Prospects for the futures of the Philippine arts
In 1950, Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, often called the “Mother of Philippine Modern Art,” remarked, in response to a painting by Fernando Amorsolo: “We have been through a war, but very few of our painters seem to know it.” More than half a century later, the country remains mired in civil conflict while cautiously tiptoeing the crossfire of a brewing inter-imperialist war. Still, the artistic “scene” has not strayed far from what Kalaw-Ledesma observed in the 1950s. Philippine art remains largely genteel and polite, shaped by an inherited need for paternalistic validation.
Our fixation on naming “fathers and mothers of Philippine x and y” betrays the persistence of a feudal culture. Artist cliques still orbit benevolent nanays and tatays, each guarding their own turf and aesthetic doctrine. Transgression is often limited to small circles of mostly straight male pranksters, alongside endless iterations of an exploitative “third-world” realism. Cultural production and circulation remain dominated by conservative institutions, padrino culture, and the imposed sentiment that, despite everything, all is well.
Of course, all is not well in Philippine culture. Filipinos working in the so-called “creative industries” continue to suffer from unstable income, precarious employment, and limited access to social protection. Put plainly, it is difficult to be an artist in the Philippines. For a vocation that depends so deeply on freedom, artistic practice finds itself tethered to themes and forms most likely to sell, win prizes, or secure grants. A full-time art career is either a pipe dream, or a nepo baby’s pastime.
How might artists begin to liberate themselves from this impasse? As I round off my writing residency with The Philippine STAR, I offer a few thoughts toward more humane and expansive futures for the Philippine arts.
A national industry, humane jobs, and livable wages.
Poverty and the lack of stable, dignified work cut across all sectors of cultural production. In the performing arts, it is increasingly difficult for ordinary Filipinos to afford tickets to films, theater, or concerts. Books have become prohibitively expensive: P500 for a single purchase is more than half a worker’s daily wage. Access is even more restricted in the visual arts, where art-buying remains almost exclusively the domain of the wealthy.
Poverty is the product of intertwined forces: neocolonial dependency, agricultural stagnation, and the absence of basic industries. Its elimination lies beyond the power of individual artists. But the development of a national industry, alongside the provision of quality jobs and livable wages, is both urgent and achievable. Giving workers their due would inject energy into cultural life. More people could afford to engage with art, and more artists would have the means to produce. Ultimately, art-making would be opened to more people, especially those in basic sectors who have long seen the elite and their art as irrelevant to their daily lives.
Crucially, a creative sector sustained by a robust economy could loosen its dependence on patrons. Relative autonomy is the most important precondition for art capable of sustained critique and self-directed growth.
Unions for artists, artist-run cooperatives and spaces.
Although some attempts have been made to organize artists, the country still lacks a functioning, durable union for creative workers. Yet unions are essential for setting industry standards, enforcing fair compensation, and resisting exploitative practices.
Beyond unions, artists might also explore cooperatives as a mode of organization. Many artist-run spaces and initiatives today are led by individuals, couples, or loosely defined “collectives.” While often effective in the short term, these arrangements frequently fizzle out due to lack of funding, or survive only by “selling out” and compromising their vision. A principled cooperative offers a non-hierarchical structure in which artists can act as collective stakeholders, sustaining a practice, a space, or a community initiative together.
It would be instructive to see how unions and cooperatives might work in tandem, how artists could navigate the challenges of genuine collectivity and produce work that is neither reduced to “passion projects” nor subordinated to profit. This familiar dichotomy is not inevitable.
Robust writing and criticism.
There is a severe lack of platforms for art writing, particularly criticism that encourages thought, debate, and disagreement. We need more publications that pay writers fairly and on time. We need more reading groups, film clubs, and music circles where ideas can circulate freely. We need spaces for thinking and writing that are independent of galleries and their performatively hyper-intellectual artspeak, as well as the shallow marketing-oriented writing that currently dominate cultural discourse.
Inclusive local community arts programs.
Art must converse with local communities. We must empower artists not only from the regions, but from the most marginalized sectors of society. We need to hear from peasants, fisherfolk, the urban poor, and persons deprived of liberty. We need the songs and visions of out-of-school youth, stay-at-home women, indigenous peoples, and bakwit. Developing the countryside, ending landlessness, protecting the environment, and uplifting the national majority, is inseparable from revitalizing our cultural life.
More venues and safe spaces for women- and queer-led initiatives.
Patronage culture in the arts is intertwined with the persistence of patriarchy. Gender-based violence continues under the hegemony of macho-feudal norms. Institutional lip service is not enough. Independent initiatives led by women and queer artists must be actively supported to challenge the dominant patriarchal culture. Their flourishing will bring fresh aesthetics and perspectives capable of pushing Philippine art in genuinely new directions.
On a related note, a more just future for the arts must include disabled artists, who remain marginalized by state neglect and inaccessibility. Much of contemporary art is closed off to them precisely because they are excluded from the art-making majority. A better future for the arts should include their much-needed contribution to the conversation.
Arts from the outside.
Twentieth-century modernism sought to erase the boundary between art and life. While it succeeded in transforming artistic practice, society itself lagged behind. Contemporary art has only intensified the latter’s contradictions.
Despite its political and intellectual grandstanding, mainstream contemporary art has balked at the thought of dismantling its privileged status in the act of revolutionizing society at large. Instead, it has contented itself with producing fetish objects, bought and sold for decoration, prestige, and speculation, its critical capacity blunted by its detachment from what Neferti Tadiar called “remaindered life.”
The futures of Philippine art need not emerge from galleries or the hallowed halls of academia. There is art already being made, and lived, outside the visible circuits of the mainstream. When I speak of prospects for Philippine art, I speak of these possibilities knocking from the outside. I look beyond the scene, toward the Great Outdoors, hoping that one day something unexpected will arrive: the delight of the unpronounceable new.
