Cultural event (Issue 14, 2009)
Works from Ateneo Art Gallery that were displayed at La Trobe Art Museum
Close relationships between La Trobe and Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines go ten years back when Professor Dennis Altman recommended a partnership to the Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe. The agreement includes students and scholarly exchanges, as well as the promotion of research collaboration.
One of the most successful parts of the collaboration has been the exchange with the Ateneo Art Gallery, which is recognised as having one of the finest private modern art collections in South-East Asia. As part of the event, the La Trobe Art Museum is hosting the Ateneo exhibition ‘Fraction of an Intangible Whole: Philippino Social Realism in the Ateneo Gallery Collection’. The exhibition was curated by Lisa Chikiamco, who opened the exhibition with a lecture.
Part of the delegation’s program, three Ateneo writers attended for the first time the Mildura Writer’s Festival and they also gave a poetry and creative writing reading at the Bundoora campus. Cyan Jugo-Abad, Exie Abola and Rofel Brion are all accomplished Philippino writers, as well as Ateneo academics.
‘I really enjoyed the warmth of the people I met here, I felt I connected with almost everyone I met here, it was a rare treat to participate in this festival,’ concluded Rofel Brion, whose first book won the National Book Award in the Philippines.
The Bendigo Campus was included in the event’s program, hosting of a contemporary photography exhibition and colloquium on 21 July at the View Street Gallery. The exhibition featured many Pinoy photographers and it would be travelling to USA and Sydney.
The Philippines Australia Studies Centre at La Trobe (PASC) is the joint venture between the two universities that monitors projects such as the art exchange program, the diaspora study or the student exchange. For more information visit the PASC website.
