Artistic Director
Dayang Magdalena Nirvana T. Yraola, PhD is an Associate Professor at the University of the Philippines, College of Fine Arts, where she was former Chair of the Committee on Linkages, Scholarships and Grants, and Curator of the UP Fine Arts Gallery (2020-2023). She was Archivist/Collections Manager at the UP Center for Ethnomusicology (2007-2014). She pioneers academic research and formal education for sound art in the Philippines.
For her curatorial practice, she was founder and curator of art project series Project Glocal (2011-2015), Composite Noises (2015-2023), and archiving/research series Sonic Manila Research (2020-2023). Among her latest curatorial project was Listening Biennial (2023).
Although she’s one of Maceda’s grandchildren from his academic family, Yraola’s creative engagement with his work only came in after some years of working in the UP Center for Ethnomusicology. She finds Maceda’s extensive ethnomusicology research, experimental compositions, and philosophy a potent inspiration for the contemporary art, especially for the practices that are in the interstices of traditional forms.
Yraola was also curator of the exhibit “Listen to my music”, one of the first multidisciplinary exhibit on and in confluence with Maceda’s works in 2013 at the UP Vargas Museum, exhibit series in 2017 connection with the celebration of Maceda’s birth centennial, including “Reading Maceda: Prelude” held at UP Bulwagan ng Dangal, “Attitude of the Mind” held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and another exhibit in 2018 held at Archivbooks in Berlin, a project of SAVVY Contemporary, titled “What has it got to do with coconuts and rice?
