Fragmentary Conversations

13 Oct - 02 Dec 2018

Henrielle Pagkaliwangan

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  13 Oct - 02 Dec 2018

  Henrielle Pagkaliwangan

  FRAGMENTARY CONVERSATIONS Solo Exhibition | Henrielle Pagkaliwangan

  13 October to 02 December 2018

  Henrielle Baltazar Pagkaliwangan employs pen and ink drawings to present narratives via categorization of objects. Borrowing from the visual vocabulary of natural history illustrations, her practice subverts the neutrality and objectivity of scientific representation, presenting it instead as ideologically-laden and subjective. As such, her visual inventories prove to be powerful vehicles for story-telling.

  Her upcoming exhibition, Fragmentary Conversations, opening 13 October 2018 at the BenCab Museum, takes off from the collection of the museum, specifically its notable array of bulul artifacts. The bulul has been used to singularly represent the rich fabric of Cordillera life and its diverse material culture. Brought to an almost iconic stature, it continues to be an object-image fraught with paradoxes, reinterpretations, and mis-interpretations. Its contemporary form that of a shape-shifter. A postmodern apparition.

  Instead, the show aims at a reversal of the trend, a deviation from the current trajectory of the object-image’s cultural representation despite the futility of such an endeavor or the seeming paradox of undertaking such via another artistic depiction. Origins must continue to hold sway after all. And the stories of the mumbaki, carvers, and farmers from the Cordillera must figure in the continued accrual of meaning of the bulul in popular and artistic expressions.

   Henrielle Pagkaliwangan graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts (Major in Studio Arts – Painting) in 2015 where she was received the Outstanding Thesis award for her work Taxonomy of Things. She has joined group exhibitions in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Taiwan. In 2017, she spent a one-month art residency in Florence, Italy. Fragmentary Conversations is her third solo exhibition.

• Fragmentary Conversations

  JC Rosette

  The bulul has been regarded as a singular, all-encompassing representation of Cordillera culture. Its image and physical form collected by individuals, displayed in museums, or appropriated into contemporary artworks. It is, however, a figure fraught with paradoxes, as its relevance in Cordillera life continues to be studied, re-interpreted, debated, and re-written. Engaging with the objects in the BenCab Museum, including its sizeable bulul collection, Henrielle Pagkaliwangan embarks into this exhibition cognizant of the multiple layers of meaning that has accrued upon this iconic object.

  Given such considerations, the approach becomes characterized by tentativeness, imbued as it is with an awareness that there is a gap of understanding that needs to be bridged, that certain aspects are yet to be fully grasped. Fragmentary Conversations is an initial foray into such an endeavour, an attempt at understanding that makes no claim as a source of definitive truth or superior interpretation. Instead, it embarks on an open-ended dialogue, one in which the exhibit is simply a starting point.

  Employing pen and ink drawings, Pagkaliwangan represents both the bulul and subsequent objects that often accompany the figures in ritual. The former she depicts by pairs--albeit some are missing their male or female counterpart-- and sorts them based on style and possible geographical origin, thus creating a visual inventory of the museum’s collection. Of the latter, she positions the objects in such a way as to refer to their everyday use. Hence, the dongla plant image that serves to frame the tinawon (native rice) images, as the plant is used as borders for rice terraces and markers of farm land. Or the ubiquity of the tinawon itself, rendered in seedling, mature, and harvested forms, and which serve as the underlying raison d’etre for most rituals.

  Additionally, the artist adds various other objects not included in the museum collection, but are nevertheless used by the Cordillera people. Thus, the tabayag (lime containers) are accompanied by images of the betel leaf, areca palm nut, lime powder, and tobacco leaves. The punamham (ritual boxes) with the remains of the ritual: again, the areca nut, betel leaf, and palay, along with chicken feet.

  Placed in museums, artifacts tend to become arrested, as if frozen for posterity. One rarely remembers that they have been used or are still being used. Pagkaliwangan’s inclusions, her attempt to go beyond what is existing in the collection, are a way of acknowledging and recognizing the importance of context. For such contexts are not mere narrative backdrops— not simply curious anecdotes behind the form— but instead, are constitutive of the very being of things. Taken as a whole, the show is an initial attempt to reflect the rich material culture and way of life from which the objects on display are rooted upon.