ManilaBox

Celebrating the Philippine-Japan Friendship Month and the Arts & Culture Month offer this unique photography-cum-performance art presentation entitled “ManilaBox”.

“ManilaBox” sets new parameters in an exhibition that combines photography, sound art performance and sound objects all in one unique show.

Photographs chronicles small slots of time in history which serve as testament to the multitude of experiences that shaped and defined Manila, reflecting memories cast in its landscape and culture. It features the contemporary conditions that construct and reconstruct the urban landscape of Manila through subtle views and raw appreciation of Japanese contemporary photographer, Koji Onaka and the diagnostic anthropological link in re-examining the surviving features of urban landscape by Filipino multi-media artist, Noëll EL Farol.

Onaka and EL Farol’s photographic landscape images convey the different sensitivities of the photographers- from the eyes of a foreigner and a resident local artist. Onaka, a full-time photographer with a degree in Photography creates large-scale theatrical panoramic photos. EL Farol, whose studies involve archaeology, reveals the panoply of memories and emotions bringing private moments into being, entitled “Settlement series”. Their works reflects the social, political and cultural environment of the Filipinos in its defining existence.

Collaborating in the exhibition for a live art performance is Seido Toshiyuki, a Tokyo-based sound art performance artist interacting with Filipino contemporary sound experimentalist, Lirio Salvador.

Toshiyuki’s “The Manila Golden Noises Album”, a collection of recorded and manipulated live noises of Manila shall be formally launched during the opening day of the exhibit. Toshiyuki transformed Onaka and EL Farol’s photographs into a template of cards ( about the size of a calling card) with his recorded "sound art" and noises the result, “The Manila Golden Noises Album”, uniquely presented similar as a gift box in a limited edition of 250 boxes.

Extending the concept of sound art and concurrent in this unique show at the Gray Wall of the gallery are objects that emit sounds, complementing the distinguishing importance of sound element. Features are the one-of-the-kind objects produced by contemporary visual artists, namely Ruel Caasi, Noëll EL Farol, Lirio Salvador, Renato Ong, Mervy Pueblo and Chitz Ramirez.


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Koji Onaka -- Born in Fukuoka, Japan is a multi-awarded Tokyo-based Japanese photographer whose photography works are in the Who’s who in the contemporary Japanese photography collection of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and Shanghai Art Museum. Onaka graduated from Tokyo Photographic College, now Tokyo Visual Arts and has published number of photography books, in his list are ‘Seitaka Awadachi-so (published by Sokyu-sha, 1991); ‘Distance, Mole’ ( 1996), Tokyo Candy Box ( Wize Shuppan, 2001), ‘Hysteric Five: Onaka Koji’ (Hysteric Glamour), ‘Slow Boat’ (Sokyu-sha, 2003), ‘In Between Latvia, Spain’ (EU-Japan Fest), ‘Grasshopper’ (Tosei-sha, 2006), ‘Dragonfly’ (Tosei-sha, 2007), ‘The Dog in France’ (Sokyu-sha, 2008), ‘1983. Nohgata: Echoes of Coal and Stee’ (Grafica, 2008), and most recently his works are featured in Asahi Camera Magazine (December 2008).

In 2005, he has held ‘Five Contemporary Japanese Photographers’ exhibition in Yokohama and in Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in 2007.

In his statement, “We engage with photographs using our own memories. I took these photographs of Manila through the filter of my own memory as a Japanese person. However my memory does not show in them. Captured by the camera as device are simply Manila’s landscapes, familiar to everyone living there. People of Manila seeing the images would surely read them with their own respective memories. Photography allows disparate memories to overlap, sometimes vaguely, sometimes clearly.”

Onaka Koji’s short lived experiences in Manila reveal his brief moments of survey with large-scale theatrical panoramic photos of Manila’s landscape.




Seido Toshiyuki -- Graduated from Tama Art University. Seido has been engaged in live sound art performances and industrial music for more than 20 years now. He has collaborated with number of contemporary musicians, ballet dancers and performance artists producing videos and performing live sound art performances in Japan. Seido recently produced audio CD’s entitled ‘Time Aspect 1 (June 2007), ‘Time Aspect 2’ (September 2007), ‘kkiba003-4 Sound work (New Art Laboratory), ‘kkiba-004’, ‘kkiba-003’, and ‘in1994’. The newest is ‘the Manila Golden Noises Album’, a collection of recorded live noises using the city noises of Manila.

Seido’s performance debut in the Philippines was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila in 1994. In 2006, a ‘piano-noise’ duo sound art performance with Takumi Ohminami was held at LRI Design Plaza, Makati City and at the College of Music of the University of the Philippines in Diliman in 2007.

In his statement, his sound work “are electronically or physically generated sound, sound from musical instruments and everyday sounds juxtaposed together to create another sound” His act of “making noise” started with complete silence, similar in starting a painting using a blank canvas. His sound installation are arranged sounds as if they are particles to be released into the space or environment”.

At present, Toshiyuki is producing a triple set CD’s with Filipino avant-garde musician group called E.X.I.S.T.




Noëll EL Farol -- Born in Pasig City, is a former Mombusho scholar, graduated from the Graduate School of Shizuoka University, Japan in 1991, and Research Fellow of the Association of International Education Japan in 1996. EL Farol is a multi-media art practitioner and a sculptor, whom received various awards and recognitions in photography, mixed media works, multi-media/installation art and sculpture. In 1994, EL Farol co-organized a major exhibition of Japanese contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila followed by another major show entitled “Dripped A-Value” held at Ayala Museum in 1996.

In 1999, EL Farol collaborated with leading Japanese installation artist, Ichi Ikeda in a unique show that combines collection of large scale photographs from Japan, Hongkong and the Philippines held simultaneously at the Cultural Center of the Philippines front lawn and the Little Theatre Lobby entitled ‘Manila Project: Water Ark Harbor’, it combines sculpture-installation, photography-installation and performance art in one big event.

EL Farol has held one-person shows in Japan in 1991, 1996 and in 2005, and participated in major group exhibitions held at Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art in 1990, 1992 and in 1994.
A recipient of artist-in-residency in Seto Ceramics and Glass Art Centre in 2001, he represented Philippines in Aichi Expo held in 2005. In 2006, he was invited as guest speaker in Asia Pacific Forum: Rethinking Asia held in Shizuoka City, Japan with his paper entitled “Art and Globalization” presented in forum with scholars from Japan, England, Russia and China.

A member of KAPI (Kapisan ng mga Arkelojist sa Pilipinas - Association of Archaeologist in the Philippines), EL Farol’s continuing studies and involvement in field archaeology fuses his unique concept in sculpture that uses mainly glass, stone and most recently steel.

EL Farol’s creative photographs were featured in 1994’s The Best of the Philippines book. In ‘ManilaBox’, El Farol’s photography diagnoses the socio-cultural relevance and materiality of the subject.

EL Farol currently teaches in the University of the Philippines-Diliman and served as former Chair of the Department of Studio Arts, College of Fine Arts.


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“ManilaBox” will be viewed at Kaida Art Gallery along Kamuning Road, Quezon City on March 22, 2009 with opening "sound art" performance collaboration by Seido Toshiyuki and Lirio Salvador at 6 PM.