The Metropolitan Museum of Manila holds its fourth International Artist Residency Program this February featuring Colombian performance artist Maria Jose Arjona.

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“If you want to make a change, you should perform,” says renowned Colombian performance artist Maria Jose Arjona at the Met Museum during the preview and artist’s talk of her current exhibition. “With your body, performing becomes a powerful tool to express your message. With a captivating gaze on your audience, you establish connection, you transcend the message.” 

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The Met Museum invites Arjona for its fourth International Artist Residency Program and introduce her to the various sectors of the contemporary art scene. In her two week residency, the Met let her mingle with the local communities in Northern Luzon to gain personal insights on traditional Philippine dances, percussions, sacred sites, and practices. 

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From February to March, Arjona will be exhibiting and performing Practice, which interconnects elements of body, time, and space and their influence on knowledge and emotion. She will be using the body as an instrument in projecting her own art. The interaction between the space, the audience, and the artist herself will highlight shared experiences and the exchanges happening in between. Arjona refers to Practice as both action and a space.

Born in Bogota, Colombia, Arjona has focused her career on long durational performance works in order to develop ideas and concepts around memory, temporality, and power. Her residency at The Met is made possible through the Latin America Roaming Art (LARA) Prize, which the artist won in 2016.

Arjona’s “Practice” will be held in the Open Gallery of the Met Museum. The museum is located at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Complex, Roxas Boulevard, Manila, +632.708.7829