Intrinsic Genius of the Indigenous
A culmination of National Artist Kidlat Tahimik’s multidisciplinary oeuvre, INDIO-GENIUS: 500 Taon ng Labanang Kultural (1521-2021) battles for the soul of the Filipino legacy through the cosmic sensibility of the katutubo.
Written by Pio Angelo Ocampo
Photos by Kim Albalate
March 14, 2023
Installation views of Kidlat Tahimik’s INDO-GENIUS: 500 Taon ng Labanang Kultura (1521-2021)
Equipped with materials and pieces that confronted the colonial sins of the Palacio de Crystal in Madrid, ‘Father of Philippine Indie Cinema’ Kidlat Tahimik (Eric Oteyza de Guia) morphs his assemblages for its homecoming at the National Museum of Anthropology in Manila. In this exhibit, Tahimik weaved organic objects into stories in the same ideology as he did in his films; such as in Balikbayan #1 (Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III), where he expressed his sariling dwende— the inner-spirit guide— sailing through the ocean of collective memory, pushing the winds of imagination, and the 1977 classic Mababangong Bangungot (Perfumed Nightmare) which Susan Sontag declared “makes one forget months of dreary movie going, for it reminds one that invention, insolence, enchantment— even innocence— are still available in film.”
Occupying two floors of museum space, the assemblages are less constricted than it was in Palacio de Crystal. Components from its past iterations now challenge the neoclassical architecture of the National Museum of Anthropology, superimposing the materials of the katutubo craftsmen against the Western modernity of the edifice. From the towering battle scenes in Mactan to the massive navigating boat of Enrique de Malacca, each work cleverly engages its spectators in what Alice Guillermo calls a ‘total sense,’ where form and meaning are fused in helping us realize ourselves as total and sensitive persons in both our individual and societal struggles. It somehow transforms the museum into a space for indio-geniuses, inculcating cultural self-confidence in its Filipino spectators.
Mentioned several times by Tahimik himself throughout his work and in past interviews, the term ‘indio-genius’ stems from his close friend and mentor Lopes Na-Uyac— an indigenous elder of the Hapao village in Hungduan, Ifugao, who was known for reviving the ancient watershed practice called “pinugo.” Na-Uyac pronounced the word indigenous as ‘indi-genius,’ which Tahimik thought was more apt, knowing the intrinsic genius of the indigenous. The indio-genius then is one who, like Tahimik and Na-Uyac, has the ability to live in harmony and cooperation with nature— one who is grounded by his roots, whose identity persisted throughout the 500 years of Western consciousness that taught us to be existing as less than our exploiters.
The 80-year-old Tahimik, through INDIO-GENIUS, affirms his younger self in Perfumed Nightmare who rejected the “cocoon of American dreams that the Philippines had been living in as a country.” His messages throughout the decades remain consistent, and as he reiterated when asked about his surrealist documentary all those years ago in the publication Senses of Cinema: “the ‘perfumed nightmare’ refers to a seductive aspect of modern culture enticing us to be like our colonial masters while discarding and even throwing into the garbage bin the precious holistic knowledge of our forefathers. In this national obsession, the perfume of seduction eventually begins to sour… My film was… trying to question what one country’s culture, when imported wholesale, can do to another’s.”
In a conversation with Art+ Magazine, National Museum’s deputy director-general Jorell Legaspi reveals how Tahimik, or “Tatay Kidlat”, transformed his conceptual art practice, through his ‘kapa-kapa’ method, into the indio-genius opus currently on display.
ARTPLUS: What material pieces are added in this iteration on what seems to be a culmination of Kidlat Tahimik’s visual creations? How did it evolve from its previous space in Madrid?
JORELL: Components and different parts of this exhibition, including the different assemblages and installations, have been shown in different places around the world. Even here in the Philippines, places such as the Sharjah Biennale, the Ibagiw Festival in Baguio, Arete in Ateneo, and Art Fair Philippines. But most recently at the Palacio de Crystal in Madrid, and that exhibition so far was the biggest of all the assemblages that he’s ever done in the past— combining all the different works he’s done during his lifetime as a multidisciplinary artist— that was pretty much the biggest, and it successfully attracted 500,000 visitors during the six months that it was up on display in Palacio de Crystal— it was from November 2021 to March 2022.
