A NEW WORLD IS BEING BORN

BUT WHAT IS FILIPINO?

by alex

What is Filipino?

THE STRUGGLE OF AN ARTIST

whoa! has it been that long since I last blogged? yes! it has. why is that?

While in the Philippines, I felt a unmotivated with this project. It wasn’t that the Philippines or being in the Philippines was uninspiring. As an artist who has been using my Filipina identity within my artistic concepts…being there was total mental stimulation for research on all different levels. Meeting family for the first time, seeing where my father grew up, connecting with the Kilusan Exchange artists and just being put into a different environment that I feel both a connection and disconnection with. Also artists I met, both who use their Filipino identity and those who reach out to other concepts to connect to the world were inspiring in hearing their experiences and seeing their experiences through their art.

So why was I so unmotivated? I suppose it was this sense of not feeling free. This is my philosophy in practicing my art, my freedom. To do. To be. For whatever ‘political’ issues arouse within the group and within the organization which, I work with…it was difficult for me to be free, to do. I suppose this is my realization of my artistic methods in which allows me to create. In this confirmation of the conditions I demand for myself as an artist, I realize the compromise I sometimes must make to work with others and also the refusal to compromise when I believe in something that is important to me. My artistic freedom is important to me…otherwise art becomes just like everything else with rules, politics, restrictions and for me…it loses the playfulness and freedom of expression – and sometimes results in my lack of motivation.

So here I am, back in Toronto with a few days behind me reflecting on my journey and experience in my motherland (the Philippines) ready to share with my homeland and community (Toronto) my experience as a Filipina-Canadian. I have so many thoughts, feelings, and ideas that are ready to be brought forward through my art. To the rest of the Kilusan Exchange participants: Alex, Jeff, Tiff, Ilona and Carlos – Thank you for sharing this experience with me, even with all our challenges that make us grow even stronger as artists and individuals who have something to say through our art – whatever that means to you!

Thanks Philippines, I cannot wait to come back and learn more – and of course, to really play with you!

MY 1ST ARTICLE IN THE TORONTO STAR

by alex

Juana's body is welcomed home by family and Migrante International

I had my first article printed in the Toronto Star while on this trip about the homecoming of the body of deceased Filipina caregiver Juana Tejada.  Sadly they didn’t print my photo, but it was all quite a learning experience.

WHAT KILLED DR. WILLIAM JONES?

by alex

[*this is another historical tidbit that, like all good history, still contains lessons for us today...]

I like to look at archival photos every once in awhile. There’s something about seeing images from the past that grips me. The long dead faces, and old–almost foreign–landscapes tell stories.

I was interested in this photo from 1909 instantly, two Filipino indigenous men, captives of colonized Filipino soldiers working for the Americans. One of the bound men had a look that seemed to me fearful, while the other seemed proud and defiant. The caption under the photo only told me that they were the killers of Dr. William Jones.

Who was this Dr. Jones? What was he a doctor of? What was he doing in the Phils and, presumably indigenous territory? And, of course, why was he killed?

THE AFTERTASTE OF TESTICLE

by alex

Siocon, Mindanao (2007)

***This is an older story.  It’s a travel story from my very first trip back home in 2001.  As the collective is younger and newer to the Philippines than yours truly, I though it would be good to share a memory from when it was all new to me as well.  It’s an email I wrote my friends. I was less than a month into my travels, the trip would last almost 2.5 years. I read this and I remember a younger me…

* * * * *

Monday June 11, 2001

I have come to realize that the psychological aftertaste of testicle lingers far longer than the actual physical flavour… but I am getting ahead of myself. Please let me restart from the beginning of the story.

CHICKEN? a story about fear–with photos of chickens

by alex

My recent run in with the military has resulted in a concern from people both in Canada and here in the Philippines.  Even the NGO peeps I work with that deal with this sort of situation all the time have been asking whether I’m ok, whether I was afraid.  People have even gone to call me brave.  Very strange.

TURN OF THE CENTURY

POST BACOOD STA. MESA MEET TORONTO

MY RUN-IN WITH THE MILITARY IN BIKOL…

by alex

Jocelyn Polborido's family home.

It was 4am, the sun was still a long time from rising, and rain was falling when I woke up to make breakfast with the one other guy in the group.  We were in Balinak, Ligao, Bikol, a town at the end of the road—literally.

The single paved lane wove around the rolling hills of the land around Mt. Mayon, it ended at the basketball court of Balinak, a simple village that still consisted of many nipa hut homes, a village with a sad recent story.