Skip to main content

This event has passed. See what’s on at SAM.

Saturday University: “What Does This All Have to Do with Coconuts & Rice?”

Sat Sep 14 2024

10–11:30 am

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Emma Baillargeon Stimson Auditorium

Jose Maceda - photo co UP Center for Ethnomusicology.

Welcome to Saturday University, a monthly lecture series featuring experts from around the world. Gain new insights on Asia throughout time as our visiting scholars, authors, artists, and thought leaders delve into new themes each season.

“What Does This All Have to Do with Coconuts & Rice?”: José Maceda, Arts/Cultural Institutions and Filipino Avant-Garde

Christine Bacareza Balance

Focusing on historical as well as contemporary performances of José Montserrat Maceda’s work—both in the Philippines and throughout the Filipino diaspora—this talk meditates upon the relationship between artists and arts/cultural institutions and the scales (national, local, regional, transnational, translocal) on which art making, collecting, and curation take place. Through an exploration of avant-garde aesthetics and sound/performance, it also broadly considers the questions and problems that Filipino artists, such as Maceda, pose for “Asian art.”

Maceda (1917-2004) was a musician/composer/ethnomusicologist who devoted himself to a decade of fieldwork, documenting ethnic musical traditions across the Philippines. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he brought the avant-garde and indigenous together through explorations of sound, ritual, and technology. Working through the genre and practices of conceptual art during those decades, as art historian Tina Le has noted, Maceda and his fellow “CCP artists” resisted the Marcos regime while also benefiting from its patronage.

Christine Bacareza Balance is Associate Professor of Performing & Media Arts and Asian American Studies at Cornell University, where she is also core faculty in the Southeast Asia Program (SEAP). For 2024, she serves as Thomas Tam Visiting Professor with the City University of New York’s (CUNY) Asian/Asian American Research Institute (AAARI). Balance is the author of Tropical Renditions: Making Musical Scenes in Filipino America (2016), co-editor of California Dreaming: Movement and Migration in the Asian American Imaginary (2020), and currently working on a book project (tentatively titled) Making Sense of Martial Law. She has collaborated with California-based organizations such as Visual Communications (VC), KulArts, and CinemaSala on various public humanities projects, and is a member of the New York-based indie rock group, The Jack Lords Orchestra.

Tickets
$15
$10 SAM members & students with ID
Tickets include gallery access

Jose Maceda - photo co UP Center for Ethnomusicology.

Related program

Saturday University Lecture Series

Gain new insights on Asian Art at this lecture series featuring experts from around the world.

view program

What’s on at Seattle Asian Art Museum

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Thu Sep 4 2025

  

11:30 am–12:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Free First Thursday: Seattle Asian Art Museum

Thu Sep 4 2025

  

10 am–5 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Sep 6 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Sep 7 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Sep 13 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Sep 14 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Jaipur Literature Festival Seattle Opening Night

Fri Sep 19 2025

  

6–8 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Sep 20 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Sep 21 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

SAM Performs: K-Pop Random Play Dance

Sat Sep 27 2025

  

12–2 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Sep 27 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

SAM Teen Arts Group Presents: [REDACTED]

Sat–Sat May 31–Sep 27 2025

  

10–5 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Sep 28 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Thu Oct 2 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Free First Thursday: Seattle Asian Art Museum

Thu Oct 2 2025

  

10 am–5 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Oct 4 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Oct 5 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Saturday University: Lithographic Technologies and the Rediscovery of Buddhism in Modern Afghanistan

Sat Oct 11 2025

  

10–11:30 am

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Diwali Family Festival

Sat Oct 11 2025

  

11 am–2 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Oct 11 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Oct 12 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Seattle Asian Art Museum Open House

Fri Oct 17 2025

  

6–9 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Oct 18 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Oct 19 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Oct 25 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Oct 26 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Nov 1 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Nov 2 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Thu Nov 6 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Free First Thursday: Seattle Asian Art Museum

Thu Nov 6 2025

  

10 am–5 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Saturday University: Sherman E. Lee’s Collecting and Exhibitions of Chinese Art

Sat Nov 8 2025

  

10–11:30 am

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Nov 8 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Nov 9 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Nov 15 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Nov 16 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Nov 22 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Nov 23 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Nov 29 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Nov 30 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

SAM Talks: Asia Society Seattle Series

Wed Dec 3 2025

  

5:30–7:30 am

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Thu Dec 4 2025

  

11:30 am–12:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Free First Thursday: Seattle Asian Art Museum

Thu Dec 4 2025

  

10 am–5 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Dec 6 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Dec 7 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Saturday University: The Temple Room and Beyond

Sat Dec 13 2025

  

10–11:30 am

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Dec 13 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Dec 14 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sat Dec 20 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Public Tour: Journeys Through Time and Space

Sun Dec 21 2025

  

1:30–2:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Free First Thursday: Seattle Asian Art Museum

Thu Jan 1 2026

  

10 am–5 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Saturday University: Representations of Transnational Adoptees in Contemporary Korean Dramas

Sat Feb 14 2026

  

2–3:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Saturday University: Photography and the Afterlife of the War in Vietnam

Sat Mar 14 2026

  

2–3:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Saturday University: Blue and Black Panthers

Sat Apr 11 2026

  

2–3:30 pm

Seattle Asian Art Museum

Saturday University: Why Get a Japanese Dragon Tattoo?

Sat May 9 2026

  

2–3:30 pm