Dear friend, how can I tell you what I felt when I received your works. Suddenly there is an atmosphere of the Philippines in the house. The blue of the pacific, the green hills, people ablaze with fervour, are able to bury the dark periods of this country in the past which was bruised by occupation and exploitation. Undoubtedly this country has the heart to face oppression, to revive the tradition of popular uprising. Your compatriot Bembet Madrid talks about the need to stand up and she wonders how the revolutionary spirit can be rekindled once again (see article).

You are showing us the way... It is time...

I remember the day when the entire city of Manila was in deep sorrow. Enraged that another car took his parking space, a reckless driver opened fire at the other car, hitting thereby a eight months pregnant mother who succumbed to the injuries that night. The baby was saved, but in what kind of a world would he live in? A world without his mother, a world with a broken father?

"There is a village in the making where the pedestrians will be king"¹ sang Jess the next day ... Now the time has come for the barbarity to devastate the congested city.

I remember Marlène’s visit to the Help Centre for migrant women workers. I think about your eight million fellow citizens who are in forced economic exile in the United States, in Japan, in the Middle-East... - cheap labour, servile servants and prostitutes. These exploited, or battered women were lucky enough to return to the country where they were born, to the land of their ancestors. Others who were less lucky were assassinated as soon as their visas expired, and their organs were sold by anonymous barbarians who trade human beings.

Sing on! Jess. Sing on! Now is the time. "There is a village in the making from the ruins of our greed".

I remember this magnificent country of volcanoes and islands. We were more than forty odd people coming from around ten countries of Asia and Pacific, gathered at the edge of a crater. In Tagaytay, Bishop Labayen was leading the dance along with Siddhartha. They convinced us that the human spirit had the power to conquer human madness and that we have to reunite and act now (see article). "Here we are gathered at the threshold of old spiritualities and on the ashes of ideologies. In the middle of the lake of an enormous crater, we found a very small but live volcano" wrote Marlène to describe our meeting.

It was high time...

I remember Abbey, an 18 year old management student, who was with us in this Christian Old people’s home, in order to take distance from her family, rich industrialists of Manila. Abbey wanted to write (I want to say true things, not financial reports) but her father doesn’t believe in it. Then fight, I told her, as "There is a village in the making for the silent and the silenced".

This issue of Caravan owes a lot to you Boy Dominguez (see article). It is as if the light from your paintings is being reflected in the articles. It offers glimpses of the oppressive and destructive economic system which governs us at present. It gives a viewpoint on the disturbing dilemma of growing megapolis. It has pearls from China, India, Kenya, Brazil and even from Lac Léman. You will also find a new column – From Readers – in this second issue of Caravan which to our great satisfaction runs into two pages. Finally, on the last page we are presenting a work and a project by the sculptor Pierre Théret, and we are making use of this chance to start a debate on the place of art in our Alliance for a responsible and united world (see article).

As I opened the parcel which had your paintings, I suddenly realised that Caravan was taking its own course. Our intuition was right: Caravan will be a real caravan. To travel, to go and see, to publish each time from a new continent, to show the community of fate and the variety of answers.

It is an ambitious project no doubt. But the team is well mobilised. Today, we are moving into a small office. Slowly, we are getting organised and are beginning to learn the ropes of this work. If all goes well we would have covered around ten regions before the end of the century. And if it works really well, we would like to – and why not? – start the new millennium with a mobile exhibition, a caravan of artists who would visit the various events which the partners of Alliance plan to organise during the year 2001.

Till then, we hope to bring together the maximum number of allies, to make their thinking and their initiatives known, as we are here for that very reason. We are a young and motivated team² spread across many continents, with a small fund given by a Swiss foundation³ well-known to the partners of the Alliance, a great artistic quality which we owe to India... and a great enthusiasm for the adventure which is going on.

Philippe Guirlet

Return to Top