Just like honey: Where Naga’s creative folks gather

My first stop was at Savage Mind, which was still buzzing with energy from the first Bikol Book Festival held in April 2022, which featured a host of cultural events, launches and talks. The space’s founder, Kristian Sendon Cordero, is also the deputy director of the Ateneo de Naga University Press, which had many titles on display in the space itself, including books drawn from Bikolano literature and culture. In addition were a wide range of books from the rest of the Philippines, secondhand books and Filipiniana. Not to mention a rich collection of stickers, pins, cassette tapes and zines from Naga’s youth culture, which balanced out the already diverse and thoughtful selection of literature.

Kamarin Gallery next door featured a wide, two-story-high space with three exhibitions running for the month of may. The first was “Meanwhile, Elsewhere: The Century of Czech Comics,” which presented a fascinating historiography of comics in the titular country. Though English or Bikolano translations were not provided with the comics, I could glean a historical recounting of Czech’s 1948 coup that led to the drawing of the Iron Curtain in Europe, and how anxiety around the Cold War seeped into the mundane lives of citizens.

Though I would have liked to see more connections drawn between Czech comics and the Philippines’ own rich history of komiks, it’s curious to note (as I shall with caution), a novel resonance between The Good Soldier Švejk and the Philippines’ Juan Tamad, as satirical characters who are both relentlessly clueless and too wise for their own good.

The adjacent show, Panch Alvarez’s solo show “An Apartment in Naga,” featured a series of framed drawings of figures and objects in isolation: a woman curled up in a corner, a pair of eyes with brows furrowed, a human-shaped void. The great Rox Lee also had a series of paintings in a rather narrow hallway leading up to the main gallery, but nonetheless, his indomitable spirit and interstellar musings on life still hit the bullseye.

On the second floor of the house was Tugawe Cove Cafe, which also had books galore for diners to browse. The Pili Pesto certainly piqued my interest, but unfortunately, it’s a dish I’ll have to try on another visit.

The most pleasant surprise of the visit, in my eyes, was how the bookstore, gallery, and cafe were populated by locals, providing a potential glimpse of the thriving youth culture in Naga City — and one that grows strong not just because of its abundance of college students and homegrown establishments, but also because of the city’s thoughtful infrastructural design choices.

The activity at the CamSur Watersports Complex has also rippled out in the form of plenty of skateboarders and bikers plying the commuter-friendly roads of the town. Even next door to the Museo ni Jesse Robredo is a popular skate park, countering the dated notion that such forms of recreation are a distraction from being a productive member of society.

It is the 21st century, after all, and recreation goes hand in hand with creating venues for young folks to channel their energy. This, in turn, loops back into a dynamic cycle of audiences and spaces cultivating each other and strengthening a locale’s collective practice in the process.

Though these observations may seem but distantly related at first — the proliferation of schools, plenty of students, pedestrian-oriented infrastructure and others — I mention them as factors that contribute to a robust ecosystem of arts across different practices. And these correlations are not just in theory — there are already many college cities that are living examples of it, like Los Baños, Dumaguete and Baguio.

Many progressive ideas and exciting movements thrive in such conditions that encourage, rather than curb, youthful enthusiasm, curiosity and gumption. Art thrives everywhere, but the role of a conducive environment in getting the ball rolling is not to be underestimated, and I’m looking forward to what comes next.