Curated by Tim Manalo
July 15 – 17, 2016
PERFORMANCES
Friday, July 15 at 8PM
Saturday, July 16 at 8PM
ARTISTS’ TALK
Sunday, July 17 from 2-4PM
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Often there are three fundamental elements that comprise performance works: the performer, the object, and the audience. SZEEN is a sound and performance-based exhibition featuring works by Veronica Abrenica, Kristina Guison, and a piece by Pantayo, in collaboration with Tim Manalo.
In this show, the artists consider the three aforementioned fundamental elements of a performance, exploring its possibilities with the aim to create sound. What sounds can result from choreographed movements? Gestures animating commonplace objects? Audience participation? The performances in this show intend to challenge ways one can experience sound. Key to this is the full attention and presence of the audience, acting as catalysts activating each of the works. Compositions of each performance will be improvisational and completely dependent on the moment – as fleeting and unpredictable as they may be. Regardless of the outcome, it promises to be loud.
PWYC at the door ($5 suggested)
Facebook event
Veronica Abrenica
As I am (2016)
8:00PM – 8:30PM
As I am is an open call to the audience to join the performer in transforming the interior of the gallery space into a vibrant soundscape. A series of exchanges between performer and participants will be made to create intuitive sonic gestures that are expected to excite every bone of the body. Much like a chant or mantra, collectively gathering for a cause, the experience will surely provoke a warrior within. So open your minds, hearts and ears to contribute to this collaborative rhythmic experience.
Kristina Guison
Landing (2015)
8:40PM – 9:10PM
Landing alludes to architectural and engineering processes involved in construction or demolition sites. Moments of stillness being fleeting and relative to senses of perception, as we respond to our immediate environments. All is held by pauses consisting of balance and friction, suspended in tension between an impending collapse and regeneration. The performance will demonstrate sounds that are emitted by bowing edges and corners of the metal sheets that operate in a process, described in the field of music as glissando, described as the motion of sound gliding from one note into another.
Pantayo and Tim Manalo
When all the raindrops fall at once (2016)
9:30PM – 10:00PM
Considering the spatial relationship between objects and the sounds they produce, When all the raindrops fall at once looks at how the spatial disparity between musical instruments can enhance the immersive experience of a performance. In this piece, members of the kulintang ensemble, Pantayo, will play songs on their traditional Philippine gong instruments while moving around the space and weaving through the crowd. As they move closer and farther from each other the sounds of their instruments may amplify and fade, but their dependence on one another to cue the next note will remain constant.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Veronica Abrenica is an integrated visual and performance artist with a strong commitment to intergenerational community. Her work often involves group participation and explores how individuals interact with one another, questioning one’s sense of individuality and self-awareness. She is the founder of I.AM (Intergenerational Arts Movement) based in the land of wonders, a.k.a. Vaughan.
Kristina Guison is a Manila-born, Filipino-Canadian artist based in Toronto. The subject matter of her works revolve around the personal, psychological, socio-cultural and political impacts that shape our perceptions within the heavily globalized and precarious, 21st century landscape. She has participated in shows and artist residencies locally and internationally, such as in The Unifiedfield Experimental Art Space in Granada, Spain, in 2014 and The Nomadic Artist-in-Residence Program in the Philippines in 2013.
Pantayo is an all-women gong ensemble whose music is grounded in the kulintang music traditions of Maguindanaon and T’boli peoples of the Philippines while exploring the possibilities of kulintang influenced by their identities as “diasporic” Filipinas. Members are: Christine Balmes, Eirene Cloma, Michelle Cruz, Kat Estacio, Katrina Estacio, Marianne Rellin, and Joanna Delos Reyes.
Past notable performances include the Music Gallery’s X Avant X Festival, the Wavelength Festival in 2016, and Severed, a Drinkbox Studios video game soundtrack with YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN.
Tim Manalo was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With a sculpture and installation practice spanning five years, his work explores the evocative potential of objects – and more recently performance – through materiality and form. He has exhibited locally as a member of the Canadian Sculptor’s Society and in the United States for the Centre for Art and Thought in Los Angeles, and Weaving Hand Studio in New York.