Somehow, during that period, our director general and Kidlat Tahimik got in contact and thought that it would be a good idea to stage it here in [the] National Museum so Filipinos get to see the works that were on display in Madrid. And Tatay Kidlat, he didn’t expect that that opportunity would come— and so he took the challenge and installed it here at the National Museum. But what made it more challenging and exciting at the same time, because it was a bigger space, bigger than the Palacio de Crystal— which is basically just one dome— was the two floors of this building to work with, so he created new sections for the exhibition. So, as I mentioned earlier, previously it was the Madrid exhibition that was the biggest exhibition of Tatay Kidlat so far, now this is where you get its biggest assemblage, [and] remnants of the different installations that were seen in those places I mentioned earlier… as well as in his art space in Baguio in Ili-Likha, so there’s the vibe of Ili-Likha, almost as if he brought Baguio here. And he worked with the same people, the same craftsmen, the team that he works very closely with in creating these different installations.
ARTPLUS: For Tatay Kidlat, what is historically contained in the term “INDIO-GENIUS”? What do you think would be its legacy?
This exhibition is called INDIO-GENIUS, ‘500 taon na labanang kultural (1521-2021.)’ It basically explores the questions of: ano nga ba ang pagkataong Pilipino and saan tayo nanggaling, because for 500 years we’ve struggled culturally in terms of identifying who we are as a people because we were influenced by so many outside factors since the West “discovered” us. And because we were colonized, and in a way we experienced the “indio-zation” of our race, nagkaroon ng labanang kultural sa ating sariling pagkatao, maraming nabura sa ating katutubong kaalaman… To take it a step further, paying homage to the transnational Filipinos of the 19th century, like the Illustrados, and even before the Illustrados through someone like say, Enrique de Malacca, who was the interpreter and slave of the voyagers that were led by Ferdinand Magellan during the 16th-century “discovery” of the Philippines, (the first person to circumnavigate the world)— if you use the word INDIO, which used to be the derogatory term to describe the sinasakupan, the “colonized,” or the “uncivilized” indigenous peoples of the Philippines— if you combine INDIO with genius, you have INDIO-GENIUS, in a way celebrating the indigenous intelligence and indigenous intuition of our ancestors. [Tatay Kidlat wants] to celebrate the concept of kapwa, not only the kapwa in the community, you are also nakikipagkapwa sa kalikasan— sa mga biyaya na binibigay ng kalikasan sayo, in order for you to be able to do what you need to do.
Tatay Kidlat believes in cosmic connections that give you an opportunity to create different outcomes and it kind of guides him into thinking that everything you do will end the way it’s supposed to. You may already know that Tatay started out as a theater student in his undergraduate, and then when he became the president of the student council of UP, that kind of signaled him into thinking about a more “serious” career track, so he got into economics. He worked as an international economist based in Paris and then after not even a year, he felt the calling again to revisit his artistic sensibilities and question where he is at that point in his life. And again, through cosmic occurrences— the accidents which weren’t accidents that he encountered through his life at the time, he was able to get into filmmaking and really showcase to the world the very unique, often really witty, often humorous but at the same time really intelligent way of thinking… of Tatay Kidlat— a very unique style to his storytelling— and that’s how he was initially known as an artist filmmaker and as the Father of Philippine Independent Cinema.
And then over the years, we start to see him develop as a conceptual artist where his works are starting to take a 3D form. Apart from understanding and appreciating his messages on film, now we are able to see big installations [which] stems from katutubong kaalaman, the deep-rooted sense of being one with nature, being able to adapt to your environment, and being able to listen to what mother nature is saying to you so you could actually live your life sustainably, live life with balance, and that’s what Tatay Kidlat wants to promote through his work… [His legacy is in] his trust in the cosmos, it’s his trust in the environment, in nature, that makes him such a gifted National Artist.
ARTPLUS: As the name reminds us, it’s been 500 years since the Spanish first set foot on our shores, yet we are still dealing with postcolonialism in our contemporary life. What can we as modern Filipinos do in our everyday lives to call upon our own “indio-genius”?
JORELL: If it’s a question of how we become more inspired to become proud of being a Filipino, I think we should be more participatory in anything that happens in our community that has something to do with celebrating our heritage. As simple as coming to our museums would be a great start. Regardless of what your interests are— if you’re into fine arts, if you’re into ethnography or archaeology or if you’re into natural history— there’s always a way to tap into those resources but you really need to want it, because there’s always an excuse not to do something. So it really starts within, like what Tatay Kidlat did— he left a comfortable life, as a big economist in Europe to become this one-of-a-kind artist that has a very unique voice that perhaps a lot of Filipinos should try to emulate.
Kidlat Tahimik’s ‘INDIO-GENIUS: 500 Taon ng Labanang Kultural (1521-2021)’ is on display at the National Museum of Anthropology in Manila until March 2023.
Author’s bio note:
Pio Angelo Ocampo graduated from De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde’s Arts Management program where he served as president (A.Y. 2019-2020) of the program’s home organization. His practice stems from arts and culture writing, research, project management, and curatorial collaborations. He is currently based in Madrid, Spain.
