Benilde Open announces 10 grantees

Works to explore how art and tech work with the environment

TEN grantees have received production grants worth P300,000 each that will allow them to fuel art projects and creative ideas still at their very beginnings. They will be taking part in the second iteration of the Benilde Open Design + Art, which will run from April 11 to 27.

Geraldine Araneta, Benilde Open’s executive director, told BusinessWorld that this year’s theme builds on the first edition’s theme of curiosity to “imagine a future where art and technology work with the environment.”

“At its core, the theme ‘Extension of Nature’ encourages practitioners to reflect on the urgent environmental realities of our time, from climate change to ecological instability,” she said at the March 11 press launch at the College of Saint Benilde (CSB) in Manila.

“Inspired in part by the legacy of kinetic art, the theme considers how technology can operate not as an opposing force to nature, but as something that can emulate, respond to, and engage with living systems,” she added.

The 10 finalists emerged from 130 proposals, which came from artists, designers, and interdisciplinary practitioners. The 10 are: Andi Osmeña; Bianca Carague; Karl Castro; Kiri Dalena and Ben Brix; Krishner Appay; Mac Andre Arboleda; Mikael Joaquin; Camille Jay “Cairo” Pinton, Nicolei Racal, Renz Tan, Michaela Sula, and Leanne Angulo of Maison Pinton; Niño Tayao; and Buddy Lim Ong and Mona Alcudia-Ong of Studio Unosinotra.

Their projects range from video art and mixed media works to industrial design pieces and installations. They tackle a wide range of subject matter, such as climate anxiety, urbanization, corruption, and the preservation of traditional arts.

Ms. Araneta said that the process of selection was more of a “discussion of ideas” rather than a rigid points system.

Benilde Open convenor Rita Nazareno added that none of the jurors were from the Philippines, which made for an interesting result.

“They were [from] everywhere, from Madrid, Australia, California, and New York, so some had to wake up at 5 a.m. while some had to stay up until 2 a.m. [to deliberate],” she said. “You could see the sheer engagement from them. To have your work discussed in a jury, I think, is already amazing — to have all these minds to be talking about it in all seriousness.”

The members of the international jury are leaders in different facets of global design: Jihoi Lee (MMCA Korea curator and founder of Watch & Chill), Mireia Luzárraga (TAKK co-founder and assistant professor at Columbia GSAPP), Nathalie Huni (Wells Fargo managing director and head of design), Timothy Moore (curator for Contemporary Design and Architecture and Melbourne Design Week and founder of Sibling Architecture), and Freddy Anzures (a Filipino-American designer from the original iPhone team).

“They were quite impressed by the quality of the proposals. That’s where the lengthy discussions came in. We could only pick 10, and there were more than 10 that they liked,” Ms. Araneta said.

As for how the exhibition will unfold on the 6th and 12th floors of the College of Saint Benilde’s School of Design + Arts campus, she explained that the convenors are working closely with the grantees to help bring their visions to life.

It is also a good opportunity for Benilde’s students (as well as visiting students from other campuses) to be exposed to innovative projects.

“The fact that the students have the opportunity to see these exhibitions installed in the spaces around them really gives them insights about their projects and the possibilities of what they can do,” she said.

Ms. Nazareno added that the “anchor exhibitions,” which can be found in the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) on the ground floor of the campus, supplement the experience very well.

“Last year, they had Heidi Bucher. She was a dressmaker by profession but she also did performance and art. The students being able to see that is really quite special,” she explained. “Our anchor exhibition this year is Poets of Physics, and the kind of multidisciplinary conversation it brings to this kind of school space is really quite special.”

The exhibition features the works of Aki Sasamoto, Bagus Pandega, David Medalla, Fischli and Weiss, and Ian Carlo Jaucian, all of whom explore how scientific phenomena are collaborators in their respective creations. For example, David Medalla’s Cloud Canyons continuously generates foam or bubbles to produce ever-changing sculptural forms that dissolve and reform.

Benilde Open convenor Joselina Cruz (who is also MCAD’s director and curator) told BusinessWorld that the title of the exhibition is drawn from text by Mr. Medalla, in which he referred to himself as “a poet who celebrates physics.”

She posited that the grantees this year have the potential to continue this lineage that he spoke about.

“In the face of ecological crisis and technological innovation, in a world mired in destruction, the creative mind has an obligation to explore the relationship between the made and the natural,” she said.

Benilde Opens’ Extensions of Nature will run from April 11 to 27 at the CSB’s School of Design + Arts campus in Malate, Manila. — Brontë H. Lacsamana