SILENT CONCERT
Ground Zero, Ateneo de Zamboanga University
AM+DG 2016
Start of Installation: 18 July 2016
Silent Concert is an
impromptu creative response of the Jesuit artist Jason Dy to the recent fire
that razed Brebeuf Gym to the ground last 7 July 2016 and severely affected the
other adjacent structures such as the College Building and the Sauras Building.
As a former regent at the Ateneo de Zamboanga (ADZU) High
School in 2013-2015, Dy has an affinity to the gym and to the university band.
Some of his students were band members and he heard their live performances as
they played the school hymn Fly High or
the city’s traditional song Zamboanga
Hermosa. The gym had been a place where his students were inducted as
leaders competed in sports with other classes, showcased their creative
talents, and where their parents witnessed their growth as they
participated in various co-curricular and extra-curricular activities.
This affinity is not limited only to the artist, but
generally shared by the administrators, faculty, staff, alumni, and students
alike since it was built in 1949. As how Fr. Karen San Juan, SJ, current
president of ADZU characterized the gym in his appeal letter, “[i]t has been
considered the home that formed and nurtured their Ateneo soul and identity.”
Collaborating with Mr. Mario Rodriguez, director of the ADZU
Physical Plant Office, together with the physical plant team and contracted
construction workers in the production of the work, Dy discussed with them the
concept of the art installation. Though the brunt debris in the Ground Zero
intimidated and overwhelmed him during his ocular site visit, he managed to
wrestle with how to appropriate the materials into an in situ art installation.
Intuitively, Dy disregarded the initial idea of segregating
them according to their texture, function, shape, material as well as sizes,
and arranging them in a grid-like pattern on the cleared up and washed concrete flooring of the former gym. It would have resembled a scrapyard of raw materials
for recycling and re-use. Conscious of how this burnt debris was constructed
and assembled to provide spaces for incubating ideas, nurturing talents, and
realizing potentials, he conceived a hybrid arrangement of three stylized
concentric arcs that hinted at both a nest and an orchestra.
The first arc is the piled debris supported by varying
heights of scaffolding reaching up to a height of ten feet. The cascading assortment
consisted of charred wooden posts, warped corrugated GI sheets, rusting air
conditioner units, twisted window metal grille, destroyed cooking stoves, burnt
constitutional law reference books, tangled wires, exploded parts of the computer
hardware and other burnt debris are woven together to resemble an unfinished nest that descends along with the carefully arranged parts of the corroding bronze music
instruments. This arc provides a backdrop to the two smaller arcs, namely, the
fan-like assembly of the reconstructed music stands that support themselves as
well as the semi-circular row of distorted metal armchairs in the progression of
rising or falling off onto the ground. Unlike the need for the public
interaction to re-stand a fallen music stand toppled down by the occasional gust of wind, the armchairs are stable yet dynamic. If these two smaller arches either pointed to
the hard reality of utter destruction or the prospect of re-construction, the main arch proposes the cooperative paradigm of rebuilding the infrastructure
reflective of the indestructible spirit of providing the quality site of learning,
creativity and growth. As Fr. San Juan, SJ would put it in his homily during
the Solidarity Mass the day after the fire broke out, “[w]e shall rebuild and
we shall rebuild together.” Like the lined-up assortment of microphone and
music stands, wobbly yet sturdy, installed near the main road, the efforts of
fundraising may be a daunting task but through concerted efforts, the rebuilding of ground zero would not be far off.
When asked by his former student regarding his motivation for
creating this art installation, Dy answered indirectly, “even when the
instruments are destroyed, the music lives on.” This re-echoes the voice of the
ADZU president said, “[a]n icon was burned, but the Ateneo animo, or spirit, shall continue
burning.” This art installation presents a stubborn insistence on creating
meaning out of the fire rubbles that could either be just a cathartic
expression of the unfortunate event or an affirmation of the indomitable communal spirit of igniting a passion for rebuilding from the embers and ashes.
***
To help in the fundraising campaign of the university,
photographs of the installation and the distorted metal armchairs taken by Dy will
be printed on silver paper, exhibited, and sold in collaboration with the ADZU
Physical Plant, The Gallery of the Peninsula and Archipelago, and the Office of
ADZU Communications Office. For more information, please contact Ms. Tricia
Rubio Drapiza-Manulong, Mr. Mario Rodriguez or Ms. Leah Murillo Panaguiton.
Special thanks to Fr. Karel San Juan, SJ, and the ADZU Jesuit Community.
