Corazón S. Alvina
Juror, deliberation for the Philippine participation at the 60th Venice International Art Biennale
Corazón S. Alvina is director of the Museo ng Kaalamáng Katutubò (MusKKat), a foundation engaged in Philippine indigenous material culture collection, research and conservation, cultural education, and museum development. Alvina was director of the National Museum of the Philippines (2001-2010), and director, then president of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila (1991-2001). She holds a degree in anthropology from the University of the Philippines. She was among the founding faculty staff of the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School Cultural Heritage Management program (2000-2012), mentoring on museum concerns and issues, ethics, education and interpretation (exhibition design). She was visiting expert and mentor for “Arts Spaces and the Politics of Place” Lab Living Arts Fellows Program (Cambodian Living Arts/ Centre for Khmer Studies) in Siem Reap, Cambodia (2016).
Alvina headed the Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan Committee (GAMABA) of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), and was chairman of the Asia Europe Museums (ASEMUS) Network executive committee (2005-2007). She was head of the national committee of the International Committee of Museums, and a member of the UNESCO Culture Committee. She co-curated At Home and Abroad for the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, California, USA and delivered lectures on Philippine art for the AAM’s Public Lectures Program (2010 and 2012). In 2012-2013, she co-curated Philippines /Archipelago of Exchange for the Musée de quai Branly in Paris, France. She also organized and wrote the NCCA’s curatorial contribution to the ASEAN House in Busan, Korea (2017).
Alvina is a published writer and photographer. She has conceptualized, edited, and written in two books for MusKKat: A Delicate Balance: Batanes Food, Ecology and Community (2016) and A Warrior’s Armament and Ornament (2020). She is a regular writer and part of the book team of Januarius Holdings, which publishes a book on the visual arts annually (since 2017). Her byline appears in publications of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Vargas Museum (UP) and the National Museum of the Philippines, among others.
She sits on the board of the Manila Symphony Orchestra Foundation, and is a member of the Bangko Sentral ng PIlipinas’s Cultural Properties Acquisition Advisory Committee (CPAAC).
Source: Corazon S. Alvina
Biljana Ciric
Juror, deliberation for the Philippine participation at the 60th Venice International Art Biennale
Biljana Ciric is an interdependent curator.
She is currently conceiving inquiry for first Trans- Southeast Asian Triennial in Guang Zhou Repetition as a Gesture Towards Deep Listening.
She was the co-curator of the 3rd Ural Industrial Biennale for Contemporary Art (Yekaterinburg, 2015), curator in residency at Kadist Art Foundation (Paris, 2015), and a research fellow at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (Høvikodden, 2016). Her recent exhibitions include An Inquiry: Modes of Encounter presented by Times Museum, Guang Zhou (2019); When the Other Meets the Other Other presented by Cultural Center Belgrade (2017); Proposals for Surrender presented by McAM in Shanghai (2016/2017); and This exhibition Will Tell You Everything About FY Art Foundations in FY Art Foundation space in Shen Zhen (2017).
In 2018 she established the educational platform What Could/Should Curating Do? She was nominated for the ICI Independent Vision Curatorial Award (2012). Currently she is developing a long-term project reflecting on China’s Belt and Road Initiative titled As you go . . . the roads under your feet, towards a new future. She is undertaking practice based PhD in Curatorial Practice at Monash University, Melbourne.
Alexandra Munroe, Ph.D.
Juror, deliberation for the Philippine participation at the 60th Venice International Art Biennale
Alexandra Munroe, Ph.D., is a pioneering authority on modern and contemporary Asian art and transnational art studies. As director of curatorial affairs for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project, she leads a team based in New York and Abu Dhabi charged with shaping its curatorial vision, building a collection of global art spanning the 1960s to the present, and developing and implementing the program that will establish Guggenheim Abu Dhabi as the preeminent modern and contemporary art museum in the region and beyond.
Munroe has led the Guggenheim’s Asian Art Initiative since its founding in 2006 while also helping to launch the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative. She convenes the museum’s biannual Asian Art Council, a curatorial think tank, and heads The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative. As Senior Advisor, Global Arts, she helps to guide the foundation’s intellectual and institutional strategies for expanding its purview to study, acquire, and exhibit art from beyond the Western world.
A Guggenheim curator since 2006, Munroe has organized the award-winning and critically acclaimed exhibitions Gutai: Splendid Playground (2013, co-organized with Ming Tiampo), Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity (2011), The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989 (2009), and Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe (2008). She was the lead curator for Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World (2017–18, co-organized with Philip Tinari and Hou Hanru), which ARTnews cited as one of the top 25 shows of the decade. Other exhibitions and publications include Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective (1989), The Art of Mu Xin (2002), YES YOKO ONO (2000), Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture (2005), co-organized with Takashi Murakami. Her groundbreaking survey and textbook Japanese Art after 1945: Scream Against the Sky (1994) is recognized for initiating the field of postwar Japanese art history in the United States. Her exhibitions and scholarly catalogues have received top awards and recognition from the Association of American Art Museums, International Art Critics Association, College Art Association, Association of American Museum Curators, Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA), and China Art Powers. In 2008, The Third Mind received the Chairman’s Special Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Raised in Japan, Munroe is former vice president of Japan Society, New York, and former director of its museum. She holds a BA from Sophia University, Tokyo, an MA from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and a Ph.D. in history from New York University, where her research was in modern East Asian intellectual history. She serves on the advisory boards of Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong; LEAP, Beijing; Jnanapravaha Mumbai; Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai. She is a trustee of the American Academy in Rome, Aspen Music Festival and School, and LongHouse Reserve, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, New York. She received the 2017 Japan Foundation Award and the 2018 Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award, both bestowed by the government of Japan, in recognition of her founding contributions to the international field of postwar Japanese art.
