BAGUIO ARTISTS JOINS MALAYSIA ART SHOW

May 6, 2023 Community Billboard

Baguio Artist Brenda Subido Dacpano joins Filipino artists in a show in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia set on May 19 t0 21, 2023. The Malaysia show entitled, “Karya Seni Kesil (The art of small artworks): The Art of ACEO,” features the work of 52 Pinoy artists featured at Momo’s Hotel under Art Show Philippines, backed by ACEO and Art Without Borders Malaysia. Dacpano said “It is my first show out of the country. I want my art to express the things that I am passionate about and my
advocacies. I advocate upcycling and recycling and I use found objects in my artworks.

I think as artists we have the privilege to influence and responsibility, as well, to be vehicles for social change.” ACEO (Art Cards Editions and Originals) features small works called “art cards,” with artists from Baguio and Benguet in the show include; Sharla Ngayodan, Tina GN and Bets
Beltran Laguipo showing works sized 3.5 x 2.5. Dacpano, known for her jeepney series, depicting the Filipino icon in the midst of modernization explains “Bago pa man iintroduce ng Department of Transportation ang jeepney modernization program noong 2017, maugong na ang balitang ito.

Di ako sangayon sa modernisasyon na walang konsiderasyon sa livelihood ng mga drivers at maliit na operators. Ang mga big companies lang ang makakaafford ng mga bagong sasakyan na ipapalit sa mga lumang jeepneys. Meanwhile, saan ilulugar ang mga driver sa modernisasyon na yan? Ang
paglikha ko ng mga jeepneys, ng iba’t ibang porma at tema nito ay pagpupugay sa mga drivers at jeepneys na nanganganib nang mawala dahil sa di angkop na pananaw ng modernisasyon. Gusto kong itambol ang mga issues at concerns ng sektor through my art.”

ACEO Philippine founder, Frederick Epistola said the group started in 2020, taking the cue founder, Swiss national, Vänçi Stirnemann, “The ACEO is a worldwide movement which started in 1997. In the 2000’s I joined events in the US thru mail art exchanges. I was surprised that Filipino artists were not aware of the movement, so I thought of starting it in the Philippines. Epistola said, The Malaysia show is also the first out of the country exhibition of ACEO Philippines, “52 artists will show their work in Kuala Lumpur this May 19- 21 sa MoMo’s Hotel, there will be 24 artists physically joining us which will have an art and cultural study tour, Espitola said.

Dacpano started her career in art as a child, taught by her father, Francisco, who annually gave summer workshops. From the painting and steno workshops at their family home in Binalonan , Pangasinan to her stunted college course in the 1980s, Dacpano chose a path of activism and expression that defined her career to this day. A political detainee at 18 and jailed at Camp Bado Dangwa for nine months in 1982, her detention cell became a workshop of expression that tided her over during the days of uncertainty during the post-Martial Law days when freedom was taken by state forces.

Dacpano was a third-year Architecture student at then Baguio Colleges Foundation, now University of the Cordilleras, and the secretary of the school’s Department of Engineering and Architecture, meriting her illegal arrest and detention. Today, Dacpano focuses on her art “I have 10 jeepney
assemblages to be exhibited in Kuala Lumpur one of these has won the Sponsor’s Choice Award (The ARTuro Award). Aside from jeepneys, I will also display 10 Larong Pinoy ACEO series, these are childhood games that are slowly becoming scarce because of the emergence of gadgets. I am
also starting jeepney assemblages to be exhibited in the US, and Florence, Italy.”

Maria Elena Catajan