Manila-based art gallery Silverlens is launching an artist residency on an island in the southern Philippines, where residents will use found materials to create public art installations.
Lubi Art Residency takes its name from the Visayan word for coconut and is held at Dusit Thani Lubi Plantation Resort on Kopiat Island in the Gulf of Davao, which until the 1990s was largely agricultural. Artists will use island materials like driftwood, bamboo, and debris washed up on shore for installations that may deteriorate over time, making their projects carbon neutral during residency.
“In Southeast Asia, our lives revolve around the environment: storms, earthquakes and volcanoes. There is respect for nature, because we are the first to be affected,” explains Rachel Rillo, one of the two co-owners of the gallery. “Because we live in the islands, we know that nothing is permanent. Things will go downhill, they will rot from humidity and thunderstorms or the heat of the sun. Things will eventually go back to normal. nature.
Using materials scavenged on the island is not only carbon neutral, it’s also pragmatic, minimizing the need for expensive shipping to and from the island. Silverlens has selected artists who already use found objects in their practices, explains Isa Lorenzo, the other co-owner. The first cohort of artists includes Corinne de San Jose, Gary-Ross Pastrana, Wawi Navarroza, Christina Quisumbing Ramilo, Bernardo Pacquing and James Clar.
The artists’ work is expected to be completed by the end of the year and installed in public spaces on the island by March 2024. For the residency, Silverlens has partnered with Lanang Realty Development Corporation, the group which has helped preserve the island’s biodiversity. and brought in local scientists and marine biologists to protect the area from erosion. Davao Gulf is home to one of the most diverse cetacean habitats in the Philippines, and the island’s beaches serve as a turtle sanctuary. Ecotourism has also boosted the region’s economy.
Rillo and Lorenzo were inspired to start their own residency by similar programs in Naoshima, Japan, an island where formerly abandoned fishing villages were revitalized by contemporary art spaces, they said. A unique challenge was to integrate the local community into the residency as traditional arts institutions are less common in the country.
“Here in the Philippines and in many developing countries in Southeast Asia, we don’t have a lot of museums and we don’t have a lot of infrastructure for art. But we’re big on festivals, music, performance, beauty and decoration,” Rillo says. “Which is great, because the initiation to art can be based on experience. It can be anything you get into.
When Lorenzo started visiting Kopiat Island three decades ago, the beach stretched about eight meters before it hit the water. Now, due to climate change and erosion, there is no natural beach at all, and a breakwater has been installed around much of the island, Lorenzo said. Cyanide fishing was also once a popular method of collecting fish around the island, which damaged local underwater flora and fauna, including coral reefs. But since becoming a protected area, the local ecosystem has blossomed again.
“Yes, climate change is happening. But at the same time, there are still things you can do to save the environment,” says Lorenzo. “Leave him alone and he will regenerate.”
“It takes so little for the environment to grow on its own,” adds Rillo.
Silverlens, which Lorenzo founded in Manila in 2004 before Rillo joined in 2007, opened a store in New York at Chelsea last year.
