Arts Management Students marked their year with one last event in partnership with Benilde Arts Management (BeAM) and Benilde’s Arts and Culture cluster (BACC) that encapsulated innovations, strategies, and valiant efforts of various Arts sectors through documentation, informational videos, testimonies, and wonderful performances from different professionals of their craft in “ONLINE” last Dec. 17, via BeAM’s official Facebook page.
The live show was divided into three segments that covered the entirety of the Arts sector such as museums, galleries, film, digital art, and animation, that vastly discussed the stories, creative strategies, and realizations they’ve experienced and learned in the pandemic coming from the many featured art professionals in the sector.
Adaptability and awareness in these trying times
Innovation and an eye-opener are words that sum up the entirety of the year in a pandemic, and these art professionals were able to express their struggles and experiences to keep their businesses afloat and efforts to share awarenesses in the first segment of the show.
Such is BeAM’s interview with Gaby Dela Merced, Art Gallery Director of Vinyl on Vinyl, who shared her efforts of continuing their art exhibitions through alternatives such as social media while prioritizing her co-worker’s health and safety.
Moreover, a sit-down conversation between film professionals Jaggy Gangat and Jason Magbanua was shown in the live event whereas they expressed their struggles, strategies, advice, and learned throughout the pandemic.
“Make sure that you take care of your home, meaning check on your artists, your staff, check on your collectors, because at the end of the day, we’re going to be in this together, and we would want to be in it even after, we all want to survive this together,” Merced said when asked for advice to gallery owners.
Meanwhile, testimonies from three professional writers namely, Imelda Morales, Maan Pamaran, and Ramil Gulle, were revealed in a video whereas they voiced awareness of the struggles of Filipino writers from truth, recognition, and importance in today’s generation and the pandemic.
“Writers must never get tired of being truth-sayers, and storytellers, and always commit to educating the audience,” Gulle said after ending his speech about the growing concern of the lack of literacy and ignorance to writers and writing in general.
A change of direction for the better
Visual arts such as animations, artworks, stickers, and sculptures at their respective places in museums and art conventions are difficult to come by due to physical restrictions from the pandemic. Yet these curators and animators courageously strived to continue to share their art to the world regardless of these restrictions as showcased in the second segment.
BeAM’s interview with art curators Ramon Hofileña, owner of Hofileña Ancestral House, and Mary Ann Pernia, a curator from Museum of Contemporary Arts and Design, discussed their endeavors to reach out their art exhibitions to people, as well as sacrifices to cut off budgets due to the lack of physical showcases in the museums.
“As head of education, I must think of some ways by which we can make the learnings that one can have in the museums applicable and relevant to people who can visit online and take part in our programs. It should be part of the new normal, more accessibility for our programs,” Pernia replied after being asked about the situation of the new normal in art museums.
Moreover, the animation sector was also heavily affected in this pandemic as stated by the Puppeteer Studio founder, John Aurthur Mercader. He said it became difficult to further broaden their company yet it was an important factor in becoming known in the industry especially in the Philippines.
However struggle was not much of the case for the sector of digital arts, they were rather flourishing from the pandemic as it is versatile to be shared through many mediums as stated in a digital infographic video by Lucie Melon, Regina Hizon, and Eldrei Vicedo. They discussed how their sector is thriving even in the pandemic since they can operate via online transactions such as merchandise and stickers and can even do advocacy or charity campaigns using their artwork with the only concern being the delivery processes of their sales.
Passion prevails over fear and uncertainty
Although physical performances and gatherings are on hold due to high risk of COVID-19, sectors in the Arts such as Dance, Film and Music are the most affected by this pandemic, yet this doesn’t stop these professionals from continuing to dedicate their passion for people to see as wonderfully shown in the last segment of the show.
“You have to find ways to kind of push yourself back up because if you are the one that's kind of letting go, what more for your students?” professional dancer and senior choreographer of Squadra Dance Varsity Duance Gomez said when asked about how the pandemic affected him.
Gomez also stated his demotivation to teach dance due to negativity and all the events that transpired through the pandemic; however, he managed to lift himself up and dealt the adjustments and transition to live sessions and pre-recorded dance videos for the sake of teaching his students and his goals to start up a dance company.
Moreover, this was the similar struggle of Benny Manaligod, a vocalist in the indie band The Ridleys, as they were having trouble finding alternatives to share their music. Yet, in the end, they persevered and settled to a virtual approach such as live shows and funding through their Patreon account and gigs in organization events.
"What keeps us going, as cliché as it sounds, is love for the craft, the love for the art, the desire to make music however possible," Manaligod said after being asked for advice for aspiring artists.
After their interviews with BeAM, both of the professionals showed off their amazing skills in their craft such as Gomez’s fast-paced dance moves and Manaligod’s nostalgic cover of their song “Looking For” with his guitar strums and melodic voice, hyping and tearing up the audience after their spectacular performances.
Lastly, a passion for advocacy struck for filmmaker Panco Maniquis, director of “Quaranthings,” when he was interviewed by BeAM about the difficulty of the production of the film from lack of workshops and short shooting days, yet it was still wonderfully executed in the end as it was shown in the series.
“Just because the doors have been opened to tell queer stories right now and I feel like it’s not that you know that when the doors are open, you have to kick the door down and you know, pass the mic; but then, we need to tell trans stories and other stories of people in the spectrum,” Maniquis replied after asking for the future plans of more films about queer stories like “Quaranthings.”
ONLINE is a live-show student initiative project by the students from the Arts Management Program that aimed to expound the realms of the innovative outputs of the art sectors created throughout the pandemic that promotes awareness, recognition, and appreciation to the arts.
