MANILA, Philippines
– An alliance of artists advocating human rights announced
Sunday that
it will be holding a series of art exhibits on the political killings,
starting this mid-November.
Based on data from the
human rights group KARAPATAN, there have been 779 victims of
extra-judicial killings under the Arroyo regime from January 2001 to
November 5, 2006. Of this number, 338 are with known political
affiliations.
Dubbed PERSPEKTIBA,
the series of exhibits by Tutok Karapatan (TutoK) will open on
November 21 at the Beato Angelico Gallery, University of Santo Tomas
(UST) with live installation by Jeho Bitancor.
The exhibit will run
at UST until December 2. As part of the Perspektiba-UST event, TutoK
will hold a forum on November 29, with multi-awarded novelist Jun Cruz
Reyes as the main speaker. And live actions in the evening with
artists Jose Tence Ruiz, Jef Carnay, Cos Zicarelli, and award-winning
poets Roberto Ofanda Umil and Angelo Suarez.
Among the artists
participating in the Perspektiba-UST event are painters Antipas
Delotavo, Boy Dominguez, Gene de Loyola, and Emmanuel Garibay; multi
media artist Claro Ramirez, Lyra Abueg Garcellano, Don Salubayba, Ed
Manalo, Benjo Elayda, Mark Ramsel Salvatus III and Buen Calubayan; and
art groups Anting anting and UGAT Lahi;
The PERSPEKTIBA series
of exhibits will next run at St. Scholastica’s College in January next
year, and at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman, Quezon
City in February.
PERSPEKTIBA is just
one among several events slated to be held by TutoK starting this
month.
PERSPEKTIBA is curated
by Mideo M. Cruz with Raoul Rodriguez as co-curator for exhibition and
Victoria Deocampo as co-curator for live actions.
TutoK was formed late
last year as a response from the artistic community to the
deteriorating human rights situation in the
Philippines.
