Everywhere There You Are, I — 2014, 2015
Everywhere There You Are, II (Sa Langit Mong Bughaw/In Your Skies of Blue) — 2016, 2017
a collaborative site-specific art installation by artists
Ling Quisumbing Ramilo & Wawi Navarroza
Villa Malasimbo, Puerto Galera, Mindoro
for Malasimbo Arts & Music Festival
———————————————————
ARTISTS’ STATEMENT
The vibrance of “Everywhere There You Are” is directly inspired by sound and movement—as in progression in music, and also of physical movement, of travel and journey-making. The distinct fluorescent tangerine of the work echoes the life jackets taken during trips at sea, on bancas and boats everyone takes almost as a rite of passage before one hits the sandy shores of Mindoro. The Malasimbo seawind is also a primary element highlighted by the piece, as it plays an essential role not only as a conductor of sound but makes the work dynamic as it sways, swirls, billows and collapse with the breeze. The work is loosely based on a soundwave from "Ugnayan" (Connection), a composition from acclaimed Filipino avant garde musician José Maceda. We meant for the artwork to stand as an orchestra of fabric that morphed into many shapes and meanings. Fire at night during the concerts; iridescent anemone during the day; a field of abstractions. On the vernacular, the site became a landmark people went to record, mark, and historicize their Malasimbo experience.
In 2016, we reimagined the memorable piece—which for many visitors have been a defining soft monument to the annual event—with the lyrical counterpoint and poetic gesture of graduating from orange to blue.
“Sa Langit Mong Bughaw" is a shift to what lies at the other extreme of the spectrum. Blue, a complimentary to orange, we turn our attention to what is also essential to music: the listening to the silences, the rests. The title is lifted directly from the Philippine national anthem (translated “In Your Skies of Blue”), a nod and direct reference to a significant fundamental of music giving tribute to heartland. We wanted to focus the shift into the powerful and all-encompassing presence of sea and sky, illustrated in this work, as it contracts the distances and unites in the horizon where blue meets blue.
Wawi Navarroza and Ling Quisumbing Ramilo
Manila, Philippines