Exhibition Opportunity

For those of you who are interested in exhibiting your artwork in a public setting, here's a great opportunity to apply, from the Manilatown Center in San Francisco's legendary, rebuilt I Hotel:

2008 Call for Artists:
Globalization: Response and Responsibility

Quarterly exhibitions are themed presentations with accompanying auxiliary programming. The theme for 2008 is Globalization: Response and Responsibility. There are four exhibitions that deal with the topics and their effect on the Filipino community both locally and globally. In addition, we have an annual I-Hotel commemoration exhibit.

You do not have to be Filipino to submit a proposal, but artwork should directly relate to the year's theme and the Filipino experience. We also have a slot for a solo exhibition in December for a promising Filipino artist whose work fits our mission. Our exhibitions for 2008 and tentative dates are:

1. Capitalist Greed and Poverty; Jan 26-Mar 1
2. Women’s Issues: Labor, domestic workers, sex trafficking; Mar 8-May 3
3. Western Ideas/Colonial Mentality; May 12-July 19
4. I-Hotel Commemoration; July 26-Sept 6
5. Cultural Appropriation & Assimilation; Sept 13-Nov 15
6. Solo Exhibition; Nov 22-Dec 31

If you are interested in submitting your work for consideration for the 2008 exhibition, please contact us at mhf@manilatown.org. Proposals should be received two months before the opening date. The committee meets monthly to review.

PROJECT 1

PROJECT 1: RE-TELLING/RE-IMAGINING
DUE: T 2/19
CRITIQUE: T 2/19, TH 2/21

So much of Filipino-American history is buried, or invisible. Making visual work returns events to visibility. This is a warm-up project: its function is to focus on seeing, telling, imagining.

Please find an image (or multiple images, if you prefer) that you associate with Filipino/Filipino-American culture and/or history. The images can be family snapshots, friends, historical photos, food, sports, you name it. Go to the library. Use Google. Print/photocopy the images, ponder them a bit. You do not have to possess a deep knowledge of the image you choose, but it must compel you visually in some way. You are not expected to know everything about the image: making art is often an excuse to simply investigate a subject. This is about inquiry, and imagination.

This project is due in 3 weeks, and as such, you’re expected to invest about that much time outside of class on it. This will probably look like about 12-15 hours of work, including the time you take finding your images, and time to write a brief artist statement. It may take more, or less, but either way, your work should look resolved by its due date. As you still have a substantial amount of reading that you’re also accountable for, it would be prudent to scale this project to a manageable size and to not wait until the night before it’s due to start. If you are confused about this project, please set up a meeting with me (I’m generally available either before or after class on Tuesdays and Thursdays), and also peruse the examples from last year’s course blog at worldsincollision.vox.com.

This is a 2-dimensional project on paper.
It should include some elements of drawing and hand-made elements (but it is not required to be entirely drawn.)
Scale, and number of sheets (1 is fine, some may want more) is up to you.

CRITERIA FOR SUCCESS ON PROJECT 1:

• Evidence of emotional/intellectual engagement with the subject/image
• Incorporation of hand-drawn elements into your piece
• 3 weeks of effort and investment
• complex investment in idea, theme and execution
• written reflection/artist statement
  

CLARIFICATION OF SOME CRITERIA:

ENGAGEMENT AND INVESTMENT:
“Care” is a word to keep in mind, as a maker and a viewer. How do you care about this, and how might you make us care, as well? Have you chosen an image/images that compel you? Have you genuinely engaged with the image, and made meaning of it? How is this evident in your artwork?

It doesn’t matter what style or materials you work with. Criteria for success is whether you are invested, and how this manifests. This is not about traditional technical skill. It’s about curiosity, investigation, and follow-through. Have you challenged yourself to move beyond your personal comfort zone/skill-set, and take new risks?

WRITTEN REFLECTION:
Some realizations simply won’t come to you until well after you’ve finished a piece, but it’s important to reflect on what you’ve made in some conscious way. This does not have to be formal academic analysis. It can be poetry, short fiction, diaristic: whatever seems appropriate. How you choose to write about your work is up to you. 1 page, typed, double-spaced, preferably.

Worlds In Collision

WORLDS IN COLLISION is an investigation of Filipino American culture and creativity as a model of hybridity, a way to examine colonial histories, and a means to explore contemporary phenomena such as transnationalism and globalization. This course is a survey of Filipino American artistic production, looking primarily at visual art, but also other forms of creative expression. It provides the historic context for Philippine colonial history starting in 1521, continuing through the development of Philippine-U.S. relations, and concluding with a focus on the contemporary Filipino American experience here in the U.S.

We will address Filipino creative projects and their relation to colonial history, immigration history, generational conflict, racial identity formation in the US, resistance and other forms of protest. We will examine multiple modes of, and strategies for, representation.

Some of the questions we will address are: How has the colonial relationship/immigration history of the Philippines and the US informed a Filipino American artistic/creative voice? What is the Filipino American creative voice, and what is it saying? How do Filipino American artists navigate/negotiate their place within the mainstream community, art community, cultural community?

Through journals, essays, blog posts and arts projects and a final presentation, we will draw our own parallels and associations between colonial histories and contexts, contemporary artists, and our own relationship to Filipino American Arts Exploration as both writers and makers ourselves.