Lupa: Struggle for Land

08 January – 09 February 2013

GF Lobby

Opening this January at the Vargas Museum is Lupa: Struggle for Land – a group exhibition by progressive Filipino artists, artist collectives and non-traditional media practitioners reflecting on the question of land.

Comprising works in various media made by two generations of visual artists, Lupa: Struggle for Land weighs on the states of oppression and exploitation that the peasantry—the country’s most populous social sector—faces. The exhibit looks back on the decades of landlessness, usury, land grabbing by both the colonial and native elite, natural resource plunder, and worsening poverty and their effects on society and the generations to come.

The exhibit is a follow-up initiative to an earlier show entitled Kapital: Tribute to Labor, held in 2010 also at the Vargas Musuem. Kapital explored the tenuous relationships between worker and capitalist, labor and globalization, subject and empire. The two exhibitions attempt to continue the reflection on how both land and capital are historically connected and inseparable from the current state of social unrest and the people’s long-term aspirations for development.

Participating artists include Buen Calubayan, Ted Camahalan, Neil Doloricon, Boy Dominguez, Ang Gerilya, Renato Habulan, Gene de Loyola, Nikki Luna Renan Ortiz, Iggy Rodriguez, Jose Tence Ruiz, Pablo Baen Santos, Manolo Sicat, Mel Vera Cruz, Chitoy Zapata. The show is curated by Renan Ortiz.

Lupa: Struggle for Land runs until February 9 at the Ground Floor Lobby of the Vargas Museum. For more information, please contact Vargas Museum at +632 928-1927 (direct line), +63 981-8500 loc. 4024 (UP trunkline), +63 928-1925 (fax) or send an e-mail to vargasmuseum@gmail.com.