![Martha Atienza](https://climateshabitatsenvironments.art/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/fi-equation-of-state-2019-installation-view-courtesy-of-silverlens-17-100x67.jpg)
Martha Atienza, Equation of State II Rhizophora stylosa, 2019. 24 mangroves, water, steel, seabul, plywood, nylon, rope, pulleys, filter, pump, arduinos, trapal, transformers, relays, car wipers, wood, pvc, zinc, led lights, wiring, cement. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and Silverlens.
Projects
Our Islands 11°16'58.4"N 123°45'07.0"E
From the artist:
"Our Islands 11°16'58.4"N 123°45'07.0"E" is a subaquatic procession of men in bastardized costumes from the religious to the iconic, from the Santo Niño to Philippine boxer Manny Pacquiao. They are fully submerged, in a trance, pushing themselves slowly against the sea and its shifting currents. At the head is a man dressed as the Santo Niño, and carrying a doppelgänger statue. The Santo Niño is the child Jesus, Patron of the islands. The man raises the miraculous statue repeatedly, slowly, leading the march.
This work is Atienza's submarine translation of her terrestrial Anito (2009 -), a film annually updated, combining the colorful Ati-atihan fiesta as entertainment with pressing social issues. The Ati-atihan was an ancient (pre-Austronesian migration, 10 000 BC) animistic festival of the Aetas, Christianized by colonial influence. In contemporary times, it is an annual procession of victories and disasters, dreams and protests; violence -- both natural and political-- is part of the spectacle.
Our Islands is the new Ati-atihan: the relationship between the sea, the islands, history, and social transfigurations. In this underwater Ati-atihan, compressor divers of the community join in the procession. Reenacting current events - Manny Pacquiao, the Papal visit, labor migration, the war on drugs, sea levels rising and marine life dying - participants assume other personas creating a slow and silent underwater protest. A protest against our global climate change and our local cultural decay. Inspired by their ancestors, they are powerful, god-like, mad.
Together with Atienza's community of fisherfolk with Madridejos, Bantayan Island, Our Islands is created as a reminder of the state of our planet. Facing these realities, we also deal with the loss and rediscovery of our own culture.
Equation of State II (Rhizophora Stylosa)
"In Equation of State, Martha Atienza examines the interaction between humans and the environment, documenting both their decline and resiliency. It is a tense relationship, expressed in the material and immaterial. In this new work, Atienza presents a survey of Bantayan Island’s coastline, highlighting climate change from a layered perspective. Referring to an equation that calculates the relationship between variables and a given set of physical conditions, Equation of State is an attempt to make sense of warming oceanic temperatures and subsequent rising sea levels.
Churches, bangka’s, basketball courts, sea walls and houses in various states of decay. All are observed as the camera slowly traverses the island group’s coast. Alongside this single channel video, is a 3-channel piece depicting fishermen as an allegory for resiliency as they struggle in rough waters. Surrounding the video works are nineteen mangrove plants whose movements are mechanically manipulated. An Arduino programmed mechanism pulls the plants in and out of water-filled pools, artificially mimicking tidal patterns that in their natural state would submerge the mangroves 30% of their lifespan. Known to thrive in warm waters, mangroves possess the capacity to store carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The Rhizophora stylosa, the most commonly planted mangrove species in the Philippines, illustrates private and public sector intervention of ecosystems.
Through the documentation of Bantayan Island’s coastal conditions, both human and environmental, and the recontextualizing of mangrove plants, Equation of State creates an experience which asks us to question environmental management and socio-economic development."[1]
[1] Text written by Jake Atienza
Biography
![Martha Atienza](https://climateshabitatsenvironments.art/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/marthaatienza-profileimage-100x125.png)
Martha Atienza (b. 1981, Philippines) and is currently living and working between Bantayan Island, Philippines, and Rotterdam, Netherlands. Atienza's art installation and video art practices delve into sociological explorations of her immediate environment in the Philippines. Her work often collaborates with diverse individuals, including residents of Bantayan Island, addressing themes of environmental change, displacement, cultural loss, governance, and socio-economic disparities. The immersive capacity of her installations, incorporating mechanical systems and technology, serves as a platform for generating critical discourse.
Born into a family of seafarers, Atienza's works also address issues of migration, identity, labour, and environmental degradation related to the seafaring community. Her engagement with the fishing community in Madridejos on Bantayan Island demonstrates her commitment to using art as a means of addressing local issues with global significance.
She embodies a unique artistic perspective shaped by her dual cultural heritage—born to a Dutch mother and a Filipino father. Her constant oscillation between these two worlds has profoundly influenced her artistic focus. Her video installations, often described as snapshots of reality, merge observations from her Filipino and Dutch perspectives, creating fictions framed within exhibitionary devices. Atienza's art challenges conventional notions of identity and voyeurism, and she actively explores contemporary art as a tool for social change and development.
