updates

February 28th, 2018

2/28/2018

The Museum of Contemporary Art presents Jo SiMalaya Alcampo: Singing Plants, as part of the Art of Propagation performative speaker series that aims to broaden perspectives on art and culture through acts, thinking and projects of cultivation, fermentation and propagation.

Jo will introduce us to the Singing Plants – keepers of indigenous knowledge, stories and memory. These banana plants respond to human touch with songs – the Hudhud chant of the Ifugao people – and sounds of bamboo instruments and gongs indigenous to the Philippines.

March 14, 2018
7 PM - 9 PM
Henderson Brewing Co., 128A Sterling Road
Free event

BALIKBAYAN Exhibition

1/8/2018

BALIKBAYAN
Solo exhibition by Kwentong Bayan Collective
at the Workers Arts & Heritage Centre (Hamilton)
runs January 24 - April 21, 2018

Reception: Feb 9
Artist Talk: Feb 10

BALIKBAYAN features a visual timeline of the history of caregiving in Canada by racialized women, and Balikbayan boxes that contain migration and labour stories.

Visit http://wahc-museum.ca/event/kwentong-bayan-balikbayan for info about the Caregiver Gathering Series. From February to April, WAHC will be a space for care workers to socialize and engage in creative arts that share stories of care, work, and migration.

Diasporic Intimacies Book Launch

11/6/2017

Diasporic Intimacies: Queer Filipinos and Canadian Imaginaries is the first edited volume of its kind, featuring the works of artists, activists, scholars, and frontline community workers who reflect on the contributions of LGBTQ Filipinos/as to Canadian culture and society.

Jo SiMalaya Alcampo's work is featured in this collection. Jo will speak at the book launch on:

November 17, 2017
Urban Space Gallery
401 Richmond Street
6:00 pm - 10:00 pm

This celebration will feature performances, reflections, and community dialogues.

Invisible Footprints

10/16/2017

"The Continuum of LGBTQ East and Southeast Asian Storytelling"
With panelists, Elisha Lim, Paul Yee, Wayson Choy, Richard, Fung, and Jo SiMalaya Alcampo.

October 28, 2017, 1-4 PM
Open Space Gallery, OCAD University
49 McCaul Street

As part of the Invisible Footprints 0.1, Art & Archive exhibition

TAKE CARE Exhibition

9/30/2017

Kwentong Bayan Collective is honoured to be part of TAKE CARE - performances, publications, and workshops comprising a year-long exhibition organized around five circuits of care.

CIRCUIT 2 - "Care Work"
runs October 16 to November 4, 2017
at the Blackwood Gallery
University of Toronto, Mississauga campus

"Care Work" featues:
- Marisa Morán Jahn (Studio REV-), "CareForce"
- Onaman Collective, "Land and Water Protectors"
- Kwentong Bayan Collective (Althea Balmes + Jo SiMalaya Alcampo), "In Love and Struggle"

Kapwa Playshops with Musagetes

8/10/2017

Thank you to the Musagetes community for inviting Kapwa Collective to facilitate a series of Kapwa Playshops this weekend in Guelph. We will create handmade seedballs containing wildflowers, and plantable paper out of recycled materials and seeds.

We will invite the community to plant these offerings in the Mashkiki Gitigaan (medicine garden in Anishnaabemowin) - "a medicine and pollinator garden that Musagetes staff, Elwood Jimmy and Chelsea Brant have been building and growing with the support of many community members through their donation of time, seeds, and plants.

The Mashkiki Gitigaan is the foundation for a variety of summer workshops/talks/walks/knowledge gatherings/community circles throughout the city, "centering art, ecology sustainability, relationship-building, collaborative learning, restorative and trauma-informed practices, and Indigenous & land-based teachings."

Philippine Inquirer article

7/13/2017

It was a pleasure speaking to Walter Ang writer for the Philippine Inquirer about my work in the community. Maraming salamat/Many thanks for sharing the journey! - JSA

Image from "Singing Plants Redux" at the Subtle Technologies Festival 2017

Seed Bombs & Singing Plants

5/27/2017

Seed Bombs & Singing Plants
Subtle Technologies Festival
Co-Presented with Evergreen

Featuring the work of
Jo SiMalaya Alcampo
Amy Desjarlais (nee Tabobandung)
Ester Dulawan Tuldague
& Members of Kapwa Collective

Sunday June 25th, 2017
11:30 AM to 1 PM

Chimney Court in the Children’s Garden
at Evergreen Brick Works
550 Bayview Avenue, Toronto
Admission is free. All are welcome.

In celebration of National Aboriginal Day and the radiance of the Summer solstice, Jo SiMalaya Alcampo and friends will facilitate an all ages seed bomb playshop followed by a performance that features the Singing Plants installation as a live instrument. The afternoon’s activities will include traditional prayers, chants, and a participatory jam session with singing plants and indigenous instruments.

PROGRAMME:

11:30-12:00 PM
Native Wildflower Seed Bomb Playshop with Kapwa Collective
This playshop will feature a hands-on demonstration on how to create seed bombs, an age-old agricultural practice now used for guerrilla farming. Participants will combine seeds, clay and compost into small balls perfect for tossing in places in need of native wildflowers!

Singing Plants (Live)
12:00-1:00 PM

Amy Desjarlais (nee Tabobandung), Michele Perpaul, and Jen Maramba will open the event with songs from the Sacred Water Journey album.

Ester Dulawan Tuldague will share a solidarity statement and talk about the Hudhud, one of the songs that the plants sing. It is a epic chant indigenous to the Ifugao People.

Jo SiMalaya Alcampo will introduce the Singing Plants and will invite them to play with us!

Kapwa Collective members will engage the audience in an interactive activity that embodies the elements of wind, water, air and fire; and introduce us to the rhythms of Isinay gongs.

Kapwa Collective will then invite Jo, Ester, Amy and the audience to join in a group jam session with singing plants and indigenous instruments.

Visitors: Singing Plants (Redux)

5/26/2017

Visitors: Singing Plants (Redux)
Subtle Technologies Festival
Co-Presented with Evergreen
Featuring the work of Jo SiMalaya Alcampo

June 3rd–25th, 2017
8am-5pm, Saturdays and Sundays
Weekday viewings by request

Children’s Garden Greenhouse
at Evergreen Brick Works
550 Bayview Avenue, Toronto

"An interactive sound art installation situated in the greenhouse of the Brick Works, Alcampo’s singing plants are potted banana plants that respond to human hand gestures to emit soundscapes of Indigenous chants, songs and spoken words.

The project’s title “Visitors” calls attention to the insertion of these foreign flora into the otherwise completely native gardens of the Brick Works and raises important questions around responsible horticulture, embedded forms of knowledge and the importance of asking the land for permission to access its resources." - from Subtle Technologies website

Hilot Means Healer (2017) Public Reading

5/21/2017

Please join Cahoots Theatre on June 18th for a pay-what-you-can reading of HILOT MEANS HEALER by Jo SiMalaya Alcampo. Directed by Nina Lee Aquino. Immediately following the reading, guests and community members are invited to stay and enjoy refreshments to celebrate the end of Cahoot's incredible 30th Anniversary season!

Sunday June 18, 2017

HILOT MEANS HEALER
2:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M.

CAHOOTS End of Season Party
4:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M.

Space is limited, so please RSVP here.

Location:
The Ernest Balmer Studio
(Tapestry/Nightwood)
9 Trinity Street, Studio #316
3rd floor in Toronto's Distillery District

Wheelchair accessible space with freight elevator access from 15 Case Goods Lane.

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