Why I no longer trust the phrase ‘internationally awarded’

By Noel Galon de Leon

Every year, when the Ani ng Dangal awards season comes around and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts once again fills our feeds and conversations, I feel a familiar discomfort rising. Alongside the congratulations and applause, an old question quietly but persistently returns: why do we, as Filipinos, and more pointedly as Ilonggos, continue to measure artistic success by how far it travels rather than how deeply it lands? Why does recognition only feel real once it crosses borders? It is as if our art, our labor, and our lived experiences remain provisional until a foreign institution nods in approval.

I say this not from a distance, but as someone embedded in the same ecosystem. Many of us have internalized the belief that a local exhibition, a regional festival, or a community based project is never quite enough. We learn early on that staying home is synonymous with staying small. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, our sense of worth migrates outward. International recognition becomes not just an aspiration, but a benchmark, a credential, and for some, a strategy to survive a system that refuses to sustain us.

What troubles me most is how easily the phrase international award winner circulates, often without scrutiny. Some artists join obscure competitions abroad, pay participation fees, receive a certificate or medal, and return home announcing themselves as internationally recognized. To many audiences, the phrase is unassailable. It sounds authoritative, impressive, final. Yet behind the curtain, many of these competitions have no critical rigor, no respected jury, no history, and no meaningful peer evaluation. They exist less as cultural platforms and more as businesses selling prestige.

This is not simply a matter of individual dishonesty. It is structural. Artists are operating within a cultural economy that constantly tells them local recognition is insufficient. Funding is scarce, institutions are fragile, and cultural labor is routinely undervalued. In such a context, the promise of international validation appears not just attractive, but necessary. When survival is at stake, the line between aspiration and illusion becomes dangerously thin.

At the heart of this lies neoliberal logic. Under neoliberalism, artists are trained to think like entrepreneurs. We are told to brand ourselves, to accumulate credentials, to compete endlessly in a global marketplace. Art becomes a product, and awards become marketing tools. Symbolic capital replaces critical depth. The question shifts from what does this work do to who has validated it and how loudly can that validation be announced.

For Filipino artists, this logic is intensified by history. Our colonial past has left deep residues in how we perceive value. The belief that what comes from abroad is superior still lingers, even when we refuse to name it. Neoliberal competition and colonial mentality intersect seamlessly, producing artists who chase foreign approval not because they are shallow, but because they are insecure in ways that history has taught them to be.

Social media has poured fuel on this fire. A single post announcing an international award can instantly generate admiration, invitations, and professional opportunities. Rarely does anyone ask what the competition was, who judged it, or what criteria were applied. The spectacle of winning overwhelms the substance of the win. Visibility becomes more important than credibility.

Over time, this creates a feedback loop that is difficult to escape. Artists see others gaining attention through dubious awards and feel pressured to follow the same path. The more this happens, the harder it becomes to distinguish meaningful recognition from purchased prestige. The community, often unknowingly, becomes complicit in sustaining a culture of shallow validation.

Young artists are especially vulnerable. Many are taught early on that success means being seen, and being seen means being affirmed by someone elsewhere. They are encouraged to think globally before they have fully understood their own cultural, political, and ethical positions. The result is work that often mimics international trends, speaks in borrowed languages, and struggles to engage deeply with Philippine realities.

Older artists are not immune either. Some have embraced the same logic, using international awards to reinforce their authority and relevance. In doing so, they sometimes reproduce hierarchies that marginalize those who choose to remain locally engaged. The unspoken message is clear: legitimacy flows from the global center, not from sustained work at the margins.

One of the greatest casualties of this mindset is the collective dimension of art. Neoliberalism isolates artists, turning peers into competitors and communities into markets. Awards become personal trophies rather than reflections of shared struggle or cultural growth. The possibility of solidarity across disciplines is slowly eroded.

Filmmakers, writers, visual artists, musicians, and performers experience this pressure in different ways, but the underlying logic is the same. Festivals and residencies often prioritize international visibility over long term local engagement. Many artists end up tailoring their work to imagined foreign audiences, flattening complexity in order to become legible and exportable.

This is tragic, because the Philippines has a rich artistic tradition that does not require external validation to be meaningful. Community theater, independent cinema, indigenous visual practices, radical literature, and grassroots performance have long articulated powerful truths about our society. Yet these forms are frequently sidelined because they do not translate easily into international prestige or market friendly narratives.

If we are serious about change, the first step is critical awareness. Artists need to understand how the global art economy actually works. Not all international platforms are equal, and not all recognition is earned through rigorous evaluation. Learning to differentiate between meaningful engagement and opportunistic schemes is essential to reclaiming artistic integrity.

Institutions have a responsibility here as well. Universities, funding bodies, and cultural organizations must stop uncritically celebrating any form of international recognition. They should cultivate critical discourse around value, context, and accountability, rather than treating foreign validation as an automatic marker of excellence.

Equally important is rebuilding local infrastructure. Artists look outward because local support systems are weak or nonexistent. Strengthening regional festivals, independent spaces, publishing platforms, and community based initiatives can help re center artistic practice where it belongs, in sustained engagement rather than fleeting prestige.

Mentorship matters deeply in this process. Senior artists should not guide younger practitioners toward shortcuts, but toward sustainable, ethical practices. This means having honest conversations about rejection, failure, and the slow, often invisible labor of artistic growth that no award can replace.

We also need to rethink how we define success. Success does not have to mean constant mobility or global visibility. It can mean consistency, integrity, collaboration, or the ability to provoke reflection and change within one’s own community. These forms of success are quieter, but they are far more transformative.

Language plays a crucial role. When artists casually describe themselves as internationally awarded without context, they contribute to a culture of distortion, even if unintentionally. Transparency is not about diminishing oneself. It is about respecting audiences and peers enough to tell the whole story.

This is why criticism must be welcomed rather than feared. A healthy art ecosystem depends on rigorous critique, not blind celebration. Questioning the legitimacy of certain awards is not an attack on artists. It is a defense of artistic standards and collective dignity.

At its core, this issue is deeply personal. Many artists pursue international recognition because they are exhausted from being invisible, underpaid, and dismissed at home. Their desire to be seen is human and understandable. What deserves scrutiny is the system that exploits this desire for profit and symbolic power.

Neoliberalism thrives by convincing individuals that their worth depends on constant competition. Artists must resist this narrative by reclaiming art as a social practice rather than a commodity. This resistance begins by refusing to equate value with visibility.

For Filipino artists, resistance also requires confronting the colonial residues within our own thinking. We must ask why foreign approval still carries disproportionate weight and who benefits from this imbalance. These questions are uncomfortable, but avoiding them only perpetuates the problem.

This is not a call to reject international engagement outright. Global participation can be meaningful when approached critically and ethically. The goal is dialogue, not desperation. Artists should enter global spaces with awareness and accountability, not as supplicants begging to be seen.

There is power in staying, in building, and in committing to local contexts. There is power in work that does not travel easily but resonates deeply. The future of Philippine art depends on our courage to imagine value beyond awards, to privilege depth over decoration, and to ask not where did you win, but why does your work matter here. That shift, however difficult, may be the most radical act we can make.