Ibagiw Festival highlights Baguio City's creativity | The Final Word
A creative city. That's how UNESCO described Baguio City due to its diversity and artistic culture. And Ibagiw Creative Festival is now on its 6th year to celebrate this milestone!
We speak with Ibagiw Festival's consultant Marie Venus Tan.
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We speak with Ibagiw Festival's consultant Marie Venus Tan.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 A creative city, that's how UNESCO described Baguio City due to its diversity and artistic culture.
00:06 And Ibaguio Creative Festival is now on its 6th year to celebrate this milestone.
00:10 We speak now with the festival's consultant, Marie "Venus" Tan, joining us now from Baguio.
00:17 Venus, great to have you with us.
00:18 What makes this year's Ibaguio Creative City Festival different from the previous editions?
00:25 Well, you know, every year we make sure that we innovate a lot of the events that are happening here for the month-long festivities.
00:34 And so every year there's something different.
00:37 And just three days ago, over the weekend, we've seen something quite different in the city of Baguio.
00:47 And so we are innovating so many creative stuff and creativity has become a buzzword now in the city and people are really embracing it.
01:00 Creating change is indeed the buzzword in Baguio City and in the region.
01:06 And of course, when you talk about Ibaguio, this is where Baguio's name was derived.
01:11 And this event brings heritage cacao and world-class art together, Venus.
01:16 Why cacao?
01:17 Well, you know, it also bears an event that started also last Friday.
01:25 And I thought that it could really thread everything.
01:29 It is our shared history with Spain.
01:34 Masferre was exhibited last Friday.
01:37 Masferre, as we know, is half Spanish.
01:39 He is considered the father of Philippine photography.
01:43 And so after many years, we are exhibiting his photography again.
01:48 And it's quite a celebratory event.
01:53 And I said, let's marry all of this and thread it through our shared history with Spain.
01:59 And so cacao, in the 17th century, during the Acapulco-Manila Galleon Trade, cacao was one of the high commodities, including coffee, that was exported and brought to the Philippines via that Galleon Trade.
02:17 And so we were the very first in Asia to be planted with cacao.
02:22 And I now look at it as one of a valuable product where we can marry art, high-value art.
02:31 So high-value produce with high-value art.
02:34 Why not?
02:35 It's innovation.
02:36 So that's what happened.
02:38 Last Saturday, we launched cacao and an artist.
02:43 And so the bar is covered with an artist's rendition of how cacao bars can look like.
02:53 And, Vinos, award-winning Cordilleran artist, Leonard Aguinaldo, uses cacao in his artworks.
02:59 Well, yeah, he is a popular woodcut artist that he uses to print.
03:09 And so now he has become a sort of a collaborative artist now with a high-value product, like a bean-to-bar chocolate bar.
03:21 So now that you see, you see a beautiful packaging of cacao with his art piece.
03:28 This is the first time that it ever happened.
03:30 And in this festival, you're also reviving the iconic everlasting flower.
03:38 That's correct.
03:40 Many, many years now, we've lost it.
03:43 Many people knew it.
03:44 I'm sure you did.
03:45 Yes.
03:46 So I think this was an opportunity for us to revive it once again.
03:51 In fact, our brand logo now, Breathe Baguio, has it.
03:56 So we thought, let's embody it and let's revive it.
04:00 To us, it is really the iconic flower, and it is a flower that identifies the city of Baguio.
04:06 So we felt that Ibaguio is a celebration of Baguio as a creative city, and why not celebrate an iconic flower?
04:15 And so, yes, we did.
04:17 And tell us briefly about the closing ceremony, which is entitled Anido, which also has the Pinipican Cookout with Baguio Mountain Man Chef Shavi Romawak.
04:29 Yes, every year when we close the Ibaguio Festival, we do have some traces of Cordillera festivities and rituals.
04:42 That always ends a festival.
04:45 And so, yes, we will have Anido, which will close it, which will be really celebratory, bringing together a lot of tribes coming from all over the Cordillera to celebrate the ending of the festival.
05:00 So it is something that you will want to come to Baguio on the 25th for.
05:06 So it's still coming.
05:07 So we're still inviting many people.
05:09 In fact, the other exhibits that we opened last Friday, Masfere, is still going to run through until January 15.
05:19 And so is the Cacao and Art Interplay.
05:22 So I think this will be an opportunity for many people to come and see, come to Baguio and see all of this exhibition, because it is worth it.
05:31 It is worthwhile, and it's something that we can be proud of.
05:34 We'll all be driving to Baguio City for the Ibaguio Creative Festival.
05:40 Thank you so much and congratulations on the success of this festival.
05:44 Marie Venus Tan.
05:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]