AN ALUMNUS of the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters will take part in the Liverpool Biennial 2025, the largest free festival of contemporary visual art in the United Kingdom.
UST Journalism graduate James Luigi Tana, an independent curator, writer and cultural worker, has been selected as one of the participants in the 13th edition of the Liverpool Biennial under the theme, “BEDROCK.”
“The Philippines’ very own James Luigi T. Tana will join curators from Asia and Africa at the Liverpool Biennial 2025,” the British Council Philippines said in an Instagram post on Friday, July 11.
“Throughout the week, the group will participate in curated tours of #LB2025, visit art organisations across Liverpool and Bradford, and experience the second stage of our public programme,” it added.
Tana is one of the eight visiting curators set to participate at the 14-week grand festival, which began on June 7 and will run until Sept. 14. The participants consist of curators from South Asia, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Tana obtained his bachelor’s degree in Journalism from UST in 2013 and is finishing his master’s degree in Art Studies-Curatorship at the University of the Philippines in Diliman.
He is also a faculty member at the Philippine Women’s University School of Fine Arts and Design and the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde School of Design and Arts.
Tana has curated various art exhibitions, including works of artists and filmmakers Kiri Dalena and Shireen Seno. In 2024, he co-curated the inaugural presentations of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde Open Design and Art themed “Curious.”
He also served as the project manager for several exhibitions from 2019 to 2024 at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Manila.
The art overseer is a member of the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art, for which he was awarded a competitive travel grant. He also won the Ateneo Art Gallery-Kalaw Ledesma Foundation Inc. Essay Writing Prize for the non-student category in 2020.
Established in 1998, Liverpool Biennial is a visual arts organization that seeks to commission various contemporary art in the United Kingdom. It commissioned 414 artworks, showcased the creations of 592 artists, carried out 39 collaborative projects within local communities and welcomed more than 50 million visitors to date. F
