“Listen. Interviews with Philippine citizens.” Sally Gutiérrez, Juan Guardiola

Putting forward, declaring, stating… immersed in our own discourse, we sometimes forget something as simple as listening. This is the title given to a set of videos to take notice of, listen to, perceive and pay attention to. Documents which interpret and reflect on the idea of a nation as a laboratory for creation and cultural transfer. The screening is also conceived as a space for reflection on cultural processes and practices within the Philippine imaginary in the symbolic space of Western territory. The different pieces in Listen make up a broad reading of expository discourses which were notably developed in the field of cultural studies from the eighties onwards, and are grouped under the concept of Postcolonial Criticism. The current international financial crisis has led to a point of inflexion in a late capitalist, post-industrial economy which exclusively defended the laws of the free market. Similarly, in the fields of art history and theory, the basis of a modernity which is created, occupied and monopolized by the West is no longer operative. Theoretical positions favouring alterity, difference, otherness or subalterity have appeared in contemporary art and gained a certain amount of protagonism, sheltered by multicultural and postcolonial theory. Personal testimony and experience, the personal and the public, become a basis for thinking about the political and economic aspects inherent to the circulation of bodies from the Third World in a computerised global society.

Listen is a video by Sally Gutierrez with testimonies by Philippine intellectuals and cultural activists. It is part of the book Filipinas: Arte, identidad y discurso poscolonial (“Philippines: Art, Identity and Postcolonial discourse”), published in 2008 by Juan Guardiola.

Sally Gutierrez is a visual artist working in the hybrid field between contemporary art and documentary. After her M.A Art studies in Madrid Gutierrez moved to Berlin and participated in the 90s art movement in the former East Berlin. She moved to New York on a Fulbright grant, completed a Masters in Media Studies at the New School University and took part in the The Whitney Museum of American Art Study Programme. In 2001 she received a residency grant from the LMCC in the World Trade Center. After moving back to Europe Sally Gutierrez received grants to travel to South Africa and the Philippines, where she has made several videos and taken part in exhibitions and film festivals. Gutierrez’s work has been shown at international galleries, museums, TV channels and film festivals. Gutierrez has taught in the New School University, has given many talks and workshops in Universities and Art Centres and has been a jury member for several grants and festivals. Her first feature length documentary feature film, Tapologo, co-directed with her sister Gabriela, has received eight international awards. She currently teaches Contemporary Art at La Universidad Europea de Madrid Architecture School and she is working on two new projects.