Announcement of PHL Rep to 2018 Venice Archi Biennale, Docu on 2015 PHL Pavilion Out Soon

The Philippines’ representative to the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale will be known soon as a panel of international and local jurors is set to deliberate on the proposals submitted to the Philippine Arts in Venice Biennale (PAVB) Coordinating Committee.

Senator Loren Legarda, a staunch supporter of arts and culture and the driving force behind the Philippines return to the Venice Biennale in 2015 after 51 years of absence, and National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Chairperson Virgilio Almario, who is a National Artist for Literature and the Philippine Pavilion Commissioner, will be joined by Lani Maestro, Carol Yinghua Lu, Fernando Zobel de Ayala, and Leandro Locsin, Jr. in reviewing the 12 curatorial proposals from the country’s foremost practitioners of architecture, urban planners, curators, heritage workers, people from the academe, and artists.

Lani Maestro is a Filipino artist whose work has received critical acclaim internationally and is one of the artists featured at the Philippine Pavilion in the 2017 Venice Art Biennale. Yinghua Lu is a curator, art critic and writer in Beijing and is currently a contributing editor at Frieze.

Zobel is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Ayala Corporation and whose kin painter Fernando M. Zobel was the first Filipino to participate in the Venice Biennale in 1962 under the Spanish Pavilion. Locsin of the Leandro V. Locsin Partners (LVLP) architecture firm was part of the curatorial team that represented the Philippines’ first national pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale during the 2016 edition.

The deliberation will take place at the NCCA Building on September 22. The selected proposal will be announced on September 30, 2017.

Meanwhile, the journey to the Philippines’ successful comeback to the Venice Biennale after a 51-year absence will soon be watched on television as the ABSCBN News Channel (ANC) airs the documentary, How To Tie A String Around The World, on September 27, 2017, 8:00 pm.

The documentary was directed by Manny Montelibano, who was also one of the participating artists in the country’s comeback pavilion. It narrates how the idea to return to the world’s oldest and most prestigious art biennale started, the birth pains, the mounting and the successful opening of the comeback pavilion, and the warm reception it received.

The country’s pavilion at the 2015 Venice Art Biennale, Tie A String Around The World, was curated by Dr. Patrick Flores of the University of the Philippines Vargas Museum, and featured the late national artists Manuel Conde and Carlos Francisco’s filmGenghis Khan, Montelibano’s multi-channel video A Dashed State, and Jose Tence Ruiz’s installation titled Shoal.