The Negros Museum in Bacolod City will host the exhibit “Places of Memory, Places of the Heart: Plazas in the Philippines”, curated by environmental planner and landscape architect Paulo Alcazaren, with the opening program on April 25.
The exhibit, which will run until July 31, “highlights the history and trajectory of town and city plazas in the Philippines, as documented by the curator, over the last 15 years,” the Filipino Heritage Festival Inc. said in a post.
Included in this exhibit are plazas from Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. Also featured are notable plazas of Bacolod and Negros Occidental’s third district cities and towns – Talisay, Silay, Victorias, E. B. Magalona, and Murcia.
“The takeaway from the exhibit is an appreciation of the spatial aspects of our heritage as well as the importance of conserving whole sites and not just individual buildings,” Alcazaren’s curatorial notes showed.
“For modern expansions, we need to relearn, from the lessons of the traditional model, how to create new plazas – ennobling spaces that create a true sense of place and a site for future memories,” he added. “All those who live in our towns and cities need a central place, its identifiable heart. Without this heart, there is no vibrant public life, communal identity or civic pride.”
The Filipino Heritage Festival Inc. said that as a city planner and landscape architect, Alcazaren’s work has taken him all over the country, and each visit gave an opportunity to record the remaining heritage of plazas.
The organizers said the exhibit will open at 10 a.m. Thursday, to be followed by a curator’s talk, and a workshop. ||
