Our Voices: A Portrait Series

Saturday, May 31, 2014

  • Time: 5:00pm – 9:00pm
  • Location: Beit Zatoun
  • Address: 612 Markham St., Toronto, ON, Canada (map)
  • All Ages: Yes

Exhibition: Saturday, May 31 to Sunday, June 15 Opening Reception: Saturday, May 31 from 5 to 9 pm

Part of the acclaimed and landmark, Maleta [Suitcase] Project, this exhibit showcases art work collectively produced by members of the Filipino Canadian community.

Produced with the Philippine Women Centre Ontario (PWC-ON), in collaboration with the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance/Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada (FCYA/UKPC-ON) AND SIKLAB Ontario the art and captures the day-to-day lived experiences and struggles of Filipino Canadian youth, women, and workers in Toronto.

“This exhibit is part of our continuing assertion to have our voices heard in Canada. It signifies our persistent efforts to shatter our invisibility and resist our community’s intensifying exclusion and marginalization”, states Charie Siddayao, project coordinator and member of PWC-ON.

“Our Voices” project features the narratives of the Filipino Canadian community through visual arts and mixed-media. Through a process of direct community integration and documentation of the everyday realities of students, youth, women and workers in the Filipino Canadian community, the artworks not only illustrate our community’s aspirations for a better future, but also our struggles for genuine settlement and integration as part of the working class in Canada.

Now Canada’s third largest visible minority group, the Filipino Canadian community continues to be at the social, political and economic margins of Canadian society. This is evident from the community’s blatant representation in low-wage service sector work, domestic work and temporary contractual work schemes. Over 100,000 Filipino women have come to Canada as Live-in Caregivers and as of 2012, the Philippines is Canada’s top source of temporary foreign workers. These exploitative labour programs not only lock the community into poverty, but also render it invisible and marginalized in Canadian society.

This exhibit is funded by the Toronto Arts Council.

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