Paul Arenas

About the Visayas Biennale 2010

Conceived as the successor of the biannual Visayan Islands Visual Arts Exhibition-Conventions (VIVA ExCon), held since 1990, the Visayas Biennale 2010 continues the project of constructing and construing the artistic community of Visayans as part of the move to decentralize artworld power from the Philippine metropolitan center of Manila, and encourage the production and display of more diverse artistic works that speak of the social, economic, political, and aesthetic concerns of the "margins".

Since its inception, there has always been a need to professionalize the standards of exhibitions, workshops, and other forms of artistic knowledge-formation and modes of circulation in VIVA ExCon that enables the Visayan artist to articulate their own identities and positionalities as members of an interconnected and networked art industry. The holding of the Visayas Biennale 2010 aims to actualize this realization of artistic professionalization by integrating the various globally-accepted standards of artistic knowledge-formation and empowerment: the Art Fair which allows marginalized artists to retail their goods directly to patrons; this international conference that brings together scholars to discuss the state of the arts in the Visayas; curated exhibitions based on relevant themes, forms, and concepts that affect the everyday lives of Visayans and Filipinos; and artist workshops and congresses.

It is hoped that future iterations the Visayas Biennale will continue this search for excellence and relevance to the profession of "being an artist", and energize the local as an integral element in the construction/construal of the national, as well as the global.


Palmy Pe-Tudtud

Project Director
Visayas Biennale 2010