In this Issue - The Japan Foundation, Manila

7
Photos courtesy of BBIEAF
his works over 5 decades. He also brought
with him some of the best works from a
new generation of Japanese video artists
from Video Tokyo.
The video art program was shown in
the public areas in and around the town
of Daet – the OLLCF Campus, department
stores, malls, public markets, restaurants,
as well as the exterior walls of large
buildings.
This program, aside from the Curator’s
Selection and the Iimura Mini-retrospective,
consisted of video artists from Germany,
USA, France, Iraq, Italy, Canada, Spain and
Japan.
The Public Art program, curated by
Benjamin Edward Hughes II, resulted in two
outdoor benches on the OLLCF campus by
Jerusalino Araos of the Philippines and Tets
Ohnari of Japan.
It is the expressed goal of the OLLCF
to input Art into the everyday life of
its students and faculty members to
inculcate its inherent qualities of creativity,
innovativeness and superior technical
skills.
Thus, the 3rd BBIEAF was held with
three major programmes – installation,
video art and public art – all designed
to transfer both contents and methods
of superior processual interaction which
consisted of new knowledge and transcultural
perspectives as well as new
mental techniques and points of view. All
of these are designed to inject changes in
the way some of the most impoverished
people in the country view their problems,
their situation, and the new tools which
they can utilize to make changes that
will alleviate their own conditions. In the
light of the chronicity of poverty and the
culture of helplessness in the country, the
BBIEAF seeks to empower the stakeholders
by giving them the mental postures
needed to rise beyond the despair and
frustration and to see that a better future
is actually within their grasp with the right
knowledge, attitudes and practices.
Alongside the BBIEAF, the Center
for Empowered and Sustainable Poverty
Alleviation (CESPA) of the OLLCF, conducted
its first Kabuhayan-Kalikasan workshopseminar
designed to give free knowledge
and training to interested participants on
topics from starting a business, product
development, cooperatives, livelihood
opportunities and bank micro-lending
packages. These ran at the same time as the
festival and were supported by the Product
Design & Development Center of the
Philippines (PDDCP), Technology Resource
Center (TRC), Development Academy
of the Philippines (DAP), Cooperative
Development Authority of the Philippines,
ABS-CBN Bayan Foundation, UP Institute
for Small Scale Industries, Vitarich, World
Wildlife Fund (WWF), Haribon Foundation,
Development Bank of the Philippines,
Land Bank of the Philippines and others.
This project is an acknowledgement of the
inseparable interlinking of environmental
sustainability with the economic conditions
of a community.
The BBIEAF and its partners provided
both the new agents of change (artists),
as well as the tools (art-making and
developmental agencies) to empower
our needy communities and effect socioeconomic
changes through empowered
interventions by the stakeholders
themselves.
At the same time, the world has
lessons to learn too – about the kind
and persevering spirit of the Filipino and
the ways through which a partnership
with him can affect so many lives for
the better.
Finally, the BBIEAF is a pilot project
utilizing a novel tool – Art - that is meant
to be transferable to any part of the world,
and to any people who can use a change
of perspective to better their lives through
their own empowered interventions.
Dr. Joaquin Gasgonia Palencia is the Executive Director and founder of Bagasbas Beach International Eco Art Festival, he has been involved in socio-developmental work through the
Our Lady of Lourdes College Foundation of which he is the Executive Vice-President. He graduated with a BS Zoology, cum laude, and an M.D. both from the University of the Philippines
and is working on a PhD from the same university. Currently, he is preparing for New Media Daet slated on February 2011.