MANILA, Philippines — West Gallery in Quezon City is hosting a month-long exhibit by artist Vien Valencia, inspired by life beside the waters of Bulacan.
Vien began as a painter then expanded to photography, videos, and installations, and like past experimental and collaborative works, his new exhibit “Totems” uses materials from a given location.
His mother hails from Bulacan and he spent most of his childhood with his grandparents, in doing so growing close to the river and discussions about the rising waters.
“Totems” is part of an alternative archive project about the communities seized by Bulacan’s escalating flood crisis.
In a write-up, Vien noted experts’ comments that Bulacan’s Isla Pamarawan and the barangays around it could be underwater by 2050.
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While preparing for the exhibit, Vien likened the paddles of boats to the “handshakes of many generations of fishermen” and the assemblage of coastal objects inspired from flood measurement markers.
The artist recalled how when floodwaters rose, people would quickly stack their furniture before the water could get any higher, and he compared them to the annual concrete pile-up on roads and sidewalks.
“This stacking continues, almost like a ritual, resulting in layers upon layers of slabs attempting to escape from sinking,” Vien ended. “Some sitios are left in the waters, becoming memorials, the rivers then, become littered with ruins of it.”
Vien Valencia’s “Totems” runs at the West Gallery in Quezon City until August 17.
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