Logo Goethe-Institut

Philippines

|

6:00 PM-10:00 PM

Dealing in Distance Festival Opening

Festival Opening| Festival Opening

Dealing in Distance © Goethe-Institut

Dealing in Distance Manila © Goethe-Institut

The Dealing in Distance travelling art festival officially opens in Manila on January 30, marking the final stop of the festival’s journey in Southeast Asia. As part of the festival, an exhibition will be presented across participating venues for three days, from January 30 to February 1. On the opening day, January 30, the exhibition will be open from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Titled “Kamusta? / How Are You?”, the exhibition brings together works that reflect on distance, movement, and forms of connection. Entry to the exhibition and all opening programs is free.

Also on January 30, the opening program begins at 7:00 PM with a pre-opening special performance of Iba ’Yon Dagat by Jules Leaño, presented as a live Zoom performance at Chapterhouse. This happening performance sets the tone for the evening, engaging themes of separation and shared experience.

At 8:00 PM, opening remarks will take place, followed by Habang maikli ang kumot, matutong bumaluktot (While the blanket is short, learn to contort), an interactive performance responding to Zeline Seah’s Would You Come With Us?. Performed by Joee Mejias and Sasa Cabalquinto, with sound contribution from Anjeline De Dios, the performance will unfold at Gallery 119 and invite audiences into a shared space of movement, care, and presence.

The evening continues from 9:00 PM with socials and drinks at Gallery 119, accompanied by an experimental electronic set by Joee Mejias featuring samples and field recordings from travels across Southeast Asia and Germany. Guests are welcome to stay, listen, and connect as the opening night transitions into an informal gathering.

Dealing in Distance — Manila
Opening Program | January 30

6:00PM–9:00PM
Exhibition Opening
“Kamusta? / How Are You?”
Exhibition open across participating venues
Free entry

7:00PM–8:00PM
Iba ’Yon Dagat
Pre-opening special performance by Jules Leaño (via Zoom)
Venue: Chapterhouse

8:00PM–8:20PM
Opening Remarks
Venue: Gallery 119

8:20PM–8:50PM
Habang maikli ang kumot, matutong bumaluktot (While the blanket is short, learn to contort)
Interactive performance responding to Zeline Seah’s Would You Come With Us?
With Joee Mejias and Sasa Cabalquinto
Sound contribution by Anjeline De Dios
Venue: Gallery 119

9:00PM–10:00PM
Socials and Drinks with Electro Set
Experimental electronic set by Joee Mejias, featuring samples and field recordings from Southeast Asia and Germany
Venue: Gallery 119

About the Artists

  • Jules Leaño is a Scottish-Filipino artist based between Berlin and Scotland. With a background in experimental film and visual anthropology, her work explores the relationship between visual media, collective memory, and the various social and political realities we experience. Her work engages with the materiality of the moving image, utilising analogue film, digital video, expanded cinema installation and performance. Playing with the processes of destruction, preservation and reconstruction, her work explores the parallels that these images and processes may have of the reality they portray.

  • Sasa Cabalquinto's artistic practice aims to deepen the politics of the body toward personal and collective healing while acknowledging cultural and sociopolitical identities through ancestral remembering, indigenous ritual practices, and decolonial embodiment in the lens of Butoh movement.

  • Joee Mejias is a projection designer, producer, sound and performing artist from Antipolo. Joee’s music is a collage of acoustic and electronic instruments, field recording, noise and voice, piecing them together with visuals, stories, emotions.

  • Based in Kraków and Manila, Anjeline de Dios (b.1982) is a sound artist and researcher from the Philippines. Her practice of chant improvisation, critical writing, and workshop facilitation explores the voice and its cultural geographies of work and healing. Anjeline’s work has been featured in SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), ArtsEverywhere Festival (Guelph), University of Music and Performing Arts (Vienna), Studio Plesungan (Jogjakarta), and the UP Vargas Museum (Manila). She holds a PhD in Geography from the National University of Singapore.