Lani Maestro facts for kids

Lani Maestro (born 1957) is a Filipino-Canadian artist who divides her time between France and Canada. She works in installation, sound, video, bookworks and writing. Her works deal with investigations of memory, forgetting, language, silence, and the ethics of care. From 1990 to 1994 Maestro was co-founder and editor of HARBOUR Magazine of Art and Everyday Life, a journal of artworks and writings by artists, writers and theorists.

Early life and education

Maestro was born in Manila and studied at the University of the Philippines where she received a BFA. Maestro spent her childhood in the Philippines, influencing her textile installation Cradle at Hallwalls in Buffalo, NY. Maestro lived in Manila until she immigrated to Canada in 1982. She pursued an MFA at the reputedly avant-garde art school, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design in Halifax. She taught studio arts at the Nova Scotia College Of Art and Design (NSCAD University) and University of Lethbridge. From 1990 until 2000, she conducted graduate seminars in the MFA program at Concordia University.

Selected Exhibition History

Maestro's large scale installations have been mostly commissioned site specific works. In 2013 and 2014, Paysage Industriel (Foundation France), "ces Mains" and "Limen" were constructed in defunct jewellery and shoe factories in the villages of Ardeche and Moussey, France. In 2010, "L'oublie de l'air (The Forgetting of Air") was shown at the Darling Foundry, Montreal with the collaboration of American composer, Malcolm Goldstein. In the same year, "No Pain Like This Body" opened at Centre A International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art in Vancouver, Canada. Expanded versions of the installation/exhibition were shown at Plug In, Winnipeg (2011) and mo_space, Manila (2015). In 2006, Susan Gibson-Garvey curated "sing mother (twilight eats you)" at Dalhousie Art Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 2005, "je suis toi." (i am you.) opened at Eglise Saint Nicolas for the Centre d'art contemporaine de Base Normandie, Caen. Earlier solo exhibitions with the art centre included "Paramita" in the exhibition, "Ohrenlust", 1997. In the nineties, Maestro's work was featured for the exhibition, "Perspectives", at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

Selected Group Exhibition

• Shrines (2023), Silverlens, New York, USA
• The Spectre Of Comparison (2019), Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila, Manila, Philippines
• Points of Ellipsis... (2011), Osage Gallery, Hong Kong

Participation in International Biennales

• Singapore Biennale (2019)
• Maestro represented the Philippines at the Venice Biennale with artist Manuel Ocampo (2017)
• Busan Biennale, Busan, Korea (2004)
• Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai, China (2001)
• The Third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia (1999)
• The 11th Biennale of Sydney (1998)
• The Fifth Istanbul Biennial (1997)
• The Segunda and the Quinta Bienal dela Habana (Havana Biennial) (1986,1994)
• The Canadian Biennial of Contemporary Art (1989)

Awards

Among her many awards is the Segunda Bienal de la Habana in Cuba in 1985, the Hnatyshyn Award for artistic excellence and outstanding achievement by a Canadian artist in the visual arts in 2012. In 2018, she received an Honorary Doctorate Honoris Causa from NSCAD University in Canada.