PiTIK-MULAT Photography Visit & Exhibit Crash Edition

Tudla Productions’ PiTIK-MULAT Photography Visit and Exhibit Crash Edition

PiTIK-MULAT Photography Visit is a bi-annual gathering of
professional and student photographers set out on an exposure trip
and photo shoot in an indigent community to produce photos
representative of and relevant to our times.

Photography has proven to be an effective chronicler not only of
important events that have shaped the nation but of the long and
continuing experience of poverty and social injustice in the
country. In the same pursuit, Tudla seeks to carry out PiTIK-MULAT
to contribute to the enrichment of the practice of documentary
photography and of the repertoire of photos representing the
condition of society today.

Aside from the abovementioned purpose, PiTIK-MULAT also aims to
train young, creative individuals in the field of documentary
photography and encourage the production of art to serve a social
function.

In 2007 and early this year, PiTIK-MULAT was brought to communities
along the railways in Sta. Mesa, Manila and in an indigent community
cluster in Tondo, Manila. In said visits, Tudla was joined by
student photographers and by some of the country's most
distinguished photographers and photojournalists like Luis Liwanag,
Raffy Lerma, Jez Aznar, Alberto Garcia, Jimmy Domingo and Gil
Nartea.

From these visits, the PiTIK-MULAT Photo Collection has earned a
significant number and quality of photographs depicting a worsened
poverty amidst narrowing means of substinence experienced by the
urban poor in Metro Manila. The collection has been exhibited
primarily in schools and urban poor activities and has once been
invited to be part of an improvisational show of theater and
performance artists held at the heart of Quiapo, Manila.

Now, true to our commitment to authentically represent today's
dynamic social conditions through the different media, Tudla sees
fit to update the PiTIK-MULAT Photo Collection to keep pace with the
current developments in our country's socio-political situation
which are directly linked with the prevalence of deepening poverty
among a large section of our population.

The complicated web of social issues now being brought to fore has
recently drawn a sustained clamor for truth, accountability and
justice from different sectors. A major voice of remonstration comes
from the urban poor in Metro Manila whose already difficult lives
are made even worse by the issues of brazen graft and corruption,
among others.

It is the portrayal of this significant and timely facet of the life
of the urban poor that is lacking in the existing PiTIK-MULAT Photo
Collection. We are hereby holding a crash edition of PiTIK-MULAT
aiming to give a human face to how the urban poor struggles not only
for individual subsistence but to collectively call for social
justice--be it in their respective communities and/or in the streets.

Moreover, in times like these, it becomes imperative that PiTIK-
MULAT broaden its venues to propagate art that serves the ordinary
Filipino's plight and struggles. With the support of individuals
and institutions sympathetic to this cause PiTIK-MULAT can be roved
not only in art galleries, but also in grassroots venues like
communities, schools and gatherings which at the same time leads to
the exploration of alternative means of artistic exhibition.