Now on its 16th iteration,  the Visayas Islands Visual Arts Exhibition & Conference (VIVA ExCon 16)  recalibrates the festival program to bring together and engage creative spirits in an interactive virtual dynamics online and rise to the challenge of the times.  This edition's theme DASUN ‘What Now’ is in keeping with Futures Studies which postulates possible, probable, and preferable futures and the world views and myths that underlie them.

‘What Now” seeks to understand the context and circumstance of the art community in relation to the sectors of the community it coexists with, what is likely to continue and what could plausibly change.

ACC grantee VIVA ExCon is a Visayas-wide biennale started by the art group Black Artist in Asia in 1990 in Bacolod City and whose hosting has since then toured the Visayan Islands of Negros, Cebu, Panay, Samar, Leyte, Bohol, Guimaras, Siquijor and Boracay. The event has become an effective artist-centered blueprint with which other like initiatives have been patterned after. It celebrates Visayan art by bridging the islands of the Visayas by providing a venue to facilitate dialogues, interaction, networking and cultural exchanges amongst the members of the community. ACC alumni Patrick Flores heads the curatorial team, while fellow grantee Marika Constantino coordiinates for the event.

The conference component presents a 5-day virtual dialogue series on family, business, education, governance, and the role of cultural agencies in the development of Visayan art communities. This dialogue initiative is projected to evolve in phases, to continue on a monthly basis until June 2021.