Panagkamarerwa: Jules Leaño

‘Panagkamarerwa’ is an exhibition of found footage by Filipino-Scottish artist and filmmaker Jules Leaño. The works consist of discarded reels from the vintage stores of Cubao brought to Berlin film labs for salvaging. The sheer damage on the reels rejected any straightforward scan. It instead required an outmoded optical printer for manually photographing over 60,000 dilapidated frames.

The title is inspired by a Pangasinense All Souls’ Day tradition, where townsfolk remember their departed loved ones. They gather from house to house in lamenting song to embody restless spirits roaming purgatory. The custom of conjuring lost souls mirrors Leaño’s practice of restoring footage in discarded film to reveal bygone visions.  As decades pass, westernization chips away at local customs. The cultural tradition of panagkamarerwa has slowly faded into obscurity. The reels themselves preserve what appears to be an antiquated cultural event. Back then, filmed documentation was reserved for only the most significant moments.

These artifacts outlive the subjects they captured, but the context of their creation is lost to time soon enough. As the material degrades further, even discernible images perish. The artist is left with impressions of precious moments absorbed in the fragility of celluloid. Corrosive layers of decay pile up to cloud the once pristine frames. The melted nitrate flickers in distorted patterns as the images pass through in a blur. The decrepit portraits of history are reanimated through the mycelium and bacteria that feed off of it, forming entirely new impressions onto the celluloid. Film’s own material body betrays its purpose of immortalizing time. Abstraction takes over the footage’s previous life, memories unwittingly possessed in a dance with death.

The urgency of archiving this deteriorating medium has never been greater. Film is a fallible, impermanent vessel of preservation. Constant efforts of discovery and restoration keep these images from only existing in fading memories. ‘Panagkamarerwa’ is both lamentation and ode to the death of film. Its revival process reveals the ephemeral allure of ghosts in the cells. Each reel is a purgatory of restless stories and every projection is a seance.

written by Red Sales and Jetri Bolintiam