City of Bawal

Brisa Amir, Datu Arellano, Kristoffer Ardena, Jan Balquin, Lesley-Anne Cao, Miggy Inumerable, Czar Kristoff, Celine Lee, Cris Mora, Indy Paredes, Mark Salvatus, Jel Suarez, Jose Tong.

No jaywalking. No trespassing. No littering. No loitering. No loading and unloading. No parking. No U-turn. No texting and driving. No drinking and driving. No entry. No guns allowed. No smoking. No illegal vendors. Not for hire. Post no bill. Do not blow horn. Obey speed limit. Do not delay. Obey god. Slow down. Bite me. Gago, call me!

How to grasp the everyday minutiae of the city of bawal?

Someone discarded a slipper on the street. Did she or he return home on one bare foot? What will happen to the discarded slipper? A pothole is so wide and deep, can it swallow an automobile or dead bodies whole? An ambulance is stuck in traffic, who prays for the passenger-patient to reach the hospital in time? Why do security guards yield shotguns? Do they ever have to draw their weapons? Why does it smell like piss right next to the bawal umihi signage? Who is the ‘we’ in the neon 'in god we trust'? Who writes of revolt and revolution on the city’s walls? Who reads these messages? How to respond?

The city of bawal – the seemingly trivial and futile, the fragments… Can bawal be made to stutter? And open bawal up to a different realm, an othered realm of perplexing possibilities. This becoming, stuttering becoming, is set in the messy, mesmerizing, chaotic, cacophonic city – Metro Manila that is.

City of Bawal opens on Saturday, the 27th of April 2019 at 1335 MABINI Karrivin plaza.