ART & CULTURE
“
BenCab’ s
Museum is a vault and a vessel preserving our country’ s art and cultural identity, safely transporting it from one generation to the next.”
BenCab at his most comfortable gesture in his most comfortable place, his garden. er with Baguio Arts Guild, BenCab created the“ Art Aid”, an art workshop for traumatized children. They also established an art auction done in Manila called“ Artquake”, which raised funds to help victims of the tragedy.
He also co-established the“ Tam Awan Village” in Pinsao, Baguio City, which host free stay for CRIBS( an NGO that takes care of abandoned and battered children) and conduct healing therapies through art.
He has also adopted an abandoned rice terraces in Bangaan, Cordillera, Ifugao. Since the younger generation had gone to the cities and don’ t want to plant rice anymore, no one took care of the terraces. He plans to rehabilitate and make it productive again which is an admirable act on his part.
Just last year at Muntinlupa City Jail, he gave a free talk accompanied by a slideshow about his art to strike inspiration on inmates taking up Fine Arts in the city jail. On the same year, BenCab Art Foundation started to help build a classroom at Gilbert Semon Elementary School, a small but tidy school near BenCab Museum, which happens to be in dire need of a new classroom to accommodate more kids.
With these accounts, I see BenCab’ s Museum as a vault and a vessel preserving our country’ s art and cultural identity, safely transporting it from one generation to the next. His 40-year-collection of art pieces from different artists, the“ Bulol” from Cordillera’ s tribes, and his personal works, are clear illustrations of how our identity can thrive in a society continuously being coated by imported influences.
At times we celebrate performances of Filipinos making it big internationally because we want a permanent imprint in the world and we believe this will give us that recognition, but why not support our local artists. They draw an uninfluenced Filipino art worthy of international acclaim the way BenCab draws his legacy in helping people in the best way he knows how. •
Cel, Vina, and Naneth at the lobby, BenCab’ s staff are very accommodating, you’ ll never lose yourself in the three storey museum.
7107 ISLAND TRAVEL 57