DIAKALINSquare Street Gallery
DI- / (action)
AKAL / mind
DIAKALIN
Vernacular culture is rooted in action: to find ways, to make-do, and to improvise solutions. It is grounded in its environment and responsive to changes; an abundance of cool-green architecture and tarpaulins in the Philippines are among the many ways locals combat heat. Sensitive to finite resources, we reimagine new lives for old objects; single-use bottles become containers of multitudes and are eventually reimagined as decorations. Often, it is jaw and teeth, grit and perseverance. It is the people of Jakarta hauling cargo too heavy for their mopeds, intensely strapped on to secure their weight. But it is also the soft caress of a mosquito net or the assortment of chairs scattered around the alleyways, beaches, parks, and basements of Hong Kong. Aesthetics that arise from these actions, from the ways that people find solutions to continue working or how inhabitants of a place make their environments more hospitable, are thus often shared and familiar.
This group exhibition at Square Street Gallery seeks to capture not only the aesthetics but the ways of production and interaction with space that exists in the vernacular. The show looks to present works by artists who are observers and note-takers of the vernacular in their locales, as well as those whose processes possess the spirit of improvisation and groundedness in their environments.
The ideas that the exhibition seeks to address are greatly informed by Tropikalye (@tropikalye) a mutual co-learning resource initiated by artist Nice Buenaventura (@nice_buenaventura) focused on the “accidental intersections of aesthetics and the everyday in tropical and postcolonial Philippines,” and a zine of street photographs by Nugie Rian (@cerealmurderer) published by Satrio Arkan titled DIAKALIN (2023).
With special thanks to De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde Taft Campus (@dls.csb), Benilde Open(@benildeopen), and Art Informal (@artinformalgallery).