 2022
Stigma vs Awareness: Ending the Continuum
18 November | Friday | 1:00 PM
World Aids Day Online Talk
1 December | Thursday | 6:30 PM
Bulwagang Carlos V. Francisco (CCP Little Theater Lobby)
Cultural Center of the Philippines
CCP Complex, Roxas Boulevard, 1300 Pasay City, Philippines
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Lumayo Ka Man Sa Akin: HIV My Love draws its energy from socially engaged practices such as the works of Pablo Helguera that uses methods of public engagement and pedagogy, and Suzanne Lacy’s Skin of Memory (1999-2017), notable for its engagement with community history, activism and mobility. In a similar vein, this project expands the discourse on pandemics and its intersections with gender identity and class through a practice of engaged listening to voices of the unheard and the unseen, silenced by social structure. On October 15, 2022, the artist facilitated an online visual poetry and body mapping workshop, attended by HIV-positive participants who encountered the open call. The idea follows body mapping exercises done by artists and therapists to help participants heal from their trauma through mapping or locating the pain or wounds on a figurative drawing which represents their body.
“While the world is struggling with COVID-19, the Philippines is fighting the surge of another virus, albeit a much older one”, Isola said in her essay as her exhibit is a meditation on loss, condemnation, exclusion, rejection and the life-long grief suffered by many others like the artist who were infected by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus or known as HIV. The exhibition shows how each day of their lives are made possible by antiretrovirals and how they struggle to find joy in such a harsh social environment.
The exhibition is not only a reflection of the callousness of fate and the universe and how people judge them harshly, but rather, a celebration of life, an intimate and lifetime love affair with HIV, my love. Isola, who is currently based in California for her MFA in Environmental Art and Social Practice, will be giving an online artist talk on December 1, at 6:30pm, for World AIDS Day.
Exhibition hours are from Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm, and are extended until 9pm on evenings with shows at the CCP Main Theater. For inquiries, contact the CCP Visual Art and Museum Division, Production and Exhibition Department, at telephone 8832-1125 loc. 1504/1505, email (vamd@culturalcenter.gov.ph) or through social media pages www.facebook.com/ccpvamd, www.instagram.com/ccpvamd, www.twitter.com/ccpvamd.
