Kiri Dalena
Born 1975, Manila, The Philippines
Lives and works in Quezon City, The Philippines

In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will be also singing, About the dark times 2017
red neon
Courtesy of the artist 

Taken from a poem by the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht, In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing, About the dark times, sees Kiri Dalena lay bare the role of art in enduring, even countering, oppression. Where Brecht wrote in response to the rise of Nazi powers during the 1930s, Dalena’s neon rendering reflects the decades of social and political upheaval her homeland of the Philippines has endured since the 1970s. Particularly sensitive to the crucial role protest and civil disobedience play in the fight for human rights and social justice, Dalena’s neon artwork is a literal and figurative light in the dark. Unafraid to plainly express her political convictions, Dalena presents creatives with both a consolation and a call to action.

Dear Activist, write a slogan for me 2010
red neon
Courtesy of the artist

In Dear Activist, write a slogan for me Kiri Dalena extends Filipino artist Nilo Ilarde’s own adaptation of German artist Martin Kippenberger’s 1981 exhibition, Dear Painter, Paint for Me. In the original, Kippenberger presented a series of paintings created by a billboard painter who copied photos provided by the artist. Intended as an exploration into the ever-blurring line between creativity and commodification, Ilarde’s version extended these themes to expose the ways material and labour are abstracted by the idea of ‘art’ itself. Dalena’s translation of the Kippenberger/Ilarde title as a statement on activism points to the tension between a resistant ideology and the material conditions of an increasingly commercialised attention economy. An activist herself, Dalena’s work gives voice to an unknown victim who wants, like the artist has done, to borrow the form and words of another to build their own language. 

Erased Slogans 2008 – 2026
archival images, digital prints
Courtesy of Lopez Museum and Library, Manila

Having worked as a filmmaker documenting military atrocities in the Southern Tagalog region, artist and activist Kiri Dalena’s work focuses on the struggle to uphold human rights against state persecution. Manipulating newspaper images of protests in Manila, taken prior to former dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ declaration of martial law in 1972, Erased Slogans shows demonstrators carrying placards which have had their messages digitally removed. 

Representative of the silenced voices that have, for decades, decried governmental violence in the Philippines, Erased Slogans’ missing words highlight the suppression of political dissidence, both in real time and in the collective memory. The blank signs additionally afford the photos a universality which reflects the ubiquity of both injustice and resistance. In this way, Erased Slogans can be equally understood as a demonstration of how the hand of the artist, and other vehicles of cultural production, can be complicit in the production of historical amnesia.