H

ans Brandeis, an ethnomusicologist with a main interest in the traditional music of the Philippines, has impressed upon Cariño the dread over the country's disappearing musical legacy, and the desire to preserve the artifacts, compositions, and practices that embody such heritage. Brandeis' various research trips, vocal/instrumental music and ceremonial performance recordings, and collections of photographs all led to the conclusion that more had to be done to save the country's vanishing traditions.

To illustrate... 'mothers passing on a craft to
her child,' a musical instrument is included...
as a physical and an allegorical device.

This self-same conclusion served as the driving force in Bing Cariño's collection, which portrays Mindanao's indigenous people "captured in action during their practice of their fine arts: dancing, singing, and playing traditional musical instruments." An off-shoot of the artist's Mother and Child collection previously produced for the My City, My SM, My Art campaign of SM Supermalls (a chain of shopping malls in the Philippines and China, owned by SM Prime Holdings) in celebration of the Arts Month in General Santos City in Feburary 2018, Indigenous Madonnas came to be the visual opus to bridge time and tradition — its purveyor straddling the art-and-music borderline deftly and with grace.

Cariño went on to expound, "My collection of Mother and Child images... portrayed the tri-people demography of the region: the indigenous peoples, the Moros, and the Christian settlers. To illustrate the theme of 'mothers passing on a craft to her child,' a musical instrument is included in each composition to serve both as a physical and an allegorical device. For the 'Golden Inheritance: The Gift of Mindanao Music as Heritage' exhibition at Museo Dabawenyo, the collection is expanded to include the other peoples of Mindanao. ... Each of my paintings shall dialog with the corresponding instrument depicted in each painting." — ANPJ/²