It’s difficult not to be a little jealous of Jam Acuzar.
Intelligent, beautiful, and down-to-earth, this agreeable young lady confidently exudes style and polish in the way that only the well-educated and well-meaning can. Not to mention, she was recently named one of Asia’s 21 Young Leaders for 2018, a well-respected roster of regional change makers, by the Asia Society. Born in the Philippines and educated in the United Kingdom and Paris, Jam is the founder of the Bellas Artes Project (BAP), a non-profit foundation based in Bataan that has hosted both Filipino and foreign artists through its unique artist-in-residency program.
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In the past two years alone, under the direction of its former artistic director Diana Campbell-Betancourt, BAP has supported 23 artist residencies, seven exhibitions, and has provided supplementary programs for each exhibition such as screenings, talks, and performances, and lectures. In 2019, with the help of its new curator Inti Guerrero, Jam hopes to expand its platform and help make the current Philippine art ecosystem a more inclusive, more accessible, and more dynamic space through its new public program, Education-Intervention. This experimental educational curriculum aims to further develop discourse and engagement amongst its audience through courses led by artists, academics, and curators who are eager to share their practice and learn from the participants through direct intellectual encounters.
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“The art scene in Manila is a very vibrant and interactive community, and I have seen exciting change and diversity within recent years. While local galleries, museums, and universities have provided strong support for artists in the past, the last year-and-a-half has seen the establishment of new projects and spaces that support experimental art-making and thinking,” Jam shares. “Initiatives such as Calle Wright, MCAD Commons, Neo-Filipino at CCP, and Project Space Pilipinas, among others, provide audiences new ways of seeing and experiencing contemporary art.”
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Jam believes it is well within the interest of all art enthusiasts to promote intellectual discourse instead of shying away from it, and views the recent opening of these art spaces and other current initiatives, along with her own, to be key to providing the balance needed in the fast-growing commercial environment surrounding the local art scene.
“We must all look at supporting the art scene’s ecology as a whole—with galleries, auction houses, museums, artist-led initiatives, and publications comprising a healthy art-eco-system. This is something we really strive for at Bellas Artes Projects. We want to provide a comfortable and friendly space for everyone to engage in what might seem to be uncomfortable or ‘tough’ ideas and we often find ourselves trying to find ways to engage people in a non-intimidating way.”
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In the five years since BAP was founded, it has also made a meaningful impact in the community it serves. Art enthusiast and co-founder of Art Fair Philippines Trickie Lopa says, “The Bellas Artes Foundation is perhaps a 21st century iteration of the artist-patron relationship: instead of a Cosimo de Medici or a Peggy Guggenheim acquiring work to sustain artists, you have a private institution making resources available for the exhibition and creation of contemporary art. It has definitely elevated the local art scene through the calibre of its program planned out by well respected curators.”
As passionate as Jam is about the work she does and as the role that BAP currently plays, she admits that the direction of her artistic endeavor was not 100 percent clear to her from the beginning, and until now it is still an evolving experiment. She recalls when her parents first asked her to come home from London, where she was working at the time, and join them in their family business. The one compromise she asked was for their support for her inclination toward the arts—whatever that may be. As expected, her father’s passion project, Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, a museum and collection of transplanted Spanish colonial heritage houses and structures in Bagac, Bataan, largely influenced her path.
Jam initially set out to build a collection of international and local contemporary art with the intent of displaying the works in one of Las Casas restored homes, Casa Quiapo. Also known as the Escuela de Bellas Artes, Casa Quiapo was home to one of the first fine arts academies in the country and was originally built in the mid-1800s. It belonged to Rafael Enriquez, a well-known artist at the time. Enriquez later converted part of the mansion into the Escuela de Bellas Artes in 1908. Notable alumni of the academy include Juan Luna, Felix R. Hidalgo, Fernando Amorsolo, and Guillermo Tolentino. After his death, the home fell into decades of decay and was relocated from Quiapo, Manila to Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar in Bagac in 2006. There it was painstakingly restored by hundreds of skilled artisans.
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With the increasing time she spent in Bataan, Jam witnessed how traditional craftsmanship was being “brought back to life” and observed the birth of new, innovative methods of restoration. Instinctively, she connected how valuable the experience would be to a contemporary artist and became fascinated with all the potential it presented. She also recognized that her then-model of an art space, despite its growing collection of artworks and relevant exhibitions, lacked real engagement and did not benefit from a communication of ideas between the artists and with the community. She decided that she should take advantage of the availability of ample space at Las Casas where artists could live and work alongside the team of artisans and this led to the creation of the BAP residency program.
While great work was being created in Bataan, not a lot of people were able to see and experience all that was happening in Bagac because of its distance from Manila. It was then that Jam decided to temporarily open a satellite space called the Bellas Artes Outpost in Makati in February 2017. An exhibition space, library, salon, and soon-to-be school, Jam thinks of the outpost as a community space where people can engage and dialogue beyond viewing exhibitions.
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Recently, the Outpost launched a Young Collectors program where like-minded young adults who are eager to learn more about contemporary art come together for social gatherings and events such as curated art hops and tours of collector’s homes. The program also gets the members VIP tickets to global art events such as Art Basel.
“I always find that the local art scene is quite difficult to navigate, however, you’ll be surprised by how many exciting things there are happening every week, from openings, talks, performances etc.,” Jam shares. “At BAP, we’ve even formed a small community of young supporters and residency sponsors who generously donate to the foundation and in return, we organize art tours, and casual events that we call ‘family dinners’. We also act as an art concierge for those who want to learn more about local contemporary art. This is our way of building a community of patrons around our projects as well as sharing with them the many exciting things happening in the Philippines’ scene.”
Photographs by Joseph Pascual Produced and styled by Paolo Chua, assisted by April Lozada Makeup by Patrick Alcober for Make Up For Ever and Apple Faraon Hair by Ron Vegaros Additional art direction by Sandy Aranas, assisted by Grace Sacares Shot on location at Artelano 11 Special thanks to Eric Paras
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