The series of 12 photo-collages comes from a group exhibition Mga Batang Negros at Hiraya Gallery in August-September 1985. The series was included in an exhibition by the Concerned Artists of the Philippines-Negros (CAP-N) and Black Artists in Asian (BAA), Images of Negros at Asahi Gallery in Tokyo in December 1986. Although the original works did not return after the exhibition in Japan, their transparencies were saved and digitized as archival materials.
The series, Religion, Poverty, Revolution, was produced as a response to the widespread hunger in Negros in 1985. This sugar-producing region, once upon a time one of the richest islands in the archipelago, was struck by famine in the 1980s. The National Nutrition Council of the Philippines estimated that 40% – or about 350,000 – of the children under the age of 14 were malnourished during that period. In 1985, infant deaths soared to 67%. Most of the deaths were caused by severe malnutrition.
(Note: the late Archbishop Antonio Y. Fortich of the Archdiocese of Bacolod described Negros Island as a Social Volcano in the ‘80s.)
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 12 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 12 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 12 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 12 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 12 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 12 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 12 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 12 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 12 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 12 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 12 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 12 prints
Price upon request
Upon assuming the presidency, Ferdinand Marcos handed control of the sugar industry to his friend and crony Roberto Benedicto by making him the chief of the National Sugar Trading Corporation (NASUTRA). Benedicto gambled with the dwindling prices of sugar in the world market and lost big time. NASUTRA failed to pay the planters who then became unable to pay their loans and, in turn, were unable to pay their workers. With close to 200,000 sugar workers losing their job, hunger and death swept the island.
The other series, composed of 7 drawings with collages, comes from another CAP-N and BAA exhibition, Snap Images, at the AAB (Art Association of Bacolod) Gallery in May 1986. The exhibition was a response to the recently conducted Snap Elections in February 1986. Marred by electoral fraud from the government side, it led to the People Power Revolution that signaled the downfall of the dictator and the rise of Corazon Aquino to the presidency.
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 7 prints
Price upon request
The exhibition at the conservative AAB Gallery that occupied a property owned by the Bacolod city government almost failed to open as an overzealous city councilor called out the exhibit as “left-leaning,” and criticized by a known AAB founder as offensive and trashy. However, the city mayor, Jose ‘Digoy’ Montalvo Jr., allowed the exhibit to open but gave it a shorter run. Snap Images was sent to the Netherlands in 1987 through the initiative of the Dutch Section of the Association de Défense des Artistes (AIDA) to be shown at the Rotterdam Art Foundation. Again, the original works did not return, but transparencies were saved and digitized.
These two series are being reproduced as limited prints, as a reminder of Marcos’ hand in the deaths of countless victims of famine and the massacres of peasants and sugar workers in Negros, and to never allow this tragedy of social injustice to ever happen again.
— Norberto Roldan
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 7 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 7 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 7 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 7 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 7 prints
Price upon request
Limited edition of 25 prints per collage, numbered and signed
Sold as a set of 7 prints
Price upon request
About
Norberto Roldan’s (b. 1953, Roxas City, Philippines; lives and works in Manila, Philippines) practice is rooted in social and political issues. His installations, assemblages and paintings of found objects, text fragments and found images address issues surrounding everyday life, history and collective memory. His artistic process engages with ways in which material objects are re-appropriated in another context. He graduated with a degree in BA Philosophy from St. Pius X Seminary and took his BFA in Visual Communication from the University of Santo Tomas. He is represented in several landmark surveys like No Country: Contemporary Art for South/Southeast Asia, Solomon R Guggenheim Museum (2013); Between Declarations & Dreams: Art of Southeast Asia Since the 19th Century, National Gallery Singapore (2015); SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now, National Art Centre Tokyo (2017); and, Passion and Procession: Art of the Philippines, Art Gallery of New South Wales (2017).
Roldan founded Black Artists in Asia in 1986, a group with a socially and politically progressive practice. In 1990 he initiated VIVA EXCON (Visayas Islands Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference), the longest running biennale in the Philippines. He co-founded Green Papaya Art Projects in 2000 which remains to be the longest- running independent and multi-disciplinary platform in the country.