BAGUIO CITY ? German artist Hans Angerer has been fascinated with former First Lady Imelda Marcos? collection of shoes. This fascination, he said, has been channeled into a collaboration with Ifugao artists that will feature their skills at woodcarving.

Angerer, a woodcarver and installation artist from the woodcarving region of Bavaria, commissioned 42 woodcarvers from Ifugao to create their own line of shoes.

?People in Germany do not know very much about the Philippines. One thing almost everybody knows for sure was that Imelda Marcos had thousands of shoes,? Angerer, 60, said.

?Saka Saka? (a Cordillera and Ilocano term for barefoot), the installation exhibit of Angerer, assembled 184 pairs of carved shoes. The exhibit, which opened Nov. 26 at the Victor Oteyza Community Arts Space (Vocas) on Session Road, is a collaboration between Angerer and Ifugao woodcarvers and sponsored by the Goethe-Institut Manila. It closes on Dec. 20.

While Marcos? shoes made a lasting impact on Angerer, he said the exhibit does not intend to draw social commentary and political statements to the former First Lady?s obsession with shoes.

Angerer said he intends to feature the skills and craftsmanship of Ifugao carvers and to introduce their skills to the world.

Imelda?s shoes

?I only learned about Imelda 15 years ago; I learned about her in newspapers. Until now the story about her shoes had a lasting impact on me, and I do not know why, there was something so special there,? Angerer said.

Before he left Germany last year, Angerer asked his fellow Germans about what they knew about the Philippines and most referred to Marcos? shoes.

He said when he was invited as an artist-in-residence by the Goethe Institut in May last year, he thought of mounting an exhibit that would feature the woodcarving skills of the Ifugaos.

?I wanted to show the skills of the woodcarvers and the starting point was Imelda?s shoes. That was when the shoe project came to life. But I want to clarify that the shoes have nothing to do with Imelda. I just wanted to foster an intercultural connection between Germany and the Philippines through the exhibit,? he said.

Richard Kunzel, director of Goethe-Institut Manila, said the wooden shoes might also take a deeper meaning because they may be symbols for most of the Filipinos who want to leave the country in search of better jobs abroad.

?If you look at the installation of shoes, it becomes a symbolic information about the rich and the poor sectors of society. It is a symbol, an instrument to go out of the village, to out-migrate just like overseas Filipino workers. It also asks what it means to be a Filipino,? he said.

The shoes were carved by Ifugao artists based in Tuba and Sablan towns in Benguet and Pugo in La Union.

Cordillera photographer Ruel Bimmuyag, project coordinator, said the woodcarvers were free to design the shoes.

?The carvers were not even concerned about any political statement; they did not even care about Imelda. This project [recognized them] as artists and woodcarvers from Ifugao,? he said.