Projects

This project is a restorative recovery process from COVID-19 Pandemic engaging the most vulnerable and marginalized artists in the region such as Women Artists Persons Deprived of Liberty (PDL) mothering behind bars and those in post-incarceration from Iloilo City District Jail Female Dormitory. Currently four trained weavers in Iloilo District Jail in Nanga, Pototan, Iloilo has
continued the weaving culture behind bars. Twenty post-detention women expressed their need and desire to continue being part of the Inday Dolls Hilway Prison Art Project even after their release or being acquitted. There is massive potential in the hablon freedom weaves behind bars and also re-engaging in the after-care program of former incarcerated women artists. Some of these women showed great talent and developed new skills as part of the core group design team when they were inside as persons deprived of liberty (PDL). Reintegrating in the society is a challenging and can be a traumatic circumstance especially during the pandemic which needs concrete support. Most of the women are bread winners who can greatly benefit from creative enterprise and relevant income generating projects.

The Inday Hablon – after care post prison art program will provide creative income opportunities for 20-30 PDL and former incarcerated women artists working at home as part of the psychosocial support and rehabilitation through the arts. The process-oriented art production reflects the local culture integrating weaving in the product development and design process developed by women for
women.

Palangga Prison Art
INDAY TRIPLE LOCKDOWN SHOWDOWN

Palangga restorative prison art will showcase the narrative of triple lockdown during
COVID-19 pandemic created by women during the lockdown expressed in visual narratives,
poetry, stories, installation, performance art and novelty art products. The final output will
showcase the artworks based on themes: “women helping women” and “stories of
compassion” in ZOOMCARE online workshops, performance and exhibition for the healing
arts festival connecting to other women artists affected by the COVID Pandemic around the
globe through online platform. The main showcase will be in March 2021 in time for the
Women’s month celebration.

Can Prison be a healing place? The main purpose of this culture-specific healing prison
art project, is to reach out to the most vulnerable and marginalized population of women artists
badly affected by COVID-19 pandemic. The process of using healing modalities is the
reintroduction of community healing arts rooted in the indigenous skills, knowledge, and
practices as part of the process in arts making expressed in the culture-specific contemporary
form of representation.

• Culture-specific collaborative process serves as the core values of the art
making process
• Thematic framework guides the women art processes
o Quarantine Mental Survival Kit
o Triple Lockdown Showdown
o Healing Art in time of Corona
o Binalaybay Ginhawa sang Tinaga
o Stories of Compassion
o Body Monologues
• Virtual bayanihan synergy for online workshops learning from other external
healing community of practice breaking barriers and bridging boundaries with
global women artist network
• Barter of ideas, skills among artists of women helping women around the
globe through ZOOMCare and other online platform
• Workshops of psycho-social care giving through webinars if necessary
• Showcase of all outputs with Palangga Art Talks and during mobile art exhibit
in online platforms with strict observance of privacy protocols

"Inday Kalayaan Group Therapy" with France Stohner

France is a Philippine-born, Montreal-raised diasporic community worker and mental health counsellor. Committed to decolonization, she completed a Masters of Arts degree in Counselling and Spirituality, specializing in Women’s Studies, a collaborative program between Saint-Paul and the University of Ottawa. From 2011 to 2016, she was a host and content creator for the Sigaw Ng Bayan radio collective at CKUT 90.3FM. As co-lead organizer for the Pinay Power II (McGill University) and Filipino-Canadian Futures (Concordia University) conferences, she strives to highlight the importance of community dialogue while uplifting Kapwa voices. Since the pandemic she has been a Restorative Circle Keeper, creating brave spaces for women and youth to work towards more emotional and spiritual strength and growth.

"Womyn Body Monologues: feminism in the grassroots" with Nikki Luna

Nikki has been immersed in the stories of marginalized and vulnerable women for over a decade. Her practice is tied to communities and has woven their narratives into art, re- contextualizing their experiences from a place of oppression into a position of power. Luna is known for her body of work which primarily tackles social/political concerns with a feminist lens. It covers—and is not limited to—misogyny, women used as weapons in war, and women’s human rights. With her passion for Women and girl-child rights in developing countries, she remains committed in bringing attention to the plight of the Filipino children, women and the violations committed against them. Luna, continues to work with various NGOs, government agencies, international organizations, academe, international women partnerships and art institutions bringing art focused activities on how to strengthen women and human rights standard, implementing art healing/recovery programs for the women and children victims of gender-based violence and those displaced in conflict zones.

