With technology’s reduction of the world into a virtual barangay, peoples separated by national boundaries have found new ways to reunite. This is happening in the art community, in particular, where artists from neighboring countries have found it easier through the Web to renew ties as they rediscover many things they used to share in the past.
This was true during our participation in Malaysia’s art tourism program last year, where my fellow Cebuano artist Celso Pepito got to meet artists from all over Southeast Asia, including Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.
We took advantage of the international event to establish linkage with the artists and plan exchange activities, such as group shows, residencies, and more art tours. So far, only the artists from Indonesia, led by Bali-based painter Antonius Kho have responded.
My partner Celso took the initiative to invite them to a show in Cebu and Manila, and in turn, we also got invited to join them in an exhibition in Ubud, Bali. The result of this series of planning and discussion done mainly through Facebook and Yahoo is the upcoming show that will open on June 8 in Montebello Hotel, where the artists will also be billeted.
Browsing my small Bahasa dictionary for words common in both Indonesian and Filipino, I was struck by how so many similar words we speak. It only shows how we used to live as one people.
One word struck me: kita, which in both Bahasa and Filipino means “we” or “us.” It is thus so apt to signify this reunification in art by both nations. Here’s the exhibit statement I wrote for the show:
“Until the age of colonialism and nationalism, the peoples of Indonesia and the Philippines did not really consider each other to be aliens. We have always been close neighbors and, in fact, once belonged to the same Majapahit empire that was based in Java.
“Our forebears shared common practices, values and views based on a mix of Sanskrit, Islamic, and indigenous beliefs that predated the conquest of the Europeans. This is still prevalent today in the notable similarities of our cuisine, arts and crafts, and language.
Until now, it is still easy for Filipinos and Indonesians to learn each other’s language, as Bahasa and Filipino share so many common words. The words kami and kita, for instance, mean ‘us’ and ‘we’ respectively in both Bahasa and Filipino.
“No other word is thus more fitting to suggest our common racial origins than the word kita. In Filipino, kita also means ‘to see’ or ‘to meet’ thus implying both the claim on common identity and the act of seeing and meeting.
“In Filipino, kita-kita, means to be constantly seeing or in touch with each other. It implies continuing interaction or a meeting of minds. The act of seeing is implied in the visual arts which also require a kind of communication between the artist and the viewer. Not requiring literacy, the visual language is, of course, a more universal language. In its barest form, art thus invokes a kind of immediate understanding that breaks the barriers of culture.
“Thus, for this rare occasion of an actual interaction through contemporary art between the artists of Indonesia and the Philippines, the word ‘Kita’ has been chosen as a title. The word embodies the meeting of minds and the solidarity of artists from two nations that used to be one.
“Today, Indonesia and the Philippines remain models of democracy in Southeast Asia. Among other civil liberties, freedom of expression is respected in both countries a condition that resulted in the flowering of a wide variety of artistic expression. Yet, beneath this diversity is a common voice, a shared language shaped by centuries of collective experiences of being close neighbors.
“In art, we become one again.”