AAAinA was thrilled to co-present an evening with artist Aki Onda, who shared their ongoing research on Filipino composer and ethnomusicologist José Maceda as part of their contribution to the Whitney Biennial 2026. Onda discussed Maceda’s project Ugnayan, Music for Twenty Radio Stations (1974), a large-scale work broadcast simultaneously across Manila. The presentation will address the socio-political dimensions of the composition, particularly its relationship to the Marcos regime. In conversation with composer and writer Bill Dietz and art historian Patrick Flores, Onda further situated Maceda’s practice within the context of the twentieth-century international avant-garde, while addressing its entanglement with the historical narratives of the Philippines. 

This programwas presented in partnership with The Whitney Museum of American Art and was hosted at the Whitney Museum’s third floor theater space and via Zoom.

Bios:

Aki Onda is an artist, composer, and curator. Their visual and musical works are often catalyzed by and structured around memories—personal, collective, historical—such as his widely-known project “Cassette Memories”, drawn from three decades of cassette field recordings. Onda has presented their work widely at museums and exhibitions. Onda served as Guest Director of TPAM-Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama (current YPAM), Japan and currently works as Curator-at-Large at Western Front, Vancouver. After residing in New York for two decades, he currently lives and works in Mito, Japan.

Patrick Flores is Chief Curator of the National Gallery Singapore and Professor of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines, where he is the Director of the Philippine Contemporary Art Network. He is widely recognized for his scholarly contributions to art history, with a particular focus on the intersections between art, politics, and cultural identity in Southeast Asia. In Spring 2026, he is the Kirk Varnedoe Visiting Professor at the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU. 

Bill Dietz is a composer and writer. His work on genealogies of reception and the “political aesthetics of listening” is often presented in festivals, museums, and academic journals, but also in apartment buildings, magazines, and on public streets. Alongside his artistic work, he has served as artistic director of Ensemble Zwischentöne (Berlin) and Overtoon – Platform for Sound Practitioners (Brussels). In 2013, he co-founded Ear│Wave│Event with Woody Sullender. He has been co-chair of the Music/Sound discipline in Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts since 2012.

Funding Credits:

The event is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, and other foundations and individuals.