ICYMI: Election day is just a month away. Expect more politicking, propaganda, and fake news as we approach the finish line. As usual, history and facts are under attack—especially those about the martial law era under the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, whose son is gunning for the presidency.
While individuals and organizations are working double-time to counter misinformation online, on the ground, artists and community organizers are using art to make sure that that period in history is remembered for what it was: a dark and bloody time for human rights and democracy.
[READ: Stop saying that artists thrived during martial law]This week, you can do just that with a live screening and discussion of Lauren Greenfield’s “The Kingmaker,” an art exhibition on the Marcosian iconography and slogans of the resistance by artists Pio Abad and Stephanie Syjuco, and a free digital library by the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation with hundreds of resources about martial law from underground publications in the 1980s.
“Perception is real and the truth is not”: Dissecting “The Kingmaker”
April 5, 5:30 p.m. at OTO Poblacion, Makati
Live streaming on manilacommunityradio.live
American filmmaker Lauren Greenfield’s searing 2019 documentary “The Kingmaker” has found a new sense of urgency as we near another election with a Marcos trying to regain footing in Malacañang.
The film has been recently made available via free online streaming (with multilingual subs!) but if you want an in-depth discussion post-screening IRL (!) you might want to consider going to its screening in Poblacion this week. Film critic Philbert Dy, Mark Fortaleza of human rights education program Dakila-Active Vista, and journalist Sai Versailles as moderator will dissect the film over coffee at OTO. First come, first served, or if you can’t go, watch the discussion online through Manila Community Radio’s website.
“Crime and Ornament” by Pio Abad and Stephanie Syjuco
April 7 to May 7 at Silverlens Galleries, Makati
Artist Pio Abad’s body of work includes a decade-long exploration of the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Apart from his work with his wife, jewelry designer Frances Wadsworth Jones, on an augmented reality rendering of the Marcos jewels currently on show at the Cultural Center of the Philippines virtual museum, the artist has two Manila shows lined up this month.
The first one at Silverlens Galleries will be together with artist Stephanie Syjuco called “Crime and Ornament.” “Abad, through the mechanized language of seriality, disassembles and desecrates Marcosian iconography while Syjuco reconfigures the slogan of resistance through the transformative labor of human hands,” read its exhibition notes.
Later in the month, the artist will also show at the third floor of the Ateneo Art Gallery. The solo show called “Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts” will run from April 19 until July 30. It looks into the dictatorship by “excavating silenced histories, devising actions, and remaking an inventory of objects tainted by the regime’s corruption.”
Bantayog ng mga Bayani digital library
An online repository of the publications that persisted during the martial law years amid Marcos’s heightened control of media, the digital library contains hundreds of scanned materials that are free to download and share.
The drive currently contains 1980s publications such as Philippine Signs, Signs of the Times, Veritas, and Mr & Ms. They are also crowdsourcing for other titles and accepting donations.
