What is the time of research and experimentation for you?
For my process and practice, the time of research and experimentation is the time to learn and unlearn, it’s also the time for reflecting on the internal and external elements that you encounter in the space. For my project “Il Mio Filippino,” without any expectations, I follow how our bodies, slaved and colonized to surrender and reconnect with the ground/soil and also to understand the trajectory of our bodies’ present condition. It is a moment also of sleeping or resting and allowing yourself to follow mystical threads that will resonate to you in deep silence.
In what ways is your practice influenced by the space of an artistic residency?
The residency space gives me a moment to understand new and other possibilities for my work, it is also a space for me to understand how I can translate and amplify the core of my work. The residency space is a character that I collaborate with in my process of creation.
How do care and artistic research interact?
Curating and artistic research intersect for the purpose of questioning the past, the present and the futurity of our creation and how it transcends to the world we live in. It also poses challenges like “What are we doing?” or “What are you doing?” especially in these strange and extreme moments of humanity.
Liryc Dela Cruz (1992) is an artist and filmmaker from Tupi, South Cotabato in Mindanao, Philippines and now based in Rome, Italy. His works were selected and screened in different international film festivals and art events. His films and other projects are thematically related to his origins, history, decolonial practices and personal psychology. Dela Cruz was one of the key collaborators of Philippine independent master filmmaker Lav Diaz. Dela Cruz was one of the key collaborators of Philippine independent master filmmaker Lav Diaz. He is also considered as one of the representatives of the slow cinema movement (Ji.hlava IDFF ‘18). In 2020, he was selected as one of the young emerging filmmakers to represent Italy in Berlinale Talents during the 70th Berlin International Film Festival. Dela Cruz was also mentored by French Political Scientist and Activist, Françoise Vergès during the Mediterranean Ecofeminist Decolonial Union for Self-Education in Lecce, Italy. Recently, he debuted a performance in Teatro di Roma - Teatro Nazionale in Rome as part of his ongoing research project “Il Mio Filippino/a,” a project about “gestures of care and cleaning methods” of Filipino cleaning workers. The same project was also a recipient of Artissima - Torino Social Impact Art Award for the year 2020 and has been selected by Cité internationale des arts Paris for their residency program in 2022. Dela Cruz is also a fellow of TBA21–Academy’s Ocean Fellowship 2022 where he is developing “Ocean as a Space of Perpetual Care” a project based on indigenous care and hospitality of pre-colonial Filipinos and from the diary of Antonio Pigafetta.
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