By Jose Santos P. Ardivilla
Please look at how the name of this exhibit is designed. “Space/Place” as a combined unit has a very demonstrative look on the very premise of this exhibition of the works by members of the Association of Pinoyprintmakers. The word “Space” is bold, a solid towering verticality. By its side is a slant with “Place” that is of lighter weight and is underscored by the front slash. The dynamism between the slanted “place” and the front slash indicates (1) an underlined emphasis of place; and (2) an act of plunging; literally digging into “Space.” This demonstrates that space is the field and place plows into it – space is the physicality of location, of coordinates, of geography; whereas place is the driving operation by people, culture, and society of giving or deriving meaning through how we navigate and through how we create a meaningful connection to a plot of land, a spot at a corner or sprawling vistas.
In this exhibition, printmakers assemble their ways of seeing to establish senses of place. After all, from the call for this exhibition, Michel Foucault’s Heterotopia is the pivot. To engage with this, one must situate that heterotopia is distant from utopia. It would be easy to see “utopia” as a singular location of paradise, of order, of efficacy, of bliss. One must be reminded that “utopia” is Latin for “nowhere.” Utopia is not a place. Whereas “hetero” is Latin for “another.” This exhibit hinges on the many possibilities, on the assertions of “another” places. In this “another,” possible meanings and ways of being are aplenty.
Heterotopia is to disrupt a convention, or a standard insisted by those that seek to dominate spaces. Heterotopia means there are ways beyond just one perspective. Heterotopia asks the printmakers to question how they embody space, how they place their visions, their forms, their thoughts. The works here take up space and proclaim who they are or what they are capable of. In the space of 20” x 20”, these are prints that are proof of gestures of mark-making; like setting up coordinates in what used to be an empty space. After all, printmaking, as an act, is place-making through place-sensing. Printmakers sense the weight of the paper, the smell and the sound of the thickness or tackiness of the ink, the weight driven down to press the images on the paper.
The prints themselves become emergent places on an otherwise blank space of the paper. In this exhibit, the Association’s printmakers engage with memory, fantasy, identity, and materials to rouse their many navigations of making sense of the space they weave through. Going through the exhibition, one will be encountering vulnerabilities of those that believe space can be an act of personal revelations. Some prints speak of memories, both personal and historical which point to paths that led the printmakers to where they are now. Some works here speak of printmaking’s capacity to be tethered in tradition and to be fluid enough to enmesh itself into contemporary spaces of production. The works here are utterances on what the places these printmakers have sought and have tried to make sense in their lives.
Circling back to the name “Space/Place,” the forward slash [“/”] proves to be a devise of a staking or laying claim. Many assume the front slash [“/”] means demarcation, boundaries. In this exhibit’s case, it is a point of synchronicity or a means to overlap each other. It is a connective tissue that fuses “space” and “place” together. Both are not the same, but both are shared. That is, one is less without the other. Space/Place are not opposites. Space/Place are not two sides of the same coin. Space/Place are a way of becoming. Space/Place are to be linked much like a way of claiming/ a way of taking up space/ a way of setting up a place.