HOUSE OF THE WEEK
Refurbished twin-level apartment in Hlaing
TWO thousand and two hundred square feet split over two floors of freshly redecorated space for K90 million sounds like a pretty hot deal. more
Breaking down the walls
(Volume 26, No. 513)
A Filipino poet holds up a sheet of paper with the words to his poem so his young audience can recite it along with him in November 2009.
A sign above the Angono Public Market has been changed to read ‘6th Neo Angono Public Art Festival’. Pics: Thanavi Chotpradit
I was woken by the morning sunlight pouring through the glass and curtains of my hotel window. From my third-floor room I could see a busy main road with a heavy flow of jeeps, rickshaw tricycles and pedestrians. Far to the east, below the rising sun, was a green mountain ridge.
This busy main road passes over the Angono River. Above the water was a piece of installation art; a replica of a house, suspended by ropes from poles erected on the river. The previous night I enjoyed its beauty – the light inside the house pierced its papier-mâché walls and gleamed on the water.
I was visiting Angono, a city some 30 kilometres east of the Philippine capital Manila, to participate in a conference and workshop on public art “as a step towards creative city development”. It was part of the 6th Neo-Angono Public Art Festival, organised by Neo-Angono, a local movement and organisation founded by artists, and sponsored by the Japan Foundation.
Angono is surrounded by a series of farming and fishing villages scattered around the shore of the country’s largest lake, Laguna de Bay. During Typhoon Ondoy (known outside the Philippines as Ketsana), which ripped through the region in September, the areas around Angono were affected by severe flooding.
Angono is known as “the Art Capital of the Philippines” and is the hometown of two of the country’s most well-known artists: musician Lucio San Pedro and painter Carlos “Botong” Francisco. Most of the country’s creative industries are concentrated here and the city often looks like a huge gallery, with works from many artists and artisans on display.
Coinciding with the public art festival was the city’s fiesta, held every year on November 22-23 to celebrate the feast of Pope Clement I, a first century AD Christian saint. At this time, Angono’s streets, churches and houses are decorated with lanterns and small flags.
Breathing life into this city of about 100,000 is Neo-Angono. Founded in 2004, Neo-Angono has successfully organised the Neo-Angono Public Art Festival six times, including last year. Its membership includes Filipino artists from different fields and it has even expanded its network to include artists living in Japan and the United States.
As its title suggested, the conference workshop was an event where both local and international artists and scholars of art discussed the role public art plays in promoting Angono as a creative city. The promotion of “public art” is central to the idea of creative city development. The term was originally used in a broader sense for any painting or sculpture designed to be displayed in public spaces but has since come to refer to art “envisaged as part of the life of the community in which it is sited”, according to one definition.
The promotion of 'public art' is central to the idea of creative city development.
Murals are the most common form of public art but the category also includes monuments, memorials and civic statuary. It can also include dance, procession, street theatre and even poetry.
Some conference participants read prepared papers that discussed ideas and concepts of public art relative to their field of expertise. Thai art historian Ms Thanavi Chotpradit talked about public tolerance of public art; Indonesian artist Ms Iani Arahmaiani about the murals of Yogyakarta, Indonesia; Dr Masayuki Sasaki, a professor of urban economics at Osaka City University, about Japanese creative cities; and Filipino artist Professor Bienvenido Lumbera about Philippine literature and history.
Most enlightening was research by Dr Sasaki on globalisation and the shift from traditional, industrial city-centred lifestyles to culture-centred environ-ments in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Dr Sasaki said a new trend of globalisation was that advanced capitalist countries were losing some of their manufacturing base and becoming knowledge- and information-based economies, the key driver of which is creativity, especially artistic and technological creativity.
It was fascinating to hear Dr Sasaki propose the elements that constitute a “creative city”. According to Dr Sasaki, for a city to become a creative city there must be an expansion in both the number and activities of artists, scientists, engineers and craftsmen. There must be an improvement in the quality of life of the residents, in terms of their income, free time and expenditure on culture and entertainment. The city should also have a richness of urban environment and amenities.
There also needs to be an increase in the number of firms and job opportunities in the cultural creative industries, such as film, video, music, art and crafts.
The elements of a creative city do not end there – they also include the development of creative support infrastructure, such as universities, technical schools, research institutions, theatres, libraries, and cultural institutions; preservation of heritage and cultural assets; the activities of the citizens; and finally the presence of creative governance that fosters positive citizen participation, and the financial independency of artists.
The talk about the creative cities of Japan prompted me to think about which of Myanmar's cities could be promoted as creative cities in the future. From the perspective of a person who is neither an artist nor an architect or urban developer, I think there are two – Yangon and Mandalay – that have some potential.
Yangon – the country’s commercial centre and former capital – boasts a great deal of modern and ancient architectural heritage. The city is home to the most-extensive collection of urban colonial architecture in Southeast Asia; most of it is from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many artists, writers and poets, musicians, art critics and researchers reside in Yangon and it is the centre of the music and film production industries. Yangon also has many cultural and religious sites, such as Shwedagon Pagoda.
Another advantage Yangon has is its abundance of public spaces, such as gardens, parks, lakes and squares, which could host art installations and festivals. For example, following Cyclone Nargis in 2008, the city’s municipal authorities used trees brought down by Nargis to create garden furniture and traditional sculptures; they are now on display in a wood garden, which was constructed and opened as a public space.
Mandalay could also be considered a potential creative city of Myanmar. The country’s last royal capital before annexation by the British, Mandalay possesses a huge number of cultural heritage sites and serves as a nest for artists and the art and craft industries. Because of its royal status, it was home to a wide range of artists who performed for the king, including musicians, writers and poets, dramatists, puppeteers.
Their descendants and pupils still live and work in the city, and Mandalay boasts a large number of distinguished musicians and artists, such as Nandawshay Saya Tin and Myoma Nyein. The city is also renowned for its craft industries, which produce tapestries, woven silks, embroidered goods, carved marble objects, gold leaf and wood carvings. Finally, there are a lot of temples, monasteries and the remains of the royal palace – all testament to the city’s wealth in quality craftsmen.
Yangon and Mandalay are also the only cities that feature a State Schools of Fine Art and State Schools of Music and Drama. Despite their present limited capacity when compared to other academic and vocational schools, these institutions produce a sizable number of graduates every year. Some of the graduates are able to go on and develop successful careers in creative industries.
I think both cities are endowed with the potential to become candidates as creative cities.
