Notes on an art-filled weekend —just in time for weekend two.
Happy National Arts Month! And Happy Lunar New Year!!!
Visual arts: Luneta Art Fair
Luneta Art Festival was a two-day outdoor art festival held in Rizal Park in Ermita, Manila. Showcasing traditional and non-traditional pieces from collectives, art schools, and galleries from all over the Metro on the open grounds of the national park, this event makes both up-and-coming and established artists more accessible to the art-loving public. Admission is free, and it’s now on its second year! Ish.
Read more: ASP Outdoor Art Fair, from Chaos and poetry.
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I’m now really getting into sculptures, but unlike with prints or small canvasses, 3D art is a little harder to squeeze into my studio.
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Last year’s Luneta Art Festival –or ASP Outdoor Art Fair, or however you want to call it– featured more commercial works. There were more booths dedicated to mass-producible art such as stickers, postcards, and prints. This year, there appeared to be more gallery representatives and established art names such as 51 Collective Art Haus and San Mateo Art Guild, among others.
In line with the festival’s general theme of accessibility and tourism, most paintings and sculptures were being sold at a discounted price compared to its original gallery price. I would definitely recommend going to this festival to my future self (and others with the intent to buy or collect art).
*Genuine question. If you have recommendations please comment below.
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Since Luneta Art Festival happens so close to my workplace, my goal for next year if I’m still employed by PGH for some reason is to attend one of their workshops or live drawing sessions. Note to self!!!
Literature and history: Rizal’s Manila
Literature, history and art are inextricably linked. As Ambeth Ocampo said during our walking tour, “streets aren’t just markers of geography; streets are markers of history.” Buildings aren’t just buildings, but conscious design choices serving both function and form. Novels aren’t just fictional representations of a theme, but snapshots across generations.
Last February 4, I had the pleasure to join a walking tour of Rizal’s Binondo —a special CNY-themed tour— hosted by Old Manila Walks (thank you Mr Ivan!) and featuring Ambeth R. Ocampo. Our brief walk crossed paths with the lives and works of Jose Rizal, Antonio Luna, Andres Bonifacio and other prominent names in Philippine history.
Ambeth Ocampo (right) is one of the biggest contributors to Philippine social and cultural consciousness as a historian, academic, author and curator. Going on a walking tour with him is like hearing and seeing excerpts from his books come to life.
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“Chinatown” is a cultural district comprised of several geographic locations. Majority of our short tour toured the heritage district of San Nicolas, the quieter neighbor of main Binondo.
The district retains some of its 19th-century ancestral houses. The highlights of the tour were visits to buildings that inspired iconic locations in Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere. This included Fonde de lala, a premier hotel across the estero where Ibarra first stayed upon his return to the Philippines.
We also visited the site of the house of Balvino Mauricio (now where the State Investment House Inc. building stands). The old mansion was the basis for Kapitan Tiago’s house; its interiors were immortalized by watercolorist Jose Honorato Lozano.
As this was a tour about Jose Rizal, one of the funnier anecdotes on this tour was the conflict between Jose Rizal and Antonio Luna over Nelly Boustead, a mestiza of English and Spanish descent. The more you know.
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Sun Cafe was right there when we needed them the most —aka at 8AM, near the meeting point, when all other cafes like Cafe Mezzanine were packed with other tourists and patrons. 10/10, would recommend.
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Success for the year ahead!
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And extra thank you to Marianne for the treat! As always.
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Nature as art: Arroceros Forest Park
Ever since I started residency, visiting Arroceros Forest Park has been on my bucket list. It’s almost impossible to find the time, because the park closes relatively early at 5PM.
But I finally got the opportunity to see “the last lung of Manila” for the first time since a college field trip. There are now paved walkways and even a koi pond. But admission remains free.
Aside from us, there were also other local tourists and a group of NSTP students.
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Several attempts have been made to build other community use buildings in the area —from a teachers’ dormitory in 2003 and a gym in 2008— but it was finally designated a permanent forest park in 2020 under Mayor Moreno.
It was formally reopened in 2022 —but with the unfortunate inclusion of paved pathways.
The canopy is fairly well-developed, if a little light, and it will hopefully have many many more decades to grow into a lush layer.
I encourage you to visit the forest park when you have time (and to support all actual efforts for conservation). And hopefully the cafe outside becomes operational. Imagine going to the forest, then visiting a show in the MET (Manila Metropolitan Theater), and ending the night with a cup of coffee!
Postscript: Coffee, conversations, and a visit to the Ayala Museum
I planned to start my weekend with a showing from the Japanese Film Festival 2024 in Shangr-La Plaza. Jesha and I must have underestimated the demand for the Detective Conan film, as the show was fully sold out by the time we wrapped up our brunch in Cafe Lyon. So we walked around a bit instead and shared a second coffee in Kape-kape.
The coffee and company were more than good enough; sharing minds and moments is a kind of art in itself.
Last December 30, I also visited Ayala Museum in Makati for the very first time. Driven by the urgent need to catch Splendor: Juan Luna, Painter as Hero —the limited exhibition run featuring Juan Luna’s Hymen, oh Hyménée!, which has now been extended until March— we also spent the rest of the day looking through the museum’s historical and contemporary exhibits.
More than the painting itself, the narrative surrounding its creation, esteem and eventual rediscovery arouses romanticism and a little awe.
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***This whole time I thought this visit was my first time in Ayala Museum, but apparently I’ve been there before! I even wrote about it briefly.
Read here – Exhibit: Ambeth Ocampo’s Rizal without the Overcoat
Crossroads of Civilizations is an exhibit which combines Gold of Ancestors —a permanent gallery of more than a thousand gold objects from pre-colonial Philippines— and Skeins of Knowledge, Threads of Wisdom, a display of the various weaving traditions in the country.
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MindScapes: Selected Works from the Shell National Students Art Competition Winners combines award-winning works from across years of competition. This is one of the more contemporary changing exhibitions of the museum.
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Tickets to the Ayala Museum may be bought as walk-in. Access to the SPLENDOR exhibit alone costs PHP350. Access to ALL exhibitions cost PHP650 —a much better deal!
I’m wrapping up this post after passing through the La Solidaridad bookshop, the Casa Tesoro Building, and having a late lunch at Gourmet’s Cafe (more on everything in my next post). I was theoretically supposed to study on this day of… but we’ll see. There’s still tonight.
For the rest of this weekend I’ll be at work as the hospice and palliative medicine resident on duty (can’t be helped), but also exhausting myself going through the Art Walk by Ayala Land.
Until next time! ❤️
jari m 
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