When the conquistadores arrived in Catanduanes in the late 16th century, they initially named the island Isla de Cobos, “island of huts,” referring to the huts or dwellings created of commonly obtainable, if flimsy or combustible, community elements these types of as thatch and bamboo. The primary identify did not keep for very long, and it was just as effectively, because Catanduanes and the rest of the Bicol location were being, then as now, along the damaging meteorological path of typhoons that have bedevilled a great deal of Philippine record. As in Manila and somewhere else, the friar missionaries and other Spanish authorities in Bicol quarried for stones and a lot more strong products that could be utilized in setting up structures that could stand up to fires, earthquakes, and typhoons.
Potentially it is to individuals components, no matter if native or imported, easily available or not, that the remarkable show, “Sarong Rawog,” now managing until July 31 at the NCCA (Nationwide Fee for Tradition and the Arts) Gallery in Intramuros, Manila, generally refers. The initially solo show by visual artist-educator Jualim Datiles Vela, “Sarong Rawog” is composed of sculptures in brass, stainless steel, and terracotta, shattered masks in epoxy, as effectively as paintings that are normally developed all-around the concept of “resilience,” referring to the potential of products to endure the pressures and issues exerted by atmospheric and organic forces that might border on wreckage and destruction on Catanduanes, as nicely as the mental and religious toughness embodied by the Catandunganons and other Bicolanos who have weathered them down.

The exhibit exhibits Vela coming to his personal as an artist. A college member in the doing and visual arts division of the Office of Humanities of the University of Arts and Sciences of University of the Philippines (UP) Los Baños, Vela was a scholar at the Philippine Higher University for the Arts (PHSA) wherever his batchmates bundled Juanito Torres and the late Riel Hilario and where his junior was Leeroy New. Invited to train at the PHSA soon after finishing fine arts at UP Diliman, he took up a master’s in instruction majoring in educational technological innovation. He afterwards took up graduate research in sculpture at Hiroshima City College in 2006 to 2008, but mainly because the university essential dissertations to be in Kanji, he was advised to transfer to Hiroshima (Condition) University, where by he obtained his master’s and Ph.D. in academic improvement in 2010 and 2015, respectively, below the Monbukagakusho international scholarship plan of the Japanese Ministry of Schooling.
Alim has participated in group exhibitions in Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam, and at the GSIS Gallery, Altro Mondo Arte Contemporanea, Artwork Anton, and Nova Gallery Manila.
Curated by Delan Robillos, artwork gallerist, cultural-mapping trainer, and previous NCCA vice-chair of the Subcommission for Cultural Heritage, “Sarong Rawog” is, in accordance to “Alim” Vela, “inspired by the plan of resilience from a individual position of look at, a distinct (quite often abused or misrepresented) attribute of the people of … Catanduanes.”
Himself hailing from Catanduanes, “Alim” Vela’s artmaking derives its spirit and selection of mediums from the meteorological and existential conditions of the island province, which is the No. 1 producer of abacá in the globe.

Abacá is of system the plant from the banana household indigenous to the Philippines its fibers are stripped to be produced for a range of takes advantage of, especially rope. In truth, its principal use in previous periods was to hold the sails of ships, notably through the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade from the 16th to the early 19th centuries, when it came to be acknowledged around the globe as “Manila hemp.” Its most popular use nowadays is as paper forex, but regrettably our personal Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, which has evidently made it its mission to befuddle and confuse Filipinos with paper expenditures that glance the same, has dumped abaca for plastic, which ought to provide us a barometer of the central bank’s financial nationalism and environmental consciousness, if any. In contrast, Mercedes Benz, the German automobile-producing firm, has not long ago adopted abacá for use in manufacturing its vehicle physique components, given that the Bicol fiber uses far less electrical power when compared to the generation of fiberglass.
The BSP choice to dump abacá for plastic forex was a huge blow to Catanduanes, continue to reeling from the devastation wrought in 2020 by super howler “Rolly” (International name “Goni”), which wiped out 90 p.c of its abacá plantation. For Alim Vela, the devastation adopted a particularly painful particular loss: the dying of his father from COVID-19 before that 12 months.
But the abacá marketplace and the Catandunganons have generally had a standing for bouncing again. As a result, Alim Vela’s “Sarong Rawog” exhibit, whose title is the closest Bicol phrase to “resilience.”
Despite the fact that the exhibit doesn’t use abacá fibers (Vela claimed that although abacá paper lends effectively to artmaking, available technological know-how in Catanduanes still would have to be made further more so as to develop abacá paper easily massive enough for additional reliable art operates), it employs components in which Vela has designed experience in through the many years.

