Last Friday, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has launched their “Project Edsa”. They have commissioned 10 professional Filipino and international artist to paint a large scale art works using the world’s first paint that reduces air pollution.
Under the project are the eight sites that were chosen along the 23 kilometer stretch of the Metro Manila’s busiest highway where in each artist was given the task to convert 1,000 square meter of public space into commissioned graffiti.
Marian Roces, project curator from Tao Incorporation said that the artists who joined the project were experts in dealing with outdoor art and painting.
She explained that Edsa is a very hard place to work with since it is not a gallery, there are a lot of people who throws their garbage anywhere, some split on the ground and there is a heavy traffic on the place. Roces said that they needed people who could understand what they call ‘architectonic space. “A public space is not just a wall” she added.
One of the artists commissioned by MMDA to do the painting is Jose Tence Cruz, a social realist painter and political cartoonist. He has presented its theme the marine-themed mural which is expected to finish in January 2012. It will be painted on Brgy. San Lorenzo near the Magallenes bus stop.
Other artists who were also involved in the project are; Baby Imperial, a graphical designer and Coco Anne from studio B+C, they are the one who will handle the art painting at the interchange pillars of Edsa-Ortigas. Meanwhile, Virgilio Aviado the Painter and printmaker would design public spaces within Rockwell and Ayala Avenue. While the two Brisbane-based artists Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan would make canvases out of walls between GMA-Kamuning and Quezon Avenue MRT stations.
Also in the list is the award winning advertising agency TBWA who would have free artistic rein on walls at Boni Avenue MRT station near the Guadalupe Bridge. Neal Oshima, Japanese-American artist is the one given the task to bring his art work the tall pylons of LRT from Monumento to Balintawak. Dutch-Indonesian artist Erika Tan would work on the posts in Baclaran, and lastly Tapio Snellman an Finnish architect will cover Cubao-Aurora’s underp(–foul word(s) removed–).
In the statement release by MMDA Chair Francis Tolentino he said this project is urban renewal schemes where in artworks that will be painted by the artist has a fresh antipollution strategy.
The whole series took on professional help, which is a far cry from the random squares and circles previously known as MMDA Art that turned into the metro’s eyesores.