Kwentong Bayan Collective of Akin Lansdowne present Balikbayan at the Workers Arts & Heritage Centre‎

Kwentong Bayan Collective of Akin Lansdowne presents Balikbayan at the Workers Arts & Heritage Centre‎ (WAHC) from January 24 - April 21, 2018. The exhibition Balikbayan features a visual timeline of the 150+ year history of caregiving in Canada by racialized women, and Balikbayan boxes that contain migration and labour stories. Opens to the public on January 24th, 2017. Join us for the opening reception on Friday, February 9th, 7 – 9 pm; artists will be in attendance. 

Learn more about the work of Kwentong Bayan with a slide talk and exhibition walkthrough conducted by Althea and Jo on Saturday February 10. Click here for more information. 

About the Exhibition:
In the Filipino language, “balik” means “to return” and “bayan” can mean “country, place, home, or town”.

Since the 70’s, the labour export policy of the Philippine government has forced Overseas Filipino Workers to work abroad to provide for their families. An average of 6,000 workers leave the Philippines each day. One way they maintain a connection with their loved ones is to send home balikbayan boxes home packed with items that symbolize their labour and care.

BALIKBAYAN will transform WAHC into a gathering place to listen to migrant worker stories. In a series of gatherings, workers from Hamilton and Toronto will participate in a healing soup circle, create storytelling wearables, and plant native seeds. At each gathering, folks can create their own pasalubong (gifts) to take home and share with others.

This exhibition will be accompanied by an exhibition essay by Zenee Maceda, Labour Activist and National Representative of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada.

The Workers Arts and Heritage Centre will also offer additional programming alongside BALIKBAYAN over the winter season, including two PA Day camps, a comic jam for ages 12 and up and much more. Click here for more information.

About the Kwentong Bayan Collective:
Kwentong Bayan is a collective of two Toronto-based artists, Althea Balmes of Akin Lansdowne and Jo SiMalaya Alcampo. Their artistic mandate is to explore a critical and intersectional approach to community-based art, labour, and education.

Althea Balmes is an artist-educator rooted in community work. She uses her strong connection to her culture and her place as a diasporic Canadian woman of colour to inspire her work and as a way to connect to others. Althea is pursuing a Master of Information degree in User Experience Design at the University of Toronto.

Jo SiMalaya Alcampo is an interdisciplinary artist whose art practice includes community storytelling, interactive installations, and electroacoustic soundscapes. Jo volunteers with Caregiver Connections, Education and Support Organization (CCESO) – an organization that support migrant caregivers and is a member of the Kapwa Collective – a mutual support group of Filipinx Canadian artists, critical thinkers, and healers bridging narratives between the Indigenous and the Diasporic.

About the Workers Art and Heritage Centre:
Founded in 1991, the Workers Arts & Heritage Centre is a national museum dedicated to celebrating the historic and contemporary cultural contributions of Canada's working people through both the arts and a wide range of interpretive exhibitions. wahc-museum.ca

Comic Making Workshop + Residency for asian youth - Althea Balmes & Kwentong Bayan

Althea Blames of Akin Lansdowne presents The Comic Making Workshops + Residency program - learn, explore and practice the craft of combining drawing and writing (for Asian youth 16-29).

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION: DEC 7 2016
9 weeks | Jan-Mar 2017 | no fee | honorarium

The Comic Making Workshops + Residency program is a series of free comic making workshops for self-identified Asian (mixed race, South, East, South East, newcomer, new generation, 1.5, LGBTQI-lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning, intersex, and or with disability) youth (16-29).

The goal of the project is to financially, culturally, mutually support marginalized Asian youth who are homeless or at risk of being homeless to improve their literacy, creative writing, drawing skills and encourage creative collaboration. Youth will develop strategies to write stories from real-life, design characters, page/layout composition, inking and texting, and put together zine comics. The project is meant to give access to a group of youth interested in building an art community and share a positive space for exploring the complexities and issues around being an Asian in Canada. This project is made possible by the support of Ontario Arts Council

BAYAN / exhibition at A Space Gallery

Bayan'
Artists: Kwentong Bayan (Althea Balmes of Akin Lansdowne + Jo SiMalaya Alcampo), Hector Barretto Calma, Jaret Vadera
Essay by: Kim Abis
Location: A Space Gallery
Exhibition dates: November 18 - December 17, 2016
Opening Reception: Friday November 18 6 - 9pm:
     Panel Discussion 6 – 7 pm
     Performances 7 – 8 pm
     Reception 8 – 9 pm
    Performances by: Pantayo, Anakbayan, and Caregiver Connections Education & Support Organization (CCESO)

The exhibition, Bayan, reveals the evolution and multiple meanings of the word bayan itself as it manifests in the cultural practice in the Philippines and in the diaspora. Bayan, which can refer to the actual archipelago of 7,100 islands, also refers to the nation of the people itself, including the over 10 million Filipinx living outside the country. It is precisely because of its fluidity, yet all-encompassing nature, that the term BAYAN is the short name for the umbrella organization of the sectoral Philippine national democratic organizations all over the world.

The works of Hector Calma, Jaret Vadera and Kwentong Bayan, combine to reveal bayan in various ways, giving us the opportunity to trace its mutations in particular political and geographical contexts. The most significant of these political contexts is that the archipelago is in fact home to the longest-running communist insurgency in Asia. This year, 2016, marks the 50 year anniversary of the Cultural Revolution, and its persistence in breathing life into various liberation struggles worldwide cannot be denied. Bayan pays homage to the cultural workers who have come before us, who have shown us how to hold the pen like a proper cadre would.