His use of brass wire in his kinetic sculptures began when he was invited to train at PHSA right after his UP scientific tests. At the Hiroshima City College later, he honed his mettle as a terracotta sculptor. His paintings of dried leaves, with their obsessive focus to the skeletal filigrees, draw from his personal encounter considering that childhood of the typhoons that on a regular basis hit Catanduanes: he gathered in truth numerous of them specially in the aftermath of “Rolly.”
Though Alim recollects that the use of brass wires in his kinetic sculptures began when he was a trainer in Makiling and his mettle as a terracotta sculptor was honed in Japan, his present artwork notion was activated by his reflections on “Rolly” and the trail of destruction the hurricane remaining in its wake.
All of these components converge in “Sarong Rawog” and its theme of “resilience.” “This thought is represented by the kinetic metallic sculpture pieces and three-panel sets of paintings,” Alim Vela clarifies in the artist’s notes. “In specific, the sculptures are stylized representations of weathered barotos (boats) drawn from many varieties of generally fallen and dried leaves (from the plants of my mothers and fathers and grandparents) that I experienced noticed and collected generally in the aftermath of ‘Rolly.’”
The sculptures evoke the “baroto,” which, according to him, “refers to the Northern Catanduanes Bicol term for boats as instructed by my grandparents and elders for the duration of my childhood.”
The baroto is likewise motivated by historical beliefs on “utilitarian, symbolic, and ritualized practices” related to passages in existence. “To my head, the boat is a medium, a bridge, and a channel or a conduit of a person’s way of daily life and life after loss of life thus giving its possess purpose,” he writes.
“The main items,” he adds, “were produced in primarily kinetic sculpture forms, strains of the metals resembling knitted fibers, manifesting a perception of movement and equilibrium as simulated by the movement of a boat on the surface of a broad unpredictable human body of drinking water.”“Sarong Bangka Kita (Iisang Bangka Tayo)” is a sleek sculpture that captures the dynamism of the men and women of Catanduanes, a unique character that has enabled them to face up to if not creatively have interaction with the island’s unpredictable weather and the other vagaries of character.

“Ugong ning Hangin (Howling Wind)” is yet another lissome piece that embodies in the twists and turns of its metal wires the wailing wind attribute of storms.
“Andam/ Mag-andam” meanwhile signifies the people’s take care of to prepare for a coming storm.
“This piece is influenced by two fallen dried leaves I found connected to each other in the aftermath of the storm,” Vela writes. “Similar to the other items, I created this sculpture in a kinetic form to simulate the movements of a leaf or a boat on a system of drinking water. ‘Andam’ or ‘Mag-andam’ is a Catanduanes Bicol expression that implies to put together (securing our meals and residence, packing our matters, and guaranteeing our livestock will be protected) specially when a storm is coming.”
“Senyales ning Panganudon” (Signs from the Clouds),” a sculpture built predominantly of stainless rod, is a tribute to the durable abaca. “The variety of this piece is influenced by the abaca leaf and its fibers,” Vela writes. “Its kinetic form is also motivated by the plan of the movement of leaf boats.” On the steel rod are unique pieces of the facial area (made of epoxy). “(They) signify how we the folks of our island province are impacted (or fragmented) by natural calamities and how we are even now saved with each other by our collective concepts as represented by the steel boat leaf sort.”
The paintings are in oil and are approximately X-ray-like depiction of leaves. The leaves have a personalized and creative link with the sculptures. “Since childhood, I have been fascinated and fond of the many types of leaves and would test to kind them into boats and would then permit them sail along the streams or canals,” Vela notes. “While observing and collecting leaves with attention-grabbing sorts, I would acquire a step back again and replicate on daily life ordeals from the mundane to the mystical.”
In the system at the middle of the exhibit corridor is an installation consisting of paintings, steel and terracotta sculptures of women of all ages figures with their limbs damaged, and shattered masks and dried leaves strewn all around.

“The mask-like sculptures built of sawdust and epoxy and the terracotta figures represent the polarization of the people in the course of the pandemic,” clarifies Robillos in his curator’s notes. “It is also (Vela’s) his own sentiment and commentary on isolation and abandonment in the course of the pandemic’s quarantine intervals and the devastation of the super typhoon.”
“The linear photos on Alim’s paintings and sculptures,” Robillos adds, “are interwoven with his heritage in Catanduanes—from the Abaca fiber business as the lifeline of the neighborhood, the island’s boat tradition, to how Catandunganons deal with typhoons, the h2o, and the wind. One baroto, one particular boat, one community collectively rowing, unified in moments of crises—the essence of ‘Sarong Rawog.’”
Despite the emphasis on resilience, the exhibit attempts to steer clear of reductionism and effortless answers. “The concept of resilience may, having said that, be a double-edged sword,” writes Robillos. “On the a single hand, it permits folks and communities to obtain a sense of religion in the capability to triumph over setbacks. Restoration is far more obvious in resilient groups that elevate solidarity. On the other hand, resilience might be overrated and the strain to be resilient can be a downside when it makes unrealistic expectations.”
But in general, the sculptures and paintings in Alim Vela’s exhibit, according to Robillos, are art functions of “hope and therapeutic.”
Photos by Jilson Tiu