Filipino-Canadian Artist in Mad Pride: Mad City Group Exhibit
Vancouver, July 8, 2016 —‘Mad Pride: Mad City’ opened with a public reception at the Gallery Gachet located in the Gastown area of Vancouver, BC. In this group exhibition, the featured artists of Gallery Gachet have come together “to build a great show, but there’s a lot more to it than hanging artwork on walls.” The more than a dozen artists in the show are united in the belief that” art is a means of survival.” In the exhibit statement of Mad Pride: Mad City, it declares that it is “the union of art, politics and community to make change.”
Filipino Canadian Mildred Grace German is featured in the group exhibit with her artwork entitled “Para|digma.” According to German, this is a play on the English word “Paradigm” and she has uses this word to express what in Tagalog, her first language, means: para meaning to “stop” and digma meaning “war”. German describes that her artwork in the exhibition “aims to raise awareness on the ongoing mad cause-and-effects of forced migration, oppression, and the systemic global human rights violations.”
Mildred Grace German said that she “paints to communicate the complexity of transnational trauma, and to address the issues affecting migrant workers, their families and communities.
“ In her artist statement, she writes that “Paradigmas are not easily forgotten, not easily hidden, not easily forgiven. As human rights violations occur, the trauma too occurs, as such as a cause-effect pattern. The longing for justice and “for what can be done” becomes the discourse.
“Therefore, to struggle for human rights, the right to life and safety is justified. In society, to include, not exclude the traumatized, and to believe the trauma will be healed are brave acts of immeasurable love.”
German was born and raised in the Philippines and came to Vancouver, Canada as a migrant youth in the late 90s on the sponsorship of her mother. German’s exposure to transnational issues and her experience as a Filipino-Canadian migrant inspired her latest artwork “Para|digma“.
German is a member and community organizer of Migrante BC, a community-based organization committed to the protection of the rights and welfare of Filipino immigrants and migrant workers in Canada. She is also a member of Migrante’s art collective PANCIT (Philippine Artist Network for Community Integrative Transformation) under the facilitation of internationally-recognized Filipino muralist and cultural educator Bert Monterona.
In the past, German’s artworks and participation were featured in many venues, including the LIVE World Biennale of Performance Arts, Heart of the City Festival, the Vancouver Public Library, and the Museum of Vancouver. Her installation piece “Waiting” was featured in the book, Families Apart: Migrant Mothers and the Conflict of Labor and Love by UBC Geography Professor Geraldine Pratt.
As a multi-disciplinary artist, German has also exhibited, performed, and was featured as part of Art in the Court, Asian Canadian Online Project, Pinoy Poetiks, World Mad Pride, Centre A Political Fashion Show, and the Vancouver Public Library’s “Voices” mentored by Japanese-Canadian writer and then Writer-in-Residence Hiromi Goto. German also participated in the silent art auction at the First Migrante BC Gala in Vancouver last March 2016.
German also studied Culinary Arts and Patisserie Arts. She also was a volunteer radio technician and program host for several years at the Vancouver Co-op Radio.
The group exhibition runs until June 24, 2016 at the Gallery Gachet, 88 East Cordova, Vancouver. Gallery hours are Wednesday to Sunday, 12 noon to 6pm. Visit their website at www.gachet.org