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Paghilom Cavite 2017
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RAPT
Project Bakawan: Off Site/Out Of Sight
Off Site/ Out of Sight took from the idea that much of the mangrove systems, or bakawan, constitute hidden but vital breeding grounds for life. Participating artists were asked to take this aspect of ‘invisibility’ and ‘inaccessibility’ into consideration as they interact with selected communities within the UP Diliman territory. A number of artists took on a six-month, immersive collaboration with willing households to creatively depict their conditions alongside competing interests in land and other resources. The intent behind these eco-social experiments was grounded in possibly utopic, but necessary, aspirations of crafting just schemes of sharing and living amidst persisting myths about autonomy and privilege.
Artists’ were set off to visit places like the Arboretum, Daang Tubo, Pook Malinis, Krus na Ligas,and CP Garcia at the beginning of April 2014, Off site/Out of sight activated the UP stud farm turned materials recovery facility through site specific work by individuals and artists collectives.
Opening activities included sticker exchanges organized by CVTY Collective, a decker and off-road biker open, a one-day ride-thru of food trucks, and poetry jamming.
Art installations were set-up at the Materials Recovery Facility (former Stud Farm), and where interactions with UP Diliman residents took place.
Artists and art collectives were given specific sites. They had turned these sites into a space where communications, negotiations and translations coexist with one another.
- Project Bakawan Public Art Installation, artletics.org
Inspired by Maginhawa Community Pantry
“Magbigay ayon sa kakayahan, kumuha batay sa pangangailangan”.
Give what you can, take what you need.
The [Maginhawa] Community Pantry was a food bank by and for the people initiated as a response to the difficulties in acquiring food during the community quarantine imposed by the government for COVID-19. Started by Ana Patricia Non and through the help of social media, this initiative caught the attention of Filipinos across the country and inspired them to put their own community pantries in their locales.
People lining up for the Harmony Hills Community Pantry in San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan (Harmony Hills Community Pantry)
The first community pantry established in Maginhawa (above) and Ana Patricia Non beside her small pantry cart (below). (Maginhawa Community Pantry Facebook Page)
Sama-samang Artista para sa Kilusang Agraryo (SAKA)
Artist Alliance for Genuine Land Reform and Rural Development | Philippines
THE ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT OF MANY ARTISTS AND CULTURAL WORKERS in peasant campaigns and issues such as Hacienda Luisita, Kidapawan massacre, Lapanday landgrabs, tiempo muerto, and peasant and lumad killings, provided the spark in establishing SAKA or Sama-samang Artista para sa Kilusang Agraryo, an artist alliance for genuine land reform and rural development.
Below are some of their projects during the pandemic.
IN PHOTOS: Members of SAKA and Artista ng Rebolusyong Pangkultura - ARPAK create new plots for Bungkalan Kontra Demolisyon at Kagutuman. As convenors of the Defend Area 17 Network, peasant advocates and cultural workers remain vigilant in upholding the rights of urban poor residents in Brgy. UP Campus who receive threats of demolition by the UP administration.
Bungkalan is a practice of the peasant movement to contribute in attaining food security in rural communities especially during periods of drought and tiempo muerto. But more than bungkalan's material benefits is its political decisiveness of giving back control of the land to the people.
In the countryside, thousands of farmers and indigenous peoples are displaced due to development aggression and imperialist plunder of our natural resources through mining, logging, and plantations. The same government neglect in providing land for the poor coupled with landgrabbing by private interests is seen in urban spaces such as Quezon City.
In bungkalan, not only seeds are sown but also genuine solidarity among the toiling masses, that the "fruits of labor" may one day be harvested in the hopes of building a society free from forced evictions and exploitations.
- UMANI Productions (SAKA Facebook Page)
Kitchen Kalasag
This is one of SAKA's flagship programs promoting genuine food security and sustainable food production.
To expose Duterte's disregard of "food security frontliners," the Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women, Rural Women Advocates and Gantala Press, launched a cookbook entitled as "Lutong Gipit: Mga Recipe sa Panahon ng Krisis." It featured peasant women and mothers from Cavite, Laguna, Iloilo, and Rizal, demonstrating their recipes of coping up with dwindling household incomes and rising food prices.
- (Amihan Women Facebook Page)
The first community pantry established in Maginhawa (above) and Ana Patricia Non beside her small pantry cart (below). (Maginhawa Community Pantry Facebook Page)