(Opening remarks delivered by artist Ray Mudjahid “Kublai” Millan of Lawig Diwa at the gala night of the 4th Mindanao Art Fair on Friday, 14 October 2022 at The Club at Northtown, Cabantian, Davao City)
Welcome to the 4th Mindanao Art Fair 2022! May we find our alignment and interconnectedness with the artworks, the artists, and the audience as we immerse ourselves in the images, rhythm, and sounds made by Mindanao artists.
We started in 2019, looking back to where Mindanao art has been and showed works as they were, straight from where they came from. Admittedly, the majority were pieces that needed a lot of polishing to make it big on the national scene. In 2019, we were coming from the fact that Mindanao artists had a lot to catch up to thrive as individuals and as an industry.
But making visual art a thriving industry in Mindanao is but a recognized offshoot of what we envision Mindanao Art Fair to be.
This vision we shared in bits and pieces, one fair at a time. From the theme “Traversing the River of Creativity” for our first staging in 2019, we pushed on during the worst of the pandemic in 2020 with “Living Art in a New Landscape,” and then we challenged the lingering fears of the artists and the audience in 2021 with “Art in Between: Mindanao Art in Liminal Space.”
From the start, we strove to bring out the best and then tried to outdo what has been done the year before.
In between, we embarked on mentoring programs, reaching out to the provinces to share with them our expertise and the exposures we have had in our travels and interactions in the art world. For this year alone, we were able to mentor more than a hundred young artists from the provinces of Davao de Oro, South Cotabato, and North Cotabato, the Caraga Region, and General Santos City. These are all out-of-pocket expenses, our way of giving back for the gifts of talent and success we received that allowed us to thrive in our trade.
I admit, there are always days when we can’t help but ask: Why are we punishing ourselves?
I have carved a name for myself as an artist, why would I subject myself to the rigors required of grants like what we have for Mindanao Art Fair, when we can easily just focus on ourselves and grow richer?
That would be an easier life away from intrigues and the difficulty to gather this massive group of artists from all over Mindanao.
But here we are again, on our fourth year. Bigger, more festive, more colorful, and becoming more Mindanao.
Why is that? Because, on my own, I can only be a Mindanao artist. It will take more than me and my few friends to create what we can truly call a Mindanao Art.
The vision is not to stage a yearly event. This Mindanao Art Fair is but a vehicle. The vision is to embed into the consciousness of each artist and each member of the audience an art genre that is truly Mindanao. An art genre that is deeply rooted in the identity of the land and our people, the culture, and the landscape, both past and present.
That is the reason why we at Lawig-Diwa Inc., the organizer of Mindanao Art Fair, are willing to go through the rigors of organizing and mentoring artists and working with the government when we could have easily thrived on our own, living comfortable lives with our individual successes.
We consider artists as our own tribe, we feel their difficulties, we feel their hunger, we listen to their needs and dreams and we try to share what we can because our eyes are on the horizon, not the now. And in the horizon we see artists creating without having to beg for their subsistence. We see artists who can command their prices. Artists whose God-given talents are recognized, respected, bought at a fair price, and collected as investments. But most of all, we see artists who are confident in their identity and art.
This year, the fourth Mindanao Art Fair dares to redefine the present reality of Artificial Intelligence or AI as we dig deep into the soul of Mindanao to find an alignment and interconnectedness, the AI of the arts, the artists, the audience, and the land.
In this depth, in this soul is the Mindanao Art we are nurturing to its full fruition as we strive to connect all art expressions to resonate and be in cadence with the colors, the culture, the music, the dances, and the people that flow in the veins of contemporary Mindanao.
By bringing forth that uniqueness in all of us and of all regions, we communicate to the world of art at the soul level.
We have the National Commission on Culture and the Arts and the National Committee on Art Galleries to thank for the full support it has been extending since our initial steps into this dream of having an art industry that is rooted in our identity and in the process we contribute to a Philippine Art that is truly Filipino. This is our humble contribution to the aspirations of NCCA for the preservation, development and promotion of Philippine arts and culture. We are hopeful that this humble contribution is appreciated as such and that we are able to communicate the essence of what we are all called to do — soul to soul, spirit to spirit.
I also take this opportunity to thank all our sponsors and supporters who have been with us through all the challenges. We highly appreciate how you have taken our vision to heart and have made our advocacy yours as well. In this unique partnership, we have found alignment and interconnectedness, and this is what Mindanao Art Fair 2022 is all about.
Aligned and Interconnected, we are one with all … and it feels good that way.
(Mindanao Art 2022 runs from October 15 to November 5 at The Club at Northtow in Cabantian, Davao City, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.)
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