'Walang Masulingan' Screening and Talkback

The Ateneo Art Gallery presents a screening and talkback of ‘Walang Masulingan’ by Kiri Dalena and Ben Brix on February 19 (Thursday) and 20 (Friday), from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at the Ignacio B Gimenez Amphitheater, Areté, Ateneo de Manila University.

This program is FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

Both days (February 19 & 20) will feature the same film, with each screening to be succeeded by a talkback session with the artists.

Walang Masulingan, a collaboration between Kiri Dalena and Ben Brix, is a two-channel video installation that features aerial images and ground-level shots that depict daily life within Metro Manila. The title derives from a conversation with political activist Gelacio Guillermo, who found in poetry a place of solace and refuge during his darkest times. In this work, Dalena and Brix present urban spaces not merely as sites of suffering and political uncertainty, but as places where hope and beauty will always reside. This ArtSpeak program was organized as part of Ateneo Art Gallery’s Moving Image Program, an ongoing series of film screenings and talkbacks from January to March 2026.

This event is part of the Ateneo Art Gallery's Moving Image Program, a presentation of film and video works. As the program will be held outdoors, guests are welcome to bring snacks and are encouraged to support the Silingan Coffee pop-up.

For inquiries, email aag@ateneo.edu.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Kiri Dalena is a multimedia artist who lives and works in the Philippines. She works with various media, including sculpture, moving images, photography, and language-based artworks. 

Dalena studied human ecology at the University of the Philippines Los Baños. She trained in 16mm filmmaking, focusing on documentary cinematography and poetic filmmaking at the Mowelfund Film Institute (MFI) in Quezon City. 

Dalena works both as an individual artist and as part of collectives. She co-founded the Filipino film collective Southern Tagalog Exposure (2001), where she worked closely with farmers' groups, environmental activists, and organized union groups, documenting their struggle to assert basic rights amid intense militarization. Through long-term collaborations with journalists, lawyers, and human rights organizations, she contributed to the arrest of former General Jovito Palparan Jr., the highest-ranking Philippine military official convicted of human rights violations. 

In 2016, Dalena co-founded RESBAK (Respond and Break the Silence Against the Killings; 2016–present), an international alliance of cultural producers that draws attention to the Philippine government’s “war on drugs” and its effects. To this day, the group continues to work closely with victims and survivors directly impacted by the “war on drugs.” 

Dalena’s practice is grounded in the belief that art is a vocation that plays an essential role in inspiring meaningful change by fostering connections and prompting shifts in how we interpret and confront history, the environment, and society.

Born in 1979 in Bayreuth, Ben Brix lives and works in Berlin as a video artist, video editor, director of photography, and media technician. His artistic journey began with sculpture in Berlin in 2001, before he started studying product design in 2005 at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. In 2008 he joined the class for Virtual Realities led by Bjørn Melhus, focusing on video art, and in 2009 he spent a year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in the class of Constanze Ruhm. He graduated in Kassel in 2013, with his final work presented in Prague as part of the Start Point Prize, and then returned to Berlin. 

Since then, Brix has worked with numerous artists and filmmakers as director of photography, including Bjørn Melhus, Marco Brambilla, Hiwa K, Theo Eshetu, Loretta Fahrenholz, Yael Bartana, Bouchra Khalili, and many others. His own artistic practice, active since 2012, explores the intersection between pure documentation and fiction in moving images, questioning the credibility of images and the ways in which they create meaning. 

Brix is also the co-founder of the theater collective speech collective, where he worked as a video artist on various productions. Together with Felix Mathias Ott, he developed the theater piece Odyssee Complex, which has been shown internationally in Iran, Bangladesh, India, Salzburg, and France. 

In 2017, he began ongoing collaborations with Indian theater producer Nimi Ravindran and sound artist Nikhil Nagaraj in South India. 

Since 2023, he has collaborated with Filipino artist Kiri Dalena on multiple video works in the Philippines, with several more projects in development. Through this collaboration, he has developed a deep interest in the Philippines—particularly in Dalena’s work as an artist and activist, as well as in Filipino culture and its ongoing struggles—an engagement that continues to shape his artistic practice.