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Jo Tanierla


Ateneo Art Awards 2021 Residency Grant
July — August 2022


Jo Tanierla (b.1989) is an artist based in Quezon City, Philippines. He is a member of the national democratic cultural mass organization Tambisan sa Sining. He is one of the winners for the 2021 Ateneo Art Awards for Pagburo at Pag-alsa: Natural Depictions and Illustrated Prophecies (Gelacio, 1910)—his very first solo exhibition held at the Jorge B. Vargas Museum in UP Diliman.

“Negros’ rich history of organized resistance to systemic oppression, to feudalism, to imperial powers, was the focal point of the exhibition. The research was likewise informed by this agenda; the people I reached out to, the places I visited are so I could get closer to the concrete conditions I was only reading about up to that point.

During the residency, I had the privilege of visiting the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) office where I participated in discussions and facilitated a film viewing with the children of farmers and workers. I also attended a mobilization on the commemoration of Zara Alvarez’s murder. She was an educator, a human rights advocate, an activist, a hero of the people.
After the exhibition opening, through the workshop program of Jel Suarez and the Ateneo Art Gallery, I also conducted an art workshop with the students of a nearby elementary school.

I am thankful for the hospitality and generosity of Adjie, Jel and Touki and the artists I met there. I will always remember the strolls and conversations with fellow cultural workers and artists Geli Arceño, Carla Nicoyco, and RJ Ledesma.”


- JT

WORKSHOPS ︎︎︎





The Temporal Parallax Colliders vs Enmebaragesi (Chapter One)


08.09.2022
Kapitana Gallery


The Temporal Parallax Colliders vs. Enmebaragesi - Chapter One is an ongoing historical fiction project anchored in the early 20th century American period in the Philippines. It posits two ideas. First, the fundamental premise that the remedy for systemic abuse is a mass-oriented, scientific, and organized action by the oppressed classes. Second, this systemic abuse, modernized and made more insidious during the American colonial period, persists in the present as an expansive neoliberal agenda.

In this iteration of the project are works that allude to different coordinates within the colonial context covering more than a century of oppression and resistance. The works recall narratives from as early as the Philippine-American War (1899-1902), and speculate on a future liberated from imperialism.
Responding to Negros as a historical territory thickened with revolutionary efforts, there are drawings and texts that remember these decisive gestures toward liberation.A letter reads:…We’re on the second of our three-day strike here in Escalante. More than 5,000 strong, according to my tattered transistor. I wish you could feel the protest’s warm optimism. Deliverance, it seems, is just a few paces beyond our barricades. You could almost feel it.I leave you for now with hope, and this illustration, a coconut tree bathing in cheerful sunlight. Write back soon, tell me of your garden’s red earth. Is the lush foliage still dappled with peppers and tomatoes?...



L-R
01 Dagundong at Tupok, 2021, graphite, watercolor, paper 02 Nakasabit sa pako ang maghapong pawis, ang makapal na kulob, 2022, graphite, paper 03 Si Enmebaragesi, ang may dilang tubol, 2022, graphite, paper 04 Illustration of Pinatag Community Museum archive PCM-2023-072-114, 2022, charcoal, filter paper 05 binabangaw ang bibig at burat ni Don Jose Greggy Yulo-Araneta de Ayala, 2022, graphite, paper 06 Dahas, Baga, 2021, graphite, paper 07 apat na tanaw ng pahinga, 2022, graphite, used coffee filter 08 Construction of Teatro Maso - Negros by The Temporal Parallax Colliders Workers Unionm, 2022, graphite, watercolor, paper





L-R
01 Teresa Magbanua, 2021, graphite, watercolor, paper 02 pula ang silangan, 2022, graphite, pastel, used coffee filter 03 __________, 2022, graphite, paper 04 Portrait of Enmebaragesi, 1911, 2022, charcoal, paper 05 Dispatch from Long Bow Village, 1948, 2022, graphite, ink, used coffee filter 06 Dispatch from Escalante, 2022, graphite, ink, manila paper




Photos courtesy of the artist and Jel Suarez




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