ON THIS SITE WILL RISE. Our former office had to be converted to an instant museum. The full lighting had to be changed and display cases had to be adjusted.
Remember this empty space vacated by the CKS office months ago? Well, it is now, slowly but surely taking shape into a museum wing that will host CKS’s valuable paper materials—from historical documents, original photos and manuscripts, rare books and other antique and vintage ephemera.
MURAL, MURAL ON THE WALL. Our resident archaelogist, Joel P. Mallari conceptualized the backdrop for the museum, which traces the history of the province’s ancient written word (Remember too, that the 1st printing press of the Philippines started in Lubao!).
WALL PAPERED. I found these early Kapampangan newspapers--El Imparcial/E Mangabiran-- used as cabinet liners. They date from the first decade of the 1900s. I had them framed and now hang on the walls of our paper museum. Other framed newspapers that you will see include "Ing Cabbling"and "Ing Katiwala".
The most difficult part of creating a display is always materials sourcing. As this was envisioned to be a display of our archival collection, we had to discipline ourselves and think “paper”.
RESTING ON YOUR LAURELS. These brass laurels were used to crown the province's poet laureates and can now be seen at the museum.
We rummaged through the donations of CKS patrons and came up with materials from the families of our poet laureates (we found original drafts of their works, written in longhand), the university’s own collection (for books and vintage pictures) and even from my own stash of paper ‘junque’.
PASYON SHOW. This display features rare, handwritten and bound Kapampangan pasyon (loaned from Fray Francis Musni), early handwritten and printed novenas and original pages from libros bautismos, rescued from Pampanga churches.
The next step was sorting and classifying the materials under major display categories, to include Literature, Politics, Education, Religion, Industry, Leisure and Photography, among others. Creative content titles were generated per display:
O CAPTION, MY CAPTION. Resident artist-videographer Leo Calma created these exhibit titles. A lot of editing went into this phase of the work, as some clusters had a lot of materials, while others had very few. And we wanted to present a collection, not just plain accumulation.
SCHOOL DAZE. Old textbooks, notebooks, educational materials from the American period. Note the small Rizal bust, cast from an orginal mold made by National Artist Guillermo Tolentino.
LOOK IT UP IN THE DICTIONARY. Rare book collection includes Fr. D. Bergano's Arte de la Lengua Pampanga (both the 1863 and 1917 ed.), Kapampangan Dictionary by Luther Parker, early Doctrina Cristiana, Pampango-Tagalog-Spanish Dictionary (1915) and vintage grammar book.
As icing to the proverbial cake, I had to add a few props to add mood to the displays. I scoured thrift shops, second hand stores and my bauls to come up with old-fashioned frames, an antique box camera, a small bust of Rizal by Guillermo Tolentino, estampitas, a fob watch, a pair of spectacle and even People Power mementos. Perfect finds, considering I had a shoestring budget.
HISTORY IN A SNAPSHOT. Old Kapampangan album pages with photo documentations of Pampanga in the good old days. Note the antique box camera used by early photographers.
The museum is still a work in progress; some displays need to be beefed up with more materials (anyone out there with Philippine Revolutionary materials from Pampanga?), the captions aren’t in place and the museum sign has yet to be done.
AMUSING, AMAZING MUSEUM. The Center for Kapampangan Studies Archival Collection. ready for viewing by October 2008.
Nonetheless, I am personally happy with the results, and early previewers of the exhibit, I heard, were impressed by the organized displays. Next time you come to Angeles City, drop by to view our Archival Collection at the second floor of the Center for Kapampangan Studies building. And get an eyeful of our province’s rich historied past. (30 August 2008)
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