Imagine a small city (about 25 square km in area) with a high density population and limited arable land, Vigan can still manage to keep it's agriculture sector healthy. This festival has made me realize that farmers and their carabaos are still existing in Vigan. This sub-festival of the mother festival Viva Vigan Festival of the Arts is divided into 3 main events: Carabao Painting and Pasagad Dressing, Boklan Arts and Glass Mosaic Competition. KARBO is derived from Karabaw, that is the Carabao and Bokel or Boklan which means seed. The newest addition is the Glass Mosaic competition.

The main attraction to this sub-festival is the carabao painting and pasagad dressing. The carabaos served as living canvasses. It is great to know that there are still carabaos in Vigan. 

Of course, the pasagad dressing is a thing that should not be missed because the artists have used this medium to portray the rich culture and heritage of Vigan.

I remember I was in first year college when the Karbo Festival started. I actually joined the first ever Boklan Arts Competition and luckily, our group won. So we were the first winner of this competition. It has been marked in the history of this festival.

In Boklan Arts, the artists use seeds to turn the canvass into a work-of-art. Glass mosaic competition is a recent addition. Artists use broken glasses to come up with the work.

For more VIGAN posts, click here. For more festivals I covered, click here. For posts about ARTS, click there.