Cebu Design Week mounts 1St Visayas Art Fair on Nov 25 to 28

MINERVA BC NEWMAN

CEBU CITY – The First Visayas Art Fair kicks of today, November 25 which gathers the creatives from the three Visayas regions and the National Capital Region at Montebello Garden Hotel in Cebu City, initiated by the National Commission for Culture and Arts (NCCA) with the Cebu Design Week Inc.(CDWI), Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas (OPAV), Sacred Heart School for Boys Batch 1985 Foundation, and the Cebu Furniture Industries Foundation. (CFIF).

The 1^st Visayas Art Fair kicks off with the launching of two landmark multi-sectoral projects for Cebu UNESCO City of Design: The Creative City Playbook and the Design Cebu Gateway on November 25 and the rest of the events continues until November 28 featuring diverse set of participants and artisanal makers to celebrate the creativity and craftsmanship of the Visayas Region.

The Creative City Playbook by Thames International Business School is a toolkit that can be used by localities to use creativity for socio-economic development.  It is a 9-point document that outlines the core tenets and intents of the Philippine Creative Cities Network that aims to nurture and leverage the country's creative industries to drive inclusive, innovative, and sustainable growth in the Philippines.

The Design Cebu Gateway, a project of the UNESCO City of Design and Cebu Creative Network, is a repository of what Cebu, a UNESCO City of Design, has to offer.

The Sacred Heart School-Jesuits Batch 85 will again hold the ArTabang 4: Silent Auction. ArTabang is an art auction to benefit various disaster relief efforts and art organizations all over the Philippines. The bidding starts on November 25 at 6 pm and ends on November 26 at 9 pm.

The next three days, from November 26 to 28, will be open to the public and will be full of various activities.

These activities include the Art Fair Exhibition--the main event of the fair, the all-women exhibition 'By No Means,' Tito Cuevas In Bold Strokes, an exhibition by the father of abstract expressionism in Cebu, and the Makers' Pop-Up Market that will showcase art and design in various forms.

 The Kalibutan Project of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI-7) is supported by the Design Center of the Philippines will also join the fair.  The project is the 2021 version of the One Town, One Product Program (OTOP) in Central Visayas with the participation of a select group of product and communication designers. It is an initiative to address specific problems that MSMEs are facing during this pandemic.

Another special activity is the launching of the “I Love Filipino Design Activity Book” on November 26. The activity book features works from 19 prestigious names in the Philippine design industry such as Happy Garaje, Kenneth Cobonpue, Vito Selma, and Debbie Palao.

The book will be sold after the launching. It is a project spearheaded by the CDW Over-All Chairperson, Maria Luisa Booth. This passion project is CDW's take to make Filipino design more interactive and approachable to everyone.

The book will showcase the Philippines’ wide array of unique pieces of functional designs, paintings, and things that we see in our day-to-day lives. The book's mission is to spread awareness and appreciation of our culture and the design and work that comes behind it, Booth said.

Multi-awarded designer and artist Kenneth Cobonpue will put up his first immersive light installation Curio starting on November 26 while Chocolate Queen Raquel Toquero-Choa of the Chocolate Chamber will have several sessions to showcase how cacao can be transformed into various products.

 A fashion show will also be staged on Friday with the Cebu Wear Fashion Show to feature Miss Cebu candidates and celebrate Hablon, the woven fabric of Cebu as seen and felt in the designs by Dexter Alazas.

Diverse live open-air performances in the forms of acting and musical numbers will also be featured during the fair.  Art talks, art competitions and demonstrations will also be done all over the venue, as well as special participation from the Jose Joya Arts Awardees and professors of UP-Cebu.

The fair will also feature several special settings from small to larger-than-life-sized sculptures, crochet bombing of the beautiful trees in Montebello, among others.

All guests, exhibitors, and staff must be vaccinated. Non-vaccinated individuals will have to pay and undergo a COVID-19 antigen test onsite and must receive a negative result.

The influx of people will be limited, and the capacity will be based on the regulations of the COVID-19 Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) that will be implemented during the time.

Guests will be charged P100 for regular admission and P50 for students. There will also be a 3-day pass promo of ₱250. Tickets can be bought on this link: Visayas Art Fair Tickets

Guests who are 15 years old and below must be accompanied by a fully vaccinated adult. (Photos: CDW FB/Google Images)