MANILA, PHILIPPINES – In its annual engagement with the public, Perro Berde, the only Philippine-Spanish cultural magazine, makes its official appearance on the 28th of March at the Bellas Artes Outpost in Makati. Ambassador Jorge Moragas will be presenting the 8th edition of the publication, which has provided a space for artists, writers and researchers from both countries since 2009. Music, food and drinks will accompany the launch.
This issue promises to surprise readers with its appealing new design and contents that go beyond the printed letter. They will get a glimpse of the works of Spanish multi-disciplinary artists such as Cristina Lucas with her series of photographs “Sin Fin” (Endless), Fernando Sánchez Castillo with his sticker insert bearing a historical photograph on the longest labor strike in the Philippines, encouraging people to stick them anywhere, and Nicolás Combarro, drawing the attention of readers to the architecture of Manila through his photographs.
Also featured is Ateneo Art Gallery (AAG) Director and Chief Curator Maria Victoria Herrera interviewing Catalan artist Domènec –whose work can currently be viewed at AAG– on his conceptual art practice and public space interventions. Equipo Sub-21, from the CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo in Madrid, collaborates with an unorthodox museum guide and audioguide, whereas contemporary design and historic Intramuros are present through a project on stree food stalls developed by Inteligencias Colectivas.
Spanish band Belako and local band Talahib People´ s Music contribute with their own articles on their experience within the concert series Posporos in July 2018 and share a song recorded together to listen to for free. Two winners of the Ateneo Art Awards make their debut in Perro Berde: Alec Madelene Abarro, with her article “Duende, Yearning, and Mystery in Poetic Creation”, using music in Tagalog to tackle the work of most distinguished Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, and Mary Jessel Duque, with a piece on telenovelas entitiled “Marimar: The Many Lives of the Woman by the Sea”. Spanish anthropologist Andrés Narros Lluch graces the magazine by sharing an excerpt of his soon-to-be-published book on the history of the island of Camiguin.
A more colorful equivalent of the English idiom “stranger than a three-headed dog”, the Spanish expression “más raro que un perro verde (green)” is adopted with a Tagalog twist to give a name to this magazine as Perro Berde exemplifies the peculiarity and uniqueness of the fusion of two cultures. It is edited by the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines with the support of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation and the Instituto Cervantes de Manila.
Institutions can request copies of the magazine by writing to the Embassy (emb.manila@maec.es), while individual readers can access the digital version through its web-page www.perroberde.com, which has also been redesigned for the occasion and will be accessible also on the 28th of March