PROCLAMATION OF 8

EXHIBITING OUR CURRENT STATE OF UNREST AND

DEMONSTRATING OUR POSITIONS IN THE TIME OF CHANGE

WHEREAS, Proclamation of 8, will be issued on September 23, 2017 with eight (8) artists

declaring our current and varied states of unrest, and signifying our clearest to the obscurest

positions in this time that change has come, on account of the extant situation of the land;

WHEREAS, part of the reasons for the issuance of Proclamation of 8 exhibition are the

series of existing ambiguities in the territory of the Republic of the Philippines or any part

thereof, such as, the medial of contempt and approval in our people, the medial of action and

apathy in our generation, the medial of accord and opposition in our freedom, the medial of

disregard and honor in the human condition, and the constituting wholly or partially, the medial

of assurance and intimidation in our truths and the public’s prerogatives. Thus, the need for a

proclamation;

WHEREAS, in the Sections 1-8 of the gallery, the Artworks, including amendments, in

any type of media, to be exhibited for a period not exceeding 60 days, will attempt a

demonstration of the process, experience, and outcome of our present reality’s ambiguous

stage, consummated by enforcing and/or resisting our individual state as an artist within a scope

of contradicting roles and perspectives e.g., a dictator and a devotee, an ally and an enemy, a

rebel and a believer, a perpetrator and a savior;

NOW, THEREFORE, WE, THE RALLIED ARTISTS, Citizens of Republic of the

Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in us by our freedom, truth, and dignity, do hereby

provide our statement and proclaim:

“Sa kaso na ikaw ay nasa gitna – kung ikaw ang may sala at ikaw rin ang biktima, ano ang

iyong idedeklara?”

By the Artists:

ANDREI VENAL

Visual Communicator, Creative Director

Andrei Venal graduated Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts and Design of the Philippine

Women’s University.

He is a practicing inter-disciplinary visual communicator and has worked in, and with a wide

range of professional environment – the academe, creative production, advertising, and

nongovernmental organizations.

Venal’s practice centers on weaving disciplines, operations, and approaches. His scope of work

includes graphic design, digital art, web, data, advertising, game development, and writing.

In 2011, he worked as a teacher of design and advertising in PWU-School of Fine Arts and

Design. In 2015, he worked as the creative director of Active Vista International Human Rights

Film Festival. Currently Andrei spearheads the creative force of Dakila organization. On October

2017, Andrei will be flying to Austria, to participate as a fellow in the Salzburg Global Seminar.

CHRISTINA LOPEZ

Artist

Christina Lopez is a Visual Artist who is currently based in Manila, Philippines. She has recently

completed her residency at the Royal College of Art in London. Tona is a Multimedia Arts

student at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde and part of the artists alliance RESBAK. Before

entering the realm of Fine Art, she took up Human Biology in De La Salle University-Manila. Her

work often fuses science’s physical processes together with human emotion and experience.

JAIME PACENA

Multimedia Artist, Curator / BMLab

J. graduated Fine Arts at the University of Santo Tomas, he is a multimedia artist, a teacher and

a curator. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions both in Manila and abroad; and his

curatorial projects have extended from Manila to Japan and Australia. He also works as a video

director for the advertising and the music industry in the Philippines and continues to encourage

and guide multimedia arts students in Asia Pacific College-School of Multimedia Arts.

In 2010, he was a grantee of the Jenesys Programme for Creators by the Japan Foundation in

cooperation with the Jorge Vargas Museum-Curatorial Development Program, a 3 months

Curator-in- Residence Program in Aomori Contemporary Art Centre and in Tokyo. This program

led him to co-curate an all Japanese Artist Exhibition last 2011 in Perth Institute of

Contemporary Art(PICA) in Australia. On the same year he also participated in the Asahi Art

Festival Travel Study Tour in the Tohoku Area 5 months after the Tsunami incident. In 2012, he

curated a Major Exhibition in Vargas Museum entitled Bliss Market: Exchange in Time / Space

in Transience, focusing on a community based project in U.P. BLISS in Diliman. On 2013, 2014

and 2016 he attended an Artist-in- Residence program in Rikuzentakata, Japan, a city that was

wiped out last March 2011 Tsunami incident.