Nikki Luna is a Painting major graduate from the Universidad de Filipinas (UP) Fine Arts, she went on to take her art residency at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York. She earned her Masters degree in Arts and Learning at Goldsmiths London. Luna, has represented the Philippines at the Cairo Biennale, Singapore Biennale, Aichi Japan Triennial, Beijing Biennale and continues to exhibit around the globe, A recipient of the UK Chevening Award, Thirteen artist awardee of the Cultural Center Of The Philippines and former New York Asian Cultural Council grantee. Nikki Luna is the founder of independent feminist publishing house Power In Her Story, published in English, Tagalog and French under Bayard Presse, creating books focusing on mainstreaming women's human rights and gender equality, with emphasis on the needs of marginalized groups of girls and women.

"Inday healing workshop: Energy basics for wellness & stress management" with Ayyi Gardiola

Ayyi Gardiola is a meditation practitioner for three decades, a development professional, training organizer and facilitator for fifteen years, an angel intuitive for eight years, and an energy healer for seven years. Her mission is to help facilitate healing of consciousness through energy awareness and creative arts for a more compassionate world.

"Super You" with Padma Mangharam-Siap

Padma is a founder of Arts Magnate and Creative Magnate Institute is one of the most authentic,vibrant and versatile Human Resource Development Trainer, Educator, Public Speaker, Artist and Executive and Personal Coach.She has over 30 years of experience in training the corporate sector, academe, non-government and government organizations in Asia and the United States. She is a certified Dale Carnegie-Chicago trainer and a certified Co-Active Executive and Life coach. Her intensive trainings and extensive experience gives credibility to her programs.

Padma graduated Magna Cum Laude in Mass Communication at Saint Theresa’s College in the Philippines. She earned a Master’s of Fine Arts Degree in Drama from Trinity University in Texas. It was also there that she taught , wrote for, acted and directed in theater. Padma is currently working to complete her thesis for a doctorate degree in Educational Management.

Padma has designed and implemented United States State Department advocacy training programs in “Touching Hearts-The integrated Arts Approach to Peace and Civic Engagement”, for the International Training Office of Northern Illinois University. She is also a World Bank accredited trainer for her program in “Work Values-The Theatrical Approach”. These are just a few of the many programs and projects that have positively inspired and impacted the lives of individuals and communities.

Her core competencies are in Human Relations,Leadership, Communication, Customer Service,Creativity,Team Building, Strategic Planning, Stress Management ,Personality Enhancement and Advocacy through the Arts. The workshops are all tailor-fit to every organization that Padma handles, as she personally creates a connection with her participants even before the workshop because she believes that to make a difference one should touch both the mind and the heart.

"Fashion with Passion" with Ditta Sandico

Ditta Sandico is a proud Filipina designer. She always had a passion for fabrics, and not just any fabrics, but the organic, indigenous kinds with their rich textures and their even richer stories, each woven by the wisest of hands. She is passionate about the fabrics that emerge like gifts from the earth-those borne out of the careful blend of fibers taken from our natural resources, resources like pineapple, abaca and banana. She’s enthralled and excited by the possibility that each one brings.

She subscribes to the belief that fashion equates to so much more than just glam and glitter. It is not the finished products alone that matter. Fashion, at its heart, boils down to the more basic things- its essence exists in the building blocks of the creative process, like the materials, fibers, and fabrics used for each creation, and the people ( their hopes, their dreams, their lives) involved in birthing each one. Fashion is about recognizing and remembering traditions and embracing them, incorporating them into modern inventions. It is about melding history and culture, art and beauty. It is about looking around and properly channeling our boundless creativity in order to continuously innovate and imagine ways by which we can create in a responsible manner. It is about defying trends and holding firm to the tenants of quality, longevity, and good style. Fashion is an investment; fashion is a lifestyle.