Source: https://www.guggenheim.org/staff/alexandra-munroe
Victorino Mapa Manalo
Chair, National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA)
Commissioner, Philippine Pavilion
Juror, deliberation for the Philippine participation at the 60th Venice International Art Biennale
Victorino Mapa Manalo is the current Chair of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and concurrently Executive Director of the National Archives of the Philippines (NAP).
Chair Manalo is a recognized member of the culture and arts scene in the Philippines, having served as Museum Director of the both the Metropolitan Museum of Manila and the museum of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Bachelor of Arts in Philippine Studies program in the University of the Philippines Manila. He served as Assistant Corporate Secretary of Metrobank Foundation for many years.
Chair Manalo heads the de facto Ministry of Culture of the Philippines, leading the formulation and implementation of policies and plans that conserve and promote the nation’s historical and cultural heritage. He likewise sits on the boards of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, the National Museum of the Philippines, the National Book Development Board, the Teachers’ Education Council, and the Philippine Creative Industries Development Council. He was Chair of the Southeast Asia Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives (SARBICA), where he formulated and launched the ASEAN Pandemic Archives.
Chair Manalo completed his Masters in International Affairs at Columbia University, and holds a Certificate in Archival Studies from Hong Kong University. He is a Career Executive Service Eligible (CESE), and topped the written examination administered by the Career Executive Service Board in 2013. He has won the Don Carlos Palanca Award for Literature three times.
Source: NCCA Office of the Chairman
Hon. Loren Legarda
Senate President Pro Tempore
Project principal and visionary of the Philippine participation at the Venice Art and Architecture Biennale since 2015
Juror, deliberation for the Philippine participation at the 60th Venice International Art Biennale
Senate President Pro Tempore Legarda has authored many laws to improve Filipinos’ lives and promote inclusive, sustainable, and resilient development. Legarda is the most senior in terms of tenure among the Senators serving in the 19th Congress.
She has served as a member of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, representing the Lone District of the Province of Antique. She is the only Antiqueña who has served the House as Deputy Speaker.
Senate President Pro Tempore Legarda has taken various initiatives to promote Philippine culture and address the concerns of indigenous communities. She has supported Schools of Living Traditions, sponsored the documentation of indigenous knowledge and traditional practices, and organized regional assemblies and the first national indigenous cultural summit that served as avenues for dialogues between the IPs and the various sectors of society.
She has been engaged in efforts to revive the age-old tradition of weaving, creating the Hibla gallery, the Philippines’ first permanent textile gallery, a brainchild of Senate President Pro Tempore Legarda. She has also supported the travelling exhibitions abroad of the Hibla textile galleries. She also supported the National Museum’s Lecture Series on Philippine Traditional Textiles and Indigenous Knowledge. She is also the patron of the Baybayin Gallery, the country’s permanent ancient scripts gallery.
At her own initiative, Senate President Pro Tempore Legarda has spearheaded an information and education campaign on climate change. She produced films that seek to explain the science of climate change, its impact on our everyday lives and how Filipinos can avert and adapt to the changing climate. She was the visionary behind the film Taklub, directed by Brillante Mendoza, which earned a special commendation from the Ecumenical Jury at the 68th Cannes International Film Festival.
As she is known to champion the cause of IPs, Senate President Pro Tempore Legarda is equally passionate about contemporary art, growing up in an environment immersed in arts and culture, with her late mother being an avid art collector. It is interesting to note that Senate President Pro Tempore Legarda’s college thesis was a content analysis of National Artist Vicente Manansala’s works in the martial law era. As the visionary and lead advocate behind the Philippines’ yearly participation since its return to the Venice Biennale in 2015, Senator Legarda is part of the panel of jurors that deliberates on the proposals for the Philippine Pavilion. She also previously supported the conduct of the inaugural curatorial intensive, in partnership with the Independent Curators International, a week-long program designed to immerse participants in a rigorous program comprising of seminars, site visits and one-on-one meetings on the process of developing ideas for an exhibition into a proposal.
Senate President Pro Tempore Legarda has received numerous local and international awards. She is both an awardee of the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) and The Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service (TOWNS). She is a recipient of the Benigno Aquino Award for Journalism among over 30 awards when she was a practising journalist for 20 years before entering politics.
She is a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) laureate and a UN Global Champion for Resilience. In 2000, she was named by the World Economic Forum in Davos as one of the Global Leaders for Tomorrow. The French Government bestowed upon her the title of Knight in the French National Order of the Legion of Honor for her initiatives on climate action and heritage promotion. She also received the Dangal ng Haraya – Patron of Arts and Culture Award from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
In 2017, the President of the Republic of Italy bestowed upon Legarda the award of Cavaliere nell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana (Knight in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic) for her efforts in bringing the Philippines back to the Venice Art Biennale after 51 years of absence, thus, giving a meaningful contribution to the strengthening of the bilateral relations between Italy and the Philippines. Years later, in 2023, she was conferred the award Commendatore in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. She was also given the Award of Distinction by the European Union.
Senate President Pro Tempore Legarda obtained a degree in broadcast communications cum laude from the University of the Philippines. She pursued her post-graduate studies at the National Defense College of the Philippines where she obtained a degree in National Security Administration and graduated at the top of her class. A graduate also of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Command and General Staff College, Legarda is a reserve officer of the Philippine Air Force with the rank of full colonel. She has likewise been conferred with the honorary degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, by her alma mater, University of the Philippines.
Source: Office of Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda
