Pioneering Street Art In The Philippines With Venazir Martinez
Visual-anthropreneur, Venazir Martinez, has made a name for herself pioneering street art in the Philippines through community projects which highlight the Indigenous peoples of her country; exploring those who make up the diverse culture within the Philippines, though her project, Hila-Bana.
With grit and enthusiasm motivating her to live a life rich in purpose that elevates those around her, Venazir has elbowed her way into the art world, proving street art has a place in the Philippines, not only to beautify but also to educate.
Excited, humble and full of energy, Venazir joined the Street Art Unearthed podcast to talk about her Hila-Bana project and what it’s been like building a name for herself as a street artist in a country new to the art form, and how she navigates painting walls without the fancy equipment that street artists in the Western world enjoy.
Check out the podcast with Venazir Martinez, or read on for excerpts from the chat.
Introducing Baguio City, Philippines
Baguio City, Philippines. It’s far from our capital, Manila. It’s a four-hour drive. It’s kind of crowded. In a developing city like ours, really everywhere you go, it’s crowded unless you live in rural communities. So, here in the city, it’s really overpopulated. If you could see the houses here, it’s really enveloping the whole mountain areas. It’s beautiful.
Embracing Visual Anthropreneurship
The anthroproneur angle is actually an economic paradigm that isn’t just based in the trade of financial assets, which has been what the normal entrepreneur angle looks like, but actually, it’s about the growth of the real wealth in all its forms. Your business can make your life richer in many forms, like relationally, creatively, financially, of course, intellectually, emotionally. But you have designed your business to make your customer’s lives better. I call myself a visual-anthroproneur, so it’s mostly visual and mostly art. It also involves the anthropology and the visual anthropology side of business.
I actually got criticised with this title, visual anthroproneur, because many would think that I’m making money off of the cultures. See the thing there? It’s not actually like that. Basically, I’m creating a commercial culture that serves human beings to their full potential — meaning the language, the habitat, their rituals, the beliefs of service, and those who you serve are at the centre of your business culture, not money-making.
Basically, I create projects, I involve my subjects, and I immersively involve them. And when I say immersively involve them, like what I said, it’s overall growth. As an anthroproneur, I am concerned with building wealth into every facet of life. Be able to profit both for the customers, my clients, and for the communities. Basically, that’s the anthroproneur angle.
Out of the Studio and Into the Streets
I started doing this foundational art during 2016, that’s when I enrolled in a fine arts course at the University of the Philippines. I started doing the basics from dry media, to graphite, wet media, digital media, 3D media, so we all encapsulated those media. When I was in the third year in fine arts, our course required us to start conceptualising on our baby thesis. Eventually, I got tired of the same process of basically painting on a canvas and you were engineered inside a studio to work on whatever there is in your mind. We were engineered to conformity.
I decided to kick things up a notch by exploring our localities. And exploring our locality, meaning I would paint the town red. Paint street art, basically, and I believe that the key to innovation is by integrating different discourses and finding common ground.
Vandalising Her First Barangay
I actually vandalised a whole town, a whole “barangay” with this simple design called the Gayaman tattoo. It’s a centipede-like tattoo design from the Kalinga ethnic community. I decided to spray… actually I used stencil art for that, so it’s basically fast — about 3:00 a.m. I started vandalising.
It’s actually not beautifying yet. Being part of a social experiment, it has this academic writing with it. Because people are actually in vibe with the concept of what I did, because unknowingly they explored the concept of Gestalt’s theory of design — it’s a basic design principal used in the arts and design, and psychology. I basically run through the very concept of it, and I started integrating it into street art and how will people react to that kind of principal. It’s fun because unknowingly they’ve been practising Gestalt’s theory. But actually, they hunted down the vandals [artworks], and they’d explore, they’d followed the progressive vandal I did.
There’s this wide range of perception about having a cult formed around the locality, so they thought it’s a cult. Because a lot of people just think that this is where the Kalinga tattoo, Gayaman tattoo was derived from. But they don’t know what’s it about.
It’s actually from small to large pieces I did so they’d follow it around. As they went on with it, the vandals got longer, so the bigger they get, the clearer they have this vision in mind. At the end of the road, at the end of the locality, I made a huge mural about that design. It’s actually interconnected. This small idea got bigger, and they’d follow it around. At the back of their minds, this is just one artist who made this. So they followed it and voila at the end of the road there’s a huge mural explaining everything.
Sparking a Street Art Movement
It’s a supplementary learning tool for the community, and it’s nice to see that the people around the town got interested in vandals because it’s usually tags, it’s usually unfinished graffiti, things like that. Not many murals, not much public art you see here — a lot of people posted about these vandals [artworks].
It was positive. They’d follow around the visual tools I did, and it’s amazing how people would react to public art in public spaces.
Actually, the people around here told me I started a movement. After the two years of exploring street art, people then followed the movement, and they’d start to create murals around new spaces. Mostly government property, public properties.
I don’t know what to feel. It’s actually humbling, but at the same time, I really wanted to create more after the movement arose.
Elevating Indigenous Peoples with Hila-Bana
Basically, this project is an educative tool. And I call myself an educator, not as this underground street artist. The project is basically a framework of visual anthropology, psychology, and street art. The project Hila-Bana is derived from the one I told you about, the Gayaman tattoo. It’s interconnected as well.
Hila-Bana is actually a Tagalog term, Tagalog is one of the major languages here in the Philippines. It’s a term meaning temporary stitching or basking. So basically I’d paint the different ethnolinguistic identities of the region within the Cordillera region. So it’s this multiplicity of identities that I have to represent.
During the process, the two-year process I’ve been working on, I met a lot of individuals who are part of this descent, the ethnolinguistic group descent. Basically, my subjects are real people with real stories who are deeply rooted, who are cultural advocates of their respective tribal communities.
At the same time, this is where the anthropreneurship angle is taking place. So they’d be teaching me their culture, and at the same time, I’m giving them this representation they deserve.
The race of western culture really created a confusing mindset. What does it mean to be a Filipino? Our historical involvement of assimilation from foreign aggression created our weird identity. There’s this confusion that led our nation towards… I don’t know. We don’t really know everything about our indigenous practices, knowledge, systems. And it’s sad because the only… In Manila, if you happen to know Manila, there’s this centred mindset of what it means to be a Filipino and not knowing that there are other communities around the archipelago of the Philippines who needed to be represented. It’s actually adding another treasured identity along with the roster of our multifaceted identities.
Using street art, it’s part of the radicalisation I’m into. Filipino people, this homogenising mindset on our indigenous ways. It no longer… The story I’m telling through street art is that each tribe has its mesh in the region and it’s essential to include them in the popularisation of their core concepts of being a Filipino. Basically, that’s it. As well as the fluidity of our indigenous tribes and social spaces and archipelago and how beautiful it is to paint them all around the streets here in Baguio City because not all of our indigenous ethnolinguistic groups are centred here, and it’s nice to represent them.
Bringing Such a Project Into Being
The first time I went on with the project, it’s all on me. The paints, the… As a student, I didn’t have money. It’s pretty hard to execute… and to think in the international scene; I see a lot of materials that are well used: the scissor lift, the man lift, we don’t have those kinds of materials here to create murals. Basically, we have to build our own scaffolding.
In the Philippines, it’s actually no brainer. It’s just there. So based on my years of exploring the core of being a professional artist in the Philippines, I am happy to say that I’m still alive. Well, especially when you’re climbing scaffolding without a harness.
I’m actually doing a mural now. I’m starting on a huge wall. So we have to build another scaffolding. It has been a week and the scaffolding… I’m so impatient. But I understand the hardship, the workers, the men are going through, because they are only two men who are working for the scaffolding, and the wall is like 40 feet high.
It would be so cool… Just use a scissor lift or a man lift to paint the wall, but no, we don’t have that kind of utilisation here. So I really envy the artists you interviewed on the podcast, because I’ve been following them for a while and, oh my god, their materials are so advanced. I can only imagine how productive the city might be if we had that kind of utilisation.
Breaking the Mould For Creative Fulfilment
Growing up here in the Philippines, our community taught us that if we want to be successful, we should go to college and get a degree in law and be a doctor, be an engineer, anything that fits that conformed title. Little did they know that the concept of success is subjective. So us artists actually we believe in that kind of mindset, that success is subjective. So basically being happy and content to what you are doing for the rest of your life is basically the concept of success for us.
So it’s not just about the monetary stability or things like that. It really is about doing what makes your heart full and pumping.
Well, at first they’d [parents] be asking me to go get a job in the government. So I refused because I know that my art can get me to places. So I asked them to let me live independently here in Baguio City because my province is not here. I’m not from here, so I’m from afar. So I live independently here as an artist.
Living in a third world, or in a developing country where the people’s needs must first be met before moving toward self-actualisation, like in Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs we are stuck below the bottom line. The majority of the population here in the Philippines are uneducated. So it’s sad that the art world here is basically just going around in circles. It’s a small population, but the art world here is very extravagant.
Not a lot of artists know how to get funding because, as I said, a lot are uneducated. So it’s not valid. So they don’t know how to. Basically, my mission in life is to help disprove that, and the contemporary mindset of Filipinos on culture and the arts as an essential. So what I do is I engage with different communities using murals.
Changing Perceptions About Art
It’s hard to put in the minds of our people the significance of art. Because not everyone can, especially Filipinos, I don’t know; when we say art they’d be giving you a frown or, “Oh, really? Your job is an artist? Is that a job?”
Actually, we do community murals, so I created an outline for them to paint over. So it’s like a colouring book. I do that in rural communities, and it’s fun because I get to explain what the project was all about, and it’s lovely how they appreciate the process.
So yeah, basically it’s a tool for community building. So not just street art, it’s not just for my name’s sake, it’s for the community’s sake as well. It’s a democratic form of learning.
The process, it’s not that easy because not everyone is ready for that kind of form of learning. At least in my case, I get to influence a little population, and that little population that you influenced can later on project into something big. And I think that’s what’s amazing about the community building that I am doing. So it’s not necessarily influential from that point, but if you project to the future… It’s building a foundation. And yeah, it is a process. It eventually promotes visual-spatial intelligence. Not many learn that kind of education.
Street Art Meets UNESCO Creative City
When I first got into street art, I never thought that I’d be influencing the sectors that are not that into the arts. For example, the taxi driver. There are these taxi drivers, they usually don’t go into museums, into art exhibits, and they happen to be so interested in the concept of what I am doing, the concept itself. So it struck me that this guy who is willing to learn about what the street art is all about, that gave me the confidence to continue what I am doing, to further influence the people who are not enthusiastic about the arts, which is magical.
I’m planning to engage with the local government units here in the Philippines, that they support the cause and further develop the street arts here in Baguio City, Philippines. Street art, it creates a beautiful city. And it has this strong influence and character once you have a lot of street art in the community, and it’s a creative city. I think that Baguio City is a UNESCO creative city. A lot of our artists here are craftsman and traditional artists crafts. Our art goes way back.
Written with excerpts from the latest Street Art Unearthed podcast with Venazir Martinez.
Be sure to follow Venazir Martinez on her website, Facebook and Instagram.
