CCP to launch new digital museum ’21AM’

MANILA, Philippines – The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) will be launching a special 50th Anniversary project, a digital museum website called 21AM, on Friday, February 25, via live stream on CCP’s Facebook page. 

The CCP said in a press statement that 21AM will recall their original visual arts department in 1969 called Arts Museum, which was known to form the mid-20^th century visual arts avant-garde in the early years. The new online museum will present a new contemporary arts exhibition.

“The 21AM website is an online experience offering art created for cyberspace that takes in the present catastrophic moment and responds in an imaginative and responsible way to the demands of such a time,” reads the description of 21AM in the CCP website.

“It is a dedicated space of critical inquiry and artmaking that confronts the 21^st century,” it added.

During the inaugural exhibition, artist Pio Abad and jeweller Frances Wadsworth Jones will present their work, The Collection of Jane Ryan and William Saunders: Jewelry in Augmented Reality.

Their artworks depict couple Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos, but with pseudonyms Jane Ryan and William Saunders, who are legal owners of a cache of jewelry of staggering value. It also presents the scale of excess of the couple during the 21-year Marcos regime, nine years of which was under Martial Law, known as the dark chapter in Philippine history.

21AM will also offer other exhibitions, public programs, a 24/7 chatroom, and a Digital Human Rights Hub. It was conceptualized by independent curator Marian Pastor Roces (from the CCP’s Visual Arts and Museum Division) and CCP Artistic Director and Vice President Chris Millado.

CCP will also be making available the entire collection of “modern, contemporary, ethnographic, and ethnomusicological art and cultural materials” in the near future.

The Cultural Center of the Philippines is a government-owned and -controlled corporation that promotes and preserves the best of Filipino arts and culture. – with reports from Edmar Delos Santos/Rappler.com

For more information about 21AM, follow Cultural Center of the Philippines social media accounts or contact them through vamd@culturalcenter.gov.ph.

Edmar Delos Santos is a Rappler intern under the Lifestyle & Entertainment section.