"Super important humor of Indays" with Alia Ceniza Razul

Alia is an award-winning artist based in Toronto, Canada. On her mother’s side of the family she is Bisaya, from Dumaguete. On her father’s side she is Tausug, from Jolo, Sulu.

Born in the Philippines but grew up in the Middle East, she spent most of her childhood in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. She officially became a Canadian immigrant after completing her Economics and Psychology degree at McGill University in Montreal. Alia identifies herself as a Filipina muslim.

With a passion for telling stories about the Filipin* diaspora, Alia has created, produced and performed in multiple award winning projects including Tawa and Island Womxn Rise, annual, sold-out Filipin* comedy festivals, Kwento, an improvised Filipin* folktale, the sketch comedy revue Tita Jokes, and her play, Tang Ina. Alia is a co-founder of the Tita Collective, a sisterhood of Filipina theatre artists. Additionally, she works with Bespoke Collective, a creative consultancy at the intersection of culture, public good and the future.

Author of Super Important Filipina Thoughts - a collection of hilariously irreverent poetry.

**"Inday spoken word "speaking from the heart.." spoken word of the unspoken body" with Sheilah Madonna M. Salvador**

A mature University of Toronto student, she is an Indigenous Studies Major with minors in creative writing and rhetoric, and is pursuing a Masters in Adult Education and Social Justice. She is a contributing writer for the TownCrier/Puritan Literary Online Magazine and her poetry has been featured in Mnerva Magazine, The Hamthology and she was shortlisted at the Eden Mills poetry contest in 2018.

She is also one of the artists involved with The Truth and Healing Project, which features the 1929 HBC Woolen 4 Point Blanket and is one of the contributing writers in the newly released anthology featuring BIPOC writers from Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto, FeelWays. She is currently working on a book about Manila and at the same time a contributing artist for the Truth and Healing Project, an Indigenous, beaded art installation.

Her work focuses on utilizing art such as spoken word, storytelling and crafting (beading and crocheting) as a way to heal and build self-love and confidence by honouring and celebrating her Pilipino identity, culture and community.

"But where is Alma's work? (Community-engaged Art in Philippine Contemporary Art)" with Alma Quinto

Alma Quinto engages with groups and communities affected by natural and man-made disasters in the Philippines, Japan and South Korea through her process-based and healing art. Since 1995, she worked with girl survivors of violence at CRIBS Foundation and created her collaborative project Soft Dreams and Bed Stories for the 8 th Havana Biennale in Cuba in 2003 and Ayayam for the 2 nd Yokohama Triennale in Japan in 2005. Another collaborative project, the House of Comfort, was shown at the Cultural Center of the Philippines for the trauma, interrupted exhibition in 2007, and has been exhibited in HOPE at the Nagoya Citizen’s Gallery YADA in 2008, Nothing to Declare at the Yuchengco Museum in 2011 and in Women-in-Between: Asian Women Artists 1984 – 2012 Travelling Exhibition from 2012- 2013. She also participated in the earth manual project exhibition through her Floating Wombs Project in 2013 organized by the Design and Creative Center Kobe (KIITO) and NPO Plus Arts to address the agenda of disaster preparedness and resilience. In 2017, she participated in the 1 st Kuala Lumpur Biennale with her House of Comfort for Tutubi. In 2018, she realized her Day Off Mo? collaborative project with Filipino domestic workers as the fourth Artist-in-Residence of CHAT in Hong Kong. In 2019, she participated in the Field Trip Project Asia. She curated Community Mapping, Understanding Disaster at the Museum of Three Cultures, Capitol University in 2014. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Philippine Studies and earned units in MA Art Studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman.

"Soul Flow Therapy" with Anya Arguelles

Anya Arguelles is a practicing registered Yoga Teacher Trained in India in Ashtanga Vinyasa, Hatha, Gentle Flow, Restorative, Functional Yoga, Prenatal and Postpartum Yoga, Pranayama, and Guided Meditation. She makes studies Yoga inclusive and accessible to more people. She believes that Yoga is a tool for healing, a personal and sacred practice for the individual, and as a teacher, it is her duty to recommend and guide students through the most beneficial style of Yoga for their own healing journey that best complements their lifestyle and circumstances including Kids Yoga.