MANILABOX

ManilaBox

Photography Art Exhibition by

Onaka Koji

Noell EL Farol

Sound Art Performance (opening reception) by

Seido Toshiyuki

Lirio Salvador

Object + Sound by:

Ruel Caasi

Noell EL Farol

Renato Ong

Mervy Pueblo

Lirio Salvador

Seido Toshiyuki

Real-Time Transcribers (live sound art performance):

John Carlo Jacinto

Joyce Mallari

opens on Sunday, 6 pm,

March 22, 2009

at Kaida Art Gallery

Kamuning Road, Quezon City

opening reception: 6 pm., March 22, Sunday

“ManilaBox” Concept

Celebrating the Philippine-Japan Friendship Month and the Arts & Culture Month offer this unique photography-cum-performance art presentation entitled “ManilaBox”.

“ManilaBox” sets new parameters in an exhibition that combines photography, sound art performance and sound objects all in one unique show.

Photographs chronicles small slots of time in history which serve as testament to the multitude of experiences that shaped and defined Manila, reflecting memories cast in its landscape and culture. It features the contemporary conditions that construct and reconstruct the urban landscape of Manila through subtle views and raw appreciation of Japanese contemporary photographer, Koji Onaka and the diagnostic anthropological link in re-examining the surviving features of urban landscape by Filipino multi-media artist, Noëll EL Farol.

Onaka and EL Farol’s photographic landscape images convey the different sensitivities of the photographers- from the eyes of a foreigner and a resident local artist. Onaka, a full-time photographer with a degree in Photography creates large-scale theatrical panoramic photos. EL Farol, whose studies involves archaeology, reveals the panoply of memories and emotions bringing private moments into being, entitled “Settlement series”. Their works reflects the social, political and cultural environment of the Filipinos in its defining existence.

Collaborating in the exhibition for a live art performance is Seido Toshiyuki, a Tokyo-based sound art performance artist interacting with Filipino contemporary sound experimentalist, Lirio Salvador.

Toshiyuki’s “The Manila Golden Noises Album”, a collection of recorded and manipulated live noises of Manila, shall be formally launched during the opening day of the exhibit. Toshiyuki transformed Onaka and EL Farol’s photographs into a template of cards ( about the size of a calling card) with his recorded "sound art" and noises the result, “The Manila Golden Noises Album”, uniquely presented similar as a gift box in a limited edition of 250 boxes.

Extending the concept of sound art and concurrent in this unique show at the Gray Wall of the gallery are objects that emit sounds, complementing the distinguishing importance of sound element. Features are the one-of-the-kind objects produced by contemporary visual artists, namely Ruel Caasi, Noëll EL Farol, Lirio Salvador, Renato Ong, Mervy Pueblo and Chitz Ramirez.