Chapter III
Melodies of Woven Light
Founding members of Ub Ubbo Exchange, Cassidy, Bosaing and Capati, organised the touring exhibition, Melodies of Woven Light. An exhibition that showcased a harmony of ideas and aspirations as cultures, woven together by experience and shared consciousness, supported each other while maintaining their own uniqueness.
Pablo Capati III arrived in Australia in April 2010 to promote the upcoming Melodies of Woven Light exhibition, which would open in Parkes, travel to Canberra, and continue on to Sydney. Capati went to Lake Cargelligo to hold a ceramic workshop for the Arts, Literacy and Numeracy course at the TAFE College. Ninety percent of the students were aboriginal. Capati encouraged the students, who were already producing clay art, to look to their immediate environment for clay materials.
Cassidy and Capati funded the transportation of Filipino art and pottery works to Australia for the exhibition. In November 2010, Melodies of Woven Light commenced with an opening at Parkes, sponsored by Parkes Rotary. The Parkes exhibition raised Au$4000. Part of the funds raised at this event were used to send indigenous artists Scott Turnbull and Scott Sauce Towney to the Sagada cultural hub in The Philipines.
During NAIDOC Week at the end of June 2011, the artists exhibited their work alongside those of Sagada artists in Manila.
In February-March 2011, Melodies of Woven Light toured Canberra and Sydney. The Canberra exhibition opened at the Zappia farm on February 25-26, an event attended by representatives of diverse groups and major political parties.
David Rex-Livingston hosted the third leg of the exhibition from March 3-27 at his Darlinghurst Gallery. Opening night was a full house with support from United Nations Australia, the University of NSW, OXFAM and Filipinos based in Sydney.
Bosaing and Capati were originally to accompany their work and pieces by other Filipino artists during the Melodies of Woven Light tour, but pressing commitments saw these plans changed. As a result, Parkes families provided funding to bring founding member Professor Virginia Dandan and Ub Ubbo Exchange supporter, Paul Quiaño to Australia.
Dandan was soon to take up her appointment by the Human Rights Council, as the independent expert on human rights and international solidarity, at the United Nations, following her retirement from the University of The Phillipines Centre of Fine Arts (UPCFA). For eight years she had been the chairperson of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and a member of the committee for twenty years. She provided two paintings for sale in Melodies of Woven Light.
An eloquent representative of indigenous Filipino culture, Quiaño, an Ibaloi, was a strong supporter of the Ub Ubbo initiative, and provided accommodation for Cassidy after his artist-in-residence contract at the University of the Philippines ended.
During their visit, Dandan and Quiaño traveled to Lake Cargelligo to conduct a workshop in sculpture and clay for the Arts, Numeracy, and Literacy students.
Dandan and Cassidy decided that the money raised from the Melodies of Woven Light exhibition would fund the next chapter of Ub Ubbo. This event, titled Bangamalanha Binnadang, would be a touring collaboration between indigenous and non-indigenous artists and an exhibition. The tour would encourage an exchange of ideas and the exhibition in NAIDOC Week 2012 would be solely indigenous. Dandan and Cassidy felt the cultural exchange was important as a Closing The Gap event, but the NAIDOC Week exhibition should be a special celebration of indigenous art from both countries.
Scott Turnbull had commitments at Parkes, which kept him from making the visit and was replaced by David Newton who travelled to The Philipines with Cassidy in late 2011.
The exhibition, Bangamalanha Binnadang, was rescheduled for July 2012, to allow more time for its development. Accompanying Cassidy to this was Towney who was also chosen to represent Wiradjuri artists at the July 2012 NAIDOC Week celebrations in Manila.