Atienza's international recognition includes winning the Baloise Art Prize in Art Basel Switzerland in 2017 for her video work "Our Islands 11°16'58.4_N 123°45'07.0_E". She has been awarded the Ateneo Art Awards in Manila and the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artist Award. Her participation in biennales and triennials, such as the Istanbul Biennial and the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, reflects the global relevance of her work.
Martha Atienza. Courtesy the artist.
Conferences
Transformative Currents for Action in the Pacific Ocean
Local Matters: Martha Atienza and Yee I-Lann on Communities, the Environment, and Art
Inundation: Art and Climate Change in the Pacific
Climate Futures #1 Conference: Bantayan Island: An Island in Transition, 2 December 2022
Climate Futures #1 Cultures, Climate Crisis and Disappearing Ecologies, Conference, 1-3 December 2022, Jakarta, Indonesia
Conceived by NTU Centre for Contemporary Arts Singapore, in partnership with KONNECT ASEAN and in-kind support of Goethe-Institut Singapore and Jakarta.
Conference Presentation: Bantayan Island: An Island in Transition, 2 December 2022
In the Visayas region of central Philippines, the fishing communities of the Bantayan Islands have, for decades, borne the brunt of detrimental, government-endorsed commercial enterprises. Under the guise of promised economic prosperity, the group of islands has, in recent years, been increasingly subject to the interests of the private sector. From a bill removing Bantayan’s Wilderness area which made way for the privatisation of land and the formation of the North Cebu Economic Zone, to the push to allow foreigners to have 100% ownership of assets, a neoliberal agenda continues to impose coercive ways of dispossession. The intersectionality of governance, environment, and community necessitates an art-practice that tackles these issues through actions and collaborations.
Transformative Currents for Action in the Pacific Ocean, Getty PST Art x Science x LA, Sea Change Symposium, 2022
Panelist Speaker, Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA, 2022
Local Matters: Martha Atienza and Yee I-Lann on Communities, the Environment, and Art, 2020
Inundation: Art and Climate Change in the Pacific, 2022
Panelist speaker: Healing Communities and Environment, The Art Gallery, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, HI, 2022.
Selected Exhibitions
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2022 Frieze London: Indra’s Net, London
The Protectors, Silverlens, New York
Free Jazz IV - Geomancers, Singapore Art Week (with CCA),
Singapore
2019 Equation of State, Silverlens, Manila
2018 Fair Isles, including Anito I and World Premiere of Anito II,
Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Center for Contemporary Art,
Germany
Our Islands, Tower One and Exchange Plaza, Manila
2017 Martha Atienza, Mind Set Art Center, Taipei
Our Islands, Art Basel Statements, Switzerland
2016 Anito, Silverlens, Manila
2015 Study In Reality No.3, Silverlens, Manila
2014 Endless Hours at Sea II, Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila
Endless Hours at Sea I, Artesan Gallery, Singapore
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023 Our Ecology, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
Homo Sacer: Life Unlawed, curated by Jack Ky Tan, La Trobe Art
Institute, Bendigo
Meltwater, Fogo Island Arts, Newfoundland and Labrador
2022 I’m walking back toward a place that I thought was very close, but
perhaps it is very far away, curated by Gary-Ross Pastrana,
Artinformal, Manila
Face à Face, Saarlandmuseum, Moderne Galerie, Saarbrücken
An Ocean in Every Drop, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai
Ateneo Art Awards 2022: Fernando Zóbel Prizes for Visual Art
Return Exhibition, Ateneo Art Gallery, Quezon City
Island Life, Salisbury International Art Festival, Salisbury, England
Breaking Water, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, USA
2021 Animal Kingdom, Âme Nue Artspace, Hamburg
2020 INUNDATION: Art and Climate Change in the Pacific, University of
Hawai’i, Manoa Art Gallery, Hawai'i
Selected Residencies
2018 NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore
2017 La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre Melbourne, Residency Program, Melbourne
2016 Gasworks, Mercedes Zobel/Outset Residency, London
2014 Artesan Gallery Studio Grant, Singapore
2013 Art Omi International Artists Residency, New York
La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre Melbourne, Residency
Program, Melbourne
Liverpool Hope University, Residency Program, Liverpool
2009 Green Papaya Art Projects Residency Program, Arts Network Asia,
Manila
Selected Awards
2023 Soros Arts Fellowship, Lisbon
2017 Winner, Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel Basel, Switzerland
2016 Shortlisted, Benesse Prize, Singapore Art Museum
Winner, Ateneo Art Awards, Manila
2015 Winner, CCP Thirteen Artists Award, Manila
2014 Sovereign Asian Art Prize nomination, Hong Kong
Ontwikkeling- en Onderzoekssubsidie, Centrum beeldende kunst,
Rotterdam