MEDIA

INDAY Dolls: Restorative Social Enterprise

The Inday Dolls evolved as personal self-portraits of women behind bars, visual narratives, stories-of-objects, about of their prison experience, disaster, survival and resilience. Inday Dolls have traveled and presented in conferences and have been exhibited in New York, California, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and around the Philippines, Iloilo, Manila, Palawan, Bohol and Davao.

Inday Dolls Project received funding for Freedom in Prison/Hilway Art Project from University of San Agustin. In 2016 a psycho-social intervention evolved into a livelihood and enterprise development that gave birth to Indy Dolls. Workshops were conducted in collaboration with Fine Arts Major Organization (FAMO) and other volunteer teaching artists and facilitators.

FAMO facilitated funding grants from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and Cultural Center of the Philippines. Freedom in Prison Project was awarded as Top 20 Grantee by the US Embassy YSEALI US Mission for the ASEAN and chosen for the boot camp with BPI Sinag Accelerate as Top 20 finalist and FAMO was awarded the Ten Accomplished Youth Organization (TAYO) Finalist in 2019 for the Walk to Freedom Project: Bayaning Inday.

Storytelling is a powerful tool for healing and assertion. Women tell stories as a means of gathering parts of themselves back to one piece. Hilway (Freedom) is a process of expressive arts psychosocial intervention where women exercise their own sense of freedom navigating in a tight small crowded prison space through art-making. Women transcend their pains and struggles through artworks as they reclaim their dignity expressed as new colors to light up their life in the darkest times.

"Prison is not a dead the end, rather a restorative space with living narratives of human stories through objects, a space of compassion with overflowing bodies sharing the politics of tolerance, compassion, and love" Rosa Zerrudo