He is active as the in-house Curator for CANVAS gallery which focuses in Creative

Opportunities, Open Dialogues and Meaningful Change in the Philippine Art. He is the founder

and creative director of an independent creative and technical support group called Bliss Market

Laboratory or BMLab... and a passionate father to a boy named Sunday.

MERVY PUEBLO

Visual Artist

Mervy C. Pueblo actively pursued her career as a visual artist since 2001. She has participated

in numerous exhibitions and sculpture symposiums, locally and internationally such as;

Singapore 2017 and 2014; Japan 2016, 2012 and 2009; Malaysia 2016; France in 2014;the

United States of America in 2011-2013; South Korea in 2011, 2010 and 2008; Russia in 2008;

and Vietnam in 2007.

Under the flagship of Fulbright, she received her M.F.A. Visual Studies major in Public Art &

Sculpture with masteral units in Art Education, from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design,

MN, USA ; and she received her B.F.A. degree in Advertising from St. Scholastica's College

Manila, Philippines.

Pueblo’s studio practice explores human relationships and the everyday life raising concerns in

human and environmental ecology. She has received several awards from different institutions

such as the AICAD Postgraduate Teaching Fellowship by the Minneapolis College of Art and

Design MN, USA (Nomination, 2016); Thirteen Artist Awards (Winner, 2015 CCP, PH), Ethel

Morrison Van Derlip Award (Winner, 2013 USA), Ateneo Art Awards (Finalist, 2012 PH), the

Metrobank Art and Design Excellence: Sculpture Competition (Special Citation and Finalist,

20062010 PH), and Recognition of Talented Youth in Arts and Culture conferred by the office of

the Pasig City Mayor (2006). Moreover, she has been an Arts Network Asia grantee (2007

Singapore), Metrobank Foundation travel grant recipient (2007 PH), Haslla Art World Museum

artist-in- residence grantee (2011 South Korea), and represented the Philippines to following

international art events: Taebaek Snow Sculpture Exposition (2009 South Korea), Miyazaki

International Sculpture Exhibit(2009 Japan), Chistye Prudi Penza International Sculpture

Symposium (2008 Russia), and Hai Phong International Sculpture Symposium (2007 Vietnam).

She have been a professor to various institutions such as: the DLS-CSB School of Design and

Art: Industrial design program (2015~to date); the Philippine Women’s University [PWU] Manila:

School of Fine Arts and Design Graduate Program (2013~15); and the Minneapolis College of

Art and Design, USA (2012). Moreover, Mervy was appointed to head the graduate program of

the PWU School of Fine Arts and Design in July 2013, but has left the PWU last Oct. 2015 for

her self-initiated and funded studio research: Project Embrace: Sculptural Mountain Nets/Braces

to Landslide Prone Areas in the Philippines.

MIKAELO LACSON AGUILAR

Artist, Musician

Miko Aguilar is a multimedia artist born and raised in the Philippines but is currently based in

San Diego, California. He has a degree in Architecture but immediately pursued a musical

career right after graduation. His involvement in music led him to other forms of expression,

notably as a spoken word artist under the name Miko Pepito. He is also trained in improv

comedy and this led him to being part of the comedy group, Cardio Boys. With the Cardio Boys,

he hosted a travel show for TFC that was aired in the Middle East and their own segments in

the comedy sketch show Wow! Mali in TV5. He also has worked as a freelance Assistant

Director and Music Producer before moving to the United States in 2015. He now runs his own

media outfit, We, The Studio.

In 2005, he joined Dakila – Philippine Collective for Modern Heroism, and his journey from being

a member to being its Organizing Director pushed him further to discuss social injustice in his

art. This, and mental health, are recurring themes in his works. He notes that music, street and

propaganda art as some of his main influences.

NINOTCHKA ROSCA

Writer, Organizer

Ninotchka Rosca is a writer of many literary genres and a journalist; an organizer of, advocate

for and theoretician in the women’s movement; a political analyst and a traveler. She has six or

nine books published; has received numerous awards and recognition for all aspects of her

work. Currently, she is with AF3IRM, a US-based but about to become international

organization of transnational women practicing intersectional feminist theory. Her works include:

“State of War” a novel – the first to be published by a major literary publishing house in the USA

in twenty years; translated into several languages; is considered a classic of Philippine

literature.

“Twice Blessed” a novel – awarded the American Book Award for Excellence in Literature; the

other classic.

“Epidemic” a short story – included in Raymond Carver’s 100 Best Short Stories Published in

the USA (the year it came out) and in the Missouri Review’s Best Short Fiction In 25 years.

“Sugar and Salt” a short story – included in Ms Magazine’s Best Short Fiction in 25 years.

“Between the Crucifix and the Gun” – first cover story written by a Filipino for a mainstream US

magazine.

And several grants, awards, etc., for her work as writer and as activist.

RALPH EYA

Artist

Eya is an interdisciplinary art practitioner concentrating on community-engaged art projects. He

is based in Manila, Philippines and have actively pursued his local career in art since 2012

through artist-run exhibitions. His creative work thrusts mostly in public art through community

involvement and collaboration. Comprising of partnerships with educational institutions and

organizations such as UNICEF and the British Council of the Philippines, his practice integrates

alternative education, visual arts for development, and social transformation.

Living in a life of continuous motion and change, he regards that we should never cease to ask

the value of our art to the world. With the power of art’s indefinite forms, limitless roles, and

definitions, Eya’s artistic discipline becomes an exploratory method of progressing our humanity

through art and the critical processes of self-determination, empowerment, and activation of the

sectors and the communities he has worked with. He has organized, curated, and participated

in several collaborative exhibitions for his body of work in installation, photography, new media,

and performance in various alternative art spaces and institutions in his country including the

Gallery of Peninsula and the Archipelago, U.P. Vargas Museum, National Commission for the

Culture and the Arts, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

In 2015, he was the first Artist-in- Residence of the joint UNICEF and Ateneo de Zamboanga

Center for Culture and the Arts arts for development program. He facilitated photography with

the Mindanawon youth siege survivors, and culminated the residency with a multimedia exhibit

and his first curatorial project "Sugpat: Stories of Permanence in Transience." His endeavors

continued with other communities in the Philippines – he initiated art projects tackling issues of

isolation, abandonment, drug rehabilitation, and recently, societal inclusion for the youth of Isla

de Convalencencia through a mural collaboration for the Pasig River Art for Urban Change.

Eya is also a practicing consultant for creative production and publicity in film and advocacy

campaigns, and a seasonal lecturer for Visual Communication and Multimedia Art Production in

the Philippines. He is currently focusing on art for social involvement and rights-based approach

art education, and prospecting to cultivate his practice in a cultural exchange at the Artist for a

Better World Programme of Singapore International Foundation in Singapore and Malaysia.

SIDNEY VALDEZ

Artist

Sidney Aero P. Valdez (born December 1, 1988) completed his BFA at Far Eastern University in

Manila (2011). He has worked with artists like Kat Medina, Mark Justiniani and Ben Cab. In

2014, he joined STEX (Southern Tagalog Exposure), an independent multimedia group

pioneered by Kiri Dalena. He had his first solo exhibition last year (2016) at Secret Fresh

Gallery titled “RAPEPUBLIC” where he confronted recent accounts of exploitation in his native

Republic of the Philippines. He is currently teaching painting lessons and is also a practicing

tattoo artist.