Rizal sa UP

Rizal sa UP was installed in celebration of the sesquicentennial of Dr. Jose Rizal’s birth.

This exhibition focuses on the connection between our national hero and the University of the Philippines. This exhibition employs the rather ambiguous and ambivalent relationship of UP and Rizal mostly manifested “between the texts” written over the past century. In this exhibit, Rizal is seen and used as a standard role model to stress and advance the concept of an Iskolar ng Bayan as an idealized agent of rational nationhood. This is evident in Rizal’s “textual presence” within UP either as academic structure on campus, heroic image in art, and national genius in course curricula, from the early period of UP in Padre Faura, until its transfer and growth in Diliman.

Write-up from Geronimo Cristobal