Review | Children could easil...

Generated on 2021-11-29 10:47:10

Result #1

In Dark Heartland, 1993, a group of black and white photographs, mostly frontal views, of what used to be the countryside, is juxtaposed with a few stills of sky over rice paddies. A shadow falls across the rice, its edges rendered in a different texture to the viewer. The shadows are centered on a scattered set of row upon row of blown-up headlines on a government website—which was undoubtedly meant to make people aware of their government-sanctioned subject matter. The photographer played with the formal and conceptual implications of this seemingly random framing, but also added to it, by foregrounding the plight of children living in the shadow of crisis, as the children in the photographs seem to struggle against their difficult condition. This juxtaposition suggested a critique of the social sciences that uses the world as a backdrop for finding the truth about an individual, the social construction of the individual as a social system. The images, however, also displayed a lack of sensitivity to the labor and social conditions that children face, and of a conscience that remains in spite of this predicament.

Result #2

Children could easily be exploited because they can't refuse the chance to assist their family through mining gold. Child labor is a detriment to education. Lack of education in childhood causes future unemployment. Child labor may be a hazard to a child’s mental, physical, social, educational, emotional, and spiritual development. It also deteriorates the potential and personhood of each child engaged in "hazardous work". Child labor could be a perennial issue within the Philippines, slowly destroying the humanness of each child. If families are insufficiently conscious of the hazards to health or if prevailing societal attitudes are tolerant of child labor, children are again less likely to be directed towards the classroom instead of the workplace. It experiences greater morbidity and mortality. Also impacts the psychological hazards, like isolation, abuse, exploitation. The government is already aware of these risks, and they are waiting for communities to take responsibility for their own futures.In Givang, the main street in the city is dominated by a collection of old wooden columns. A tree grows from one of them. It is the street of a cemetery. Across from the statue of Saint George stands a small, dark-uniformed church that is usually empty except for the lights of pedestrians. This is the graveyard of those who didnt die, but still their tombstone remains in a vitrine. It looks as if someone buried them and they had been replaced by a sign. There are no religious paintings in the collection. It is a classroom, with a graveyard. In front is a wooden structure with a gravestone, and behind that a large wooden crucifix bearing the inscription, Saint George, M. D. Givang, whose burial will be on the third day of the month of May.Around the crucifix a woman kneels, clutching a gold crucifix. As she does so, a woman from the crowd comes over and tries to address the casket. She gestures at the crucifix and the woman from behind the basket. Her voice is an incredulous scream of protest. The woman has a righteous anger. She also realizes that someone is going to die and the time is not yet. This moment of desperate protest is repeated as a tearful cry in the face of the law that gave birth to sin.The tomb is empty. An old man sits on a yellowed-out bed. He looks out at the crowd. A gold crucifix lies in the bed. He looks at the crucifix. It is his dead father. The parents are dead. The fathers anger is anger directed at the law that made the murder possible.The children are dead. This also signifies the end of the world. The church is empty. A small crucifix is shown in front of the gravestone. It is engraved with the words St. George.

