In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times

Kiri Dalena’s neon work, In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times, (2017), which was presented in the 2018 Manila Biennale, is taken from a poem by the influential German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht. The work illuminates and reclaims the necessity of hope in the face of violence and oppression.

While in self-imposed exile in 1939, Brecht penned poems in response to the disturbing political events in his German homeland. Dalena similarly reflects on the social and political unrest in the Philippines during the dark days of Martial Law in the 1970s and 1980s under Ferdinand Marcos and the more recent extra-judicial killings under Rodrigo Duterte. Dalena unflinchingly brings her political convictions into her artistic practice. Of the view that artists have a responsibility to speak up against injustice, she offers this text as a consolation for our troubled times as well as an invitation to join the chorus.