Manilatown Heritage Foundation presents   

 
Defining capitalism is unthinkable.  It is not impossible to define, as Marx had done  critically, but to arrive at a definition that safely removes us from it would be misleading.  Simply put, capitalism is a system of production and consumption that enable economic entities to thrive and expand.  Therefore, it is a process similar to the Darwinian competition for survival between species that ultimately leads to control.  Regardless of how we object to it, we have none whatsoever to replace it in actuality.  If capitalism is merely a material process, then the conclusion we may arrive is that we are the ones intangibly producing it.  We are capitalism.  That is, our drives or desires, attitudes and beliefs, humanistically distinct and myriad as they are, wedge us into distinctions that produce hierarchies in competition with each other.  These hierarchies turn into class struggles that involve cultural tastes and interests.  Capitalism therefore, is a process that we all create, compete, and are complicit in, whether we like it or not, and to render how it works would entail looking no further away from us.  The goal of this exhibition henceforth is to avoid producing didactic platforms culled from  hierarchic, and/or hieratic, definitions.  Rendering capitalism would be open to whoever experiences it, allowing multiple forms and descriptions through collaboration with the community.  The exhibit will present submitted texts and images from the community, visual artwork as poetic representations of the social condition, and educational/informational programs from various civic organizations as a form of social practice.  The art and activity in this exhibit functions not only as transformative social commentary and critique, but also as an important intervention to capitalism.  - Arvin Flores