STROLLING HOME

Vien Valencia’s show at Vetted marks the return of the 2023 Ateneo Arts Awards recipient to painting. For his exhibition, dubbed “Strolling Home,” the artist utilized jute sacks he collected, initially unsure of how he would incorporate them. However, he was drawn to the markings indicating their origins -- India, Vietnam and other foreign lands.

As he has been exploring the concept of modern nomadism, he felt a connection to the sacks. The opportunity to use them arose when this University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts major conceived the concept for his show, with the title suggesting his return to painting after a break. Incorporating the jute sacks ties his current works to previous projects with indigenous peoples and reflects his experience of moving houses numerous times due to his parents’ unstable finances.

It’s not just the method of painting that the artist is revisiting; he’s also reflecting on the mood and experiences of his student days when he occasionally found himself strolling home because he didn’t have money for fare. Those walks inform his paintings, which evoke the visual language of the streets -- houses patched together with whatever materials their owners could gather, peeling paint revealing the many layers beneath and surfaces weathered by storms and the blazing sun. He recalls these scenes with a more critical perspective, replacing the Philippine landscape’s riot of colors with a stark palette of just black and white acrylic and house paints.

Before receiving the 2023 Ateneo Art Awards, Valencia kept a relatively low profile in the gallery circuit. According to the artist, he didn’t have the funds to mount a show, having devoted much of his time as a volunteer art teacher to children in both urban and rural areas before launching his community-based initiative, Nomad Projects. Nomad Projects emerged from his desire to expand the community’s involvement in the art-making process.

“Eventually, na-reinvent ko ‘yung idea ng (I reinvented the idea of) outreach into collaboration,” Valencia explains, “with community participants na hindi lang sumusunod sa (that not only follow) instructions. Kasama sila as directors ng (They are included as directors of the) final output.”

That organic progression defines Valencia’s approach, where circumstances guide him toward a path of conceptual and material exploration. It arose more out of necessity than from a conscious effort, starting while Valencia was still a Fine Arts student. He didn’t have the funds to purchase materials for his projects, so he sourced them from junkyards and picked up objects from his surroundings, including those he found while walking from school to the Valencia family home in Marikina.

His outreach work exposed him to the complex realities of various communities, such as the nomadic Badjaos he encountered in Manila. This experience led him to explore the idea of nomadic existence and sparked his concern about space and its boundaries, as well as how these are manipulated by inhabitants who, in turn, are shaped by their surroundings. Most alarmingly, he realized the precarious existence of communities that have been or are about to be displaced by development.

Valencia’s most recent works focus on these realities, expressed through a range of mediums. Nomad Project’s untitled installation (Bad Land), shown at Underground Gallery, is a multi-channel video work featuring footage taken by the Badjaos. Old wooden paddles are the central focus of his West Gallery show titled “Totems,” which speaks to the displaced fisherfolk of Bulacan, as well as the Dumagat-Remontado indigenous people living by the Tinapak River in Taytay, Rizal, for “Imprint of an Imprint of an Imprint,” exhibited in Singapore this year.

Valencia, together with the community, documented the terrain of the river using a technique called frottage, in which a coloring material is rubbed on fabrics stretched over rock formations, effectively mapping the ancient striations that have formed naturally. The atmospheric sounds were also recorded and presented as “sonic sculptures” during the Singapore exhibition.

“Strolling Home” is on view at Vetted (Unit 126, Milelong Building, Amorsolo St., Makati City) until 25 October, Monday to Friday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. For updates and inquiries, contact @vetted126 on Instagram.