Rodel tapaya biography examples
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In a lecture titled “The Meeting of Myth and Science”—part of the book Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture (1978)—Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), the Belgian-born French “father of modern anthropology” explained the historical split between “mythical” and “scientific” thinking. According to him, the real divorce occurred in the seventh and eighteenth centuries—with figures like Bacon, Descartes and Newton.
The world of scientific thinking turned its back on mythical and mystical traditions of older generations, dismissing them as the products of superstitious and primitive minds—and perhaps the split was necessary for a while, for science to truly flourish. The cold, hard arena of mathematical properties distanced and isolated itself from practices that ascribed meaning to existence in alternative ways, through the senses or intuition.
But then Lévi-Strauss, in his own time, began seeing a shif
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Rodel Tapaya
The Helpful Crocodile
Tapaya believes that the true diamond/gem can be found in various relationships such as friendships.
This work is inspired by a folktale from Ilocos, northern part of the Philippines.
In the story a woman was captured bygd three witches and made the woman their slave. She was made to do the chores in the house of the witches. There is a baby crocodile which the woman funnen near the place where she washes the dishes. Maria took care of it until that crocodile became an adult crocodile, not knowing that the crocodile have supernatural powers. One day the crocodile overheard the witches that they plan to eat the slave woman. The crocodile helped Maria to escape the witches’ house, by asking her to plant a bamboo at his back and use it as the woman’s anchor in their cruise home. Then when they finally reached the edge of the river the crocodile asked Maria to cut a branch of the bamboo she planted on its ba
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Stories function as important touch points for a community. Far from being superstition or hearsay, they capture significant moments, encapsulate a socio-philosophical world view, and often impart moral lessons. Keeping these stories alive by passing them on or re-presenting them have been at the heart of contemporary artistic practices such as Tapaya’s. The artist’s large scale canvases or intimate sculptural pieces draw deeply from mythologies and lore that circulate within the context of the Philippines. The following text is an interview with the artist that references works by him that reside within the Singapore Art Museum’s collection. This interview was conducted in March 2023.
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Let’s start with the way you look towards and incorporate myths and folklore into your works. Mythologies build the world along different lines and within the context of its own logic systems. They can also present us with alternative modes of remembering and understanding the world aroun