In line with this year’s Earth Day theme “Climate Change,” Luis Yee Jr., or Junyee conceived of an outdoor installation “Hangin ay Buhay” in praise of wind power as a non-pollutant and clean energy source.
Three hundred bamboo poles were placed in the front lawn of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), each topped with a propeller contraption, as an artistic cluster of “windmills”. The propellers, ingeniously designed from recycled natural materials such as bamboo and corncobs, rotate with the wind silently providing the viewers and passersby a visual experience of the otherwise invisible energy resource. Other propellers appear floating in the wind as they hung from nylon cords that connect the bamboo poles.
It was in 2007 when Junyee last mounted a major outdoor installation at the CCP front lawn, titled “Angud: A Forest Once,” as a response to the devastation caused by super typhoons and flash floods in the country. It was also a visual statement against illegal logging in the country. An earlier project on the same site was “Isang Daan” installed in 1998 for the Philippine Centennial Celebration.
Junyee (b. 1942) is one of the pioneers of installation art practice and the use of biodegradable materials in art-making. His materials are ephemeral, continually renewable like nature itself, and advocate environmental protection. In his recent works, Junyee’s choice of found or recovered materials underscores our rich cultural heritage and the realities of contemporary life.
He has received numerous awards and recognitions among which are the CCP 13 Artists Award (1980), Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award for Sculpture, City of Manila (1989) and the Grand Prize, National Sculpture Competition for the Holocaust Park in Israel (2007). This bamboo installation will remain until 18 May 2014.