Result #3

Children could easily be exploited because they can't refuse the chance to assist their family through mining gold. Child labor is a detriment to education. Lack of education in childhood causes future unemployment. Child labor may be a hazard to a child’s mental, physical, social, educational, emotional, and spiritual development. It also deteriorates the potential and personhood of each child engaged in "hazardous work". Child labor could be a perennial issue within the Philippines, slowly destroying the humanness of each child. If families are insufficiently conscious of the hazards to health or if prevailing societal attitudes are tolerant of child labor, children are again less likely to be directed towards the classroom instead of the workplace. It experiences greater morbidity and mortality. Also impacts the psychological hazards, like isolation, abuse, exploitation.Children in the cityscape are subjected to an aestheticizing model of a world that always seems to shrink from view. The city, as much as the child, is a projection of the world. The family can be understood as a network of isolating models of a group of strangers; it is a system of relations that creates an organizational model for social interactions that is abstract and impersonal. In the midst of the A-list boom years, there were many families who became frozen in the market, unable to move or change anything. The product of a market economy, the family can no longer make new relations for itself, only reproduce existing ones.In the 70s and 80s, the capital-S family acquired rights to use the past for an uncertain future. This was evident in the economic development of the country, in the occupation of territory by the army, and in the use of military and paramilitary forces in the push for independence in the Philippines from Spain. During this period, there were several conflicts with the military, including the police raid on the Basilan Family home, which resulted in the deaths of the family members and the destruction of several priceless paintings. The result of the conflict was that many members of the Basilan clan were pushed into exile, leaving behind their possessions in Manila and Hong Kong. In 1995, an act of civil disobedience by the family members led to the downfall of the dictatorship. After an eight-year civil war, the Philippines regained its democratic, pluralist government. Since then, the family has regained its voice. But for now, it is still treated as second-class citizens. Ironically, it is the state that is the rule today.While the government continues to demonize the opposition, it does nothing to foster social dialogue and constructive change. This lack of cooperation is based on a policy of constant reassurance in a society governed by force and fear.

Result #4

Children could easily be exploited because they can't refuse the chance to assist their family through mining gold. Child labor is a detriment to education. Lack of education in childhood causes future unemployment. Child labor may be a hazard to a child’s mental, physical, social, educational, emotional, and spiritual development. It also deteriorates the potential and personhood of each child engaged in "hazardous work". Child labor could be a perennial issue within the Philippines, slowly destroying the humanness of each child. If families are insufficiently conscious of the hazards to health or if prevailing societal attitudes are tolerant of child labor, children are again less likely to be directed towards the classroom instead of the workplace. It experiences greater morbidity and mortality. Also impacts the psychological hazards, like isolation, abuse, exploitation.The exhibition is structured by a concrete structure, an enormous stone tomb, which divides the space into three groups of small galleries: two-story cages; a central enclosure, which gives the exhibition its name, and a vast space that resembles the crematorium. The exterior is composed of wooden beams whose legs form the axis for the hollow walls; the interior is made of wooden lattices that extend between floor and ceiling; and a concrete base that seems designed to collapse, when one steps in. The wooden base supports the bell, which rings out every five years and seems to grow, or separate, into successive tones of bronze. Upon entering the show, visitors are confronted by a roughly carved rock face with a piece of corundum attached to it, not far from a pit, supposedly containing a body. These figures are reminiscent of indigenous ruins, and appear to be staging a final confrontation with the earth.The first room hosts five mounds of stone—sinking, begging, smashing, and prostrate; white with the pigment of an onion and gold spattered with gold. They are models for cemeteries, with a white-robed figure looking out through the opening of a black hole. Five of these figures appear in the ring of "Tiresome White Diamonds, 1991, which hangs on the wall. Each of the five is covered in gold leaf and carries the marker for a settlement of the black hole and a tautological sign. Is this an exhortation to the earth? A warning to the earth? The theme of slavery and the lives of the enslaved comes up again in the other group of objects, this time one of ivory pieces. One piece, which is turned inside out is a sphinx with a long, brass handle; it stands on a gold pedestal. Ivory Bodies, 1992, also evokes human mortality; it is adorned with silver, and is sewn together on the floor.

Result #5

Although the group of works in this exhibition indicated some conceptual and conceptual paths of engagement, the works, individually, seem to be less serious than the group of 2003 paintings. In some of the pieces, those who appear in the photograph are replaced by the same individual depicted in the works, making the one identifiable person seem more alien. The photographic fragments that span the series have the added element of illusion, creating an atmosphere that allows the individual, in effect, to disappear from the picture. In the other works, however, the individuals depicted are no longer human, and they become, in the photographs, dead, albeit disembodied; a ruckus of voices voices behind a camera, an occasional image of children, not enough to replace the earlier ones. The photographs do not replace the individuals, but the artists do replace them.