Kwentong Bayan Collective
photo by Haseena Manek
Kwentong Bayan is a collective of two Toronto-based artists, Althea Balmes and Jo SiMalaya Alcampo. Their artistic mandate is to explore a critical and intersectional approach to community-based art, labour, and education.
Kwentong Bayan Collective have completed artist residencies with Art City St. James Town, SOY's Art & Mentorship Program for LGBTQ2S* Spectrum Youth, and the Artists in the Library Program at the Toronto Public Library. Kwentong Bayan has organized self-defense workshops for Live-in Caregivers that promote personal safety in their home and workplace in partnership with Guro JB Ramos of Combat Science: Warrior Arts of Asia.
Althea and Jo are currently developing the comic book, Kwentong Bayan: Labour of Love in collaboration with migrant caregivers, who work in Canada under the Caregiver Program (formerly known as the Live-in Caregiver Program). Excerpts have been published in The Peak, Our Times, Briarpatch, and Ricepaper Magazine 19.4 on Asian and Asian Canadian activism, and featured in the Imaginings Project: Comics and the Anthropological Imagination curated by the Centre for Imaginative Ethnography.
Kwentong Bayan Collective contributed a 10-page mini-comic about the history of the Live-in Caregiver Program to the Graphic History Project. It was published online by the Graphic History Collective from 2014-2015.
Kwentong Bayan's 10-page mini-comic on the history of the Live-in Caregiver Program is featured in the anthology, Drawn to Change: Graphic Histories of Working Class Struggle, edited by the Graphic History Collective with historian, Paul Buhle. The book is published by Between the Lines Press. Drawn to Change was awarded the 2017 Canadian Historical Association Public History Prize, and the 2017 Wilson Book Prize for making Canadian history accessible to transnational audiences.
In 2017, the Graphic History Collective commissioned Kwentong Bayan to create one of twelve, "Remember | Resist | Redraw" posters to intervene in the Canada 150 conversation. Kwentong Bayan's poster examines the 150+ year history of care work performed by racialized women in Canada, and includes a contextual essay by Dr. Ethel Tungohan.
Since July 2017, Kwentong Bayan has partnered with the Toronto Public Library to create an ongoing Comics/Komiks Meet-up. It is a regular workspace for those wishing to network, create and bring their comics/komiks to completion.
Kwentong Bayan Collective has received support from the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts and have been awarded the Min Sook Lee Labour Arts Award for artists who have captured the values of labour and social justice in their work.
Kwentong Bayan Collective have completed artist residencies with Art City St. James Town, SOY's Art & Mentorship Program for LGBTQ2S* Spectrum Youth, and the Artists in the Library Program at the Toronto Public Library. Kwentong Bayan has organized self-defense workshops for Live-in Caregivers that promote personal safety in their home and workplace in partnership with Guro JB Ramos of Combat Science: Warrior Arts of Asia.
Althea and Jo are currently developing the comic book, Kwentong Bayan: Labour of Love in collaboration with migrant caregivers, who work in Canada under the Caregiver Program (formerly known as the Live-in Caregiver Program). Excerpts have been published in The Peak, Our Times, Briarpatch, and Ricepaper Magazine 19.4 on Asian and Asian Canadian activism, and featured in the Imaginings Project: Comics and the Anthropological Imagination curated by the Centre for Imaginative Ethnography.
Kwentong Bayan Collective contributed a 10-page mini-comic about the history of the Live-in Caregiver Program to the Graphic History Project. It was published online by the Graphic History Collective from 2014-2015.
Kwentong Bayan's 10-page mini-comic on the history of the Live-in Caregiver Program is featured in the anthology, Drawn to Change: Graphic Histories of Working Class Struggle, edited by the Graphic History Collective with historian, Paul Buhle. The book is published by Between the Lines Press. Drawn to Change was awarded the 2017 Canadian Historical Association Public History Prize, and the 2017 Wilson Book Prize for making Canadian history accessible to transnational audiences.
In 2017, the Graphic History Collective commissioned Kwentong Bayan to create one of twelve, "Remember | Resist | Redraw" posters to intervene in the Canada 150 conversation. Kwentong Bayan's poster examines the 150+ year history of care work performed by racialized women in Canada, and includes a contextual essay by Dr. Ethel Tungohan.
Since July 2017, Kwentong Bayan has partnered with the Toronto Public Library to create an ongoing Comics/Komiks Meet-up. It is a regular workspace for those wishing to network, create and bring their comics/komiks to completion.
Kwentong Bayan Collective has received support from the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts and have been awarded the Min Sook Lee Labour Arts Award for artists who have captured the values of labour and social justice in their work.
Althea Balmes (Illustrator)
photo by Haseena Manek
Althea Balmes is an artist-educator rooted in community work. She uses her strong connection to her culture and her place as a diasporic Canadian woman of colour to inspire her work and as a way to connect to others.
Althea completed her Master of Information degree in User Experience Design at the University of Toronto.
She teaches visual storytelling workshops throughout the city.
Website