After careful deliberation of eleven (11) curatorial proposals, the exhibition All of us present, This is our gathering/Andi taku e sana, Amung taku di sana, proposed by Yael Buencamino Borromeo and Arvin Jason Flores was selected as the official Philippine participation at the 59th Venice Art Biennale in 2022. The exhibition will feature the collaborative work of artist Gerardo Tan, musicologist Felicidad A. Prudente, and accomplished weaver Sammy Buhle. It will be mounted at the Philippine Pavilion in Venice, Italy and will be open to the public from April 23 to November 27, 2022.
The exhibition involves an interdisciplinary approach to transmitting culture with sound and textile, weaving the customary and the contemporary across the archipelago. It presents a highly mediated process of generating sound, performance, image, and object.
The deliberation of curatorial proposals was held via zoom on June 18, 2021 with an esteemed panel of jurors composed of Yukie Kamiya, Director of Japan Society Gallery in New York; Christopher Lew, Nancy and Fred Poses Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art; Mariles Gustilo, Senior Director of Arts and Culture at the Ayala Museum; Deputy Speaker and Congresswoman Loren Legarda, chief advocate of the project; and National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Chairman Arsenio “Nick” J. Lizaso, Commissioner of the Philippine Pavilion.
The sustained Philippine participation in Venice Art and Architecture Biennale is a collaborative undertaking of the NCCA, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), and the Office of Deputy Speaker and Congresswoman Loren Legarda.