Oh, How Cheap, You Can Have It ["O KAMURA. SA `YO NA `TO"] オ、カムラ　サヨナト（ああ、何てチープなんだ、君にも買えるよ）

Sanggawa is a group made up of five male and female painters, and the name means "working as one" in Filipino. Working together, they have produced figurative paintings and public space murals with themes taken from people's lives and social events. This large diptych commenting on the cultural exchange between the Philippines and Japan was created for the exhibition "Art in Southeast Asia 1997" at the Museum. The artists came over to Japan for this occasion and worked on it in public view for 18 days. In the work, we see a farming village woman commercialized by city culture, a Ninja from Japanese manga, a compact camera, a Filipino dancer, a singer, and a sleeping bride. With the cynical humor in the title in Filipino slang, with its sounds reminiscent of the Japanese language, the upturned legs of a woman in the shape of the Yen symbol, the typical and superficial images about Japan, and the pervasive and disconcerting vulgarity, the picture is somewhat overwhelming. The two cultures, seen from the Filipino viewpoint, are presented here with honesty, and yet, the resulting pictorial space is full of festive mood.