The Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU) opened an interactive art exhibition titled “Gama, Dula, Tingog,” in the afternoon of Wednesday, 27 February 2019, at the Rodriguez Hall of the Community Center of the First Companions, Jacinto campus. The exhibition featured a selection of art pieces by Mr. Norman “Noy” F. Narciso, a faculty member of the AdDU Languages, Literature, and Art Department. These art pieces comprised a collection of musical instruments created by Mr. Narciso out of found objects, or objet trouve, which are resourced from industrial, commercial, and domestic spaces, and then subjected to assemblage and craft.
A short program launched the exhibition, wherein the artist demonstrated to the assembled crowd the way to play the showcased instruments.
Mr. Narciso showcases creativity and an inventive spirit in his collection of reimagined indigenous and contemporary instruments made out of mundane materials like bottles, coil springs, trinkets, and a variety of metals and wood. The exhibition is designed to be interactive—audiences are invited to touch and explore the instruments, discovering through this tactile process how to tease out sounds and, eventually, music from them. In the words of the curator, Abraham A. Garcia, Jr., also a member of the AdDU Languages, Literature, and Art Department, the exhibit inspires “a performative action [that] comes to the fore as the viewer is absorbed further when sound is generated. The whole experience is immersive as others generate spontaneous bars of notes, which may be dissonant at first. It can even be infectious as everyone tries to play together in harmony.”
The exhibit remains open to the public until 25 March 2019, at the same venue, Ateneo de Davao University, Jacinto campus.
