ASOG with Areté Launch Exhibit, "What we talk about when we talk about the 'War on Drugs'"
29 Jun 2018
This exhibit presents numbers, images, and stories. But not answers.
Answers imply resolutions, and for many Filipinos there are none. According to the Philippine National Police, there are 23,327 deaths currently under investigation. This does not include the 4,279 people killed in police operations as part of the government’s campaign against illegal drugs.
We will never arrive at any answers if we do not pose the right questions. By presenting numbers, images, and stories, this exhibit hopes to get closer to the questions that demand to be asked.
Like: Why can people be killed so easily in their own homes? Why the poor? Why children?
Do we stick to counting corpses, or should we also measure the trauma of the living: people who still struggle with addiction, loved ones now left to grapple with loss—and collectively, we as a nation dealing with our times?
Future generations will ask: what did we do and where did we stand?
The answers might terrify us.
“What We Talk About When We Talk About the 'War on Drugs'” runs from 25 June-26 August, 2018 at the Areté's George SK Ty Learning Innovation Wing.
The multimedia exhibit includes: photographs by Ezra Acayan, Jes Aznar, Kimberly dela Cruz, Vincent Go, Raffy Lerma, Eloisa Lopez, Bro. Jun Santiago, and Basilio Sepe; data presented by the Ateneo Policy Center; films by the School of Slow Media and the Psychological Association of the Philippines. Curated and designed by Karl Castro. A project of the Ateneo School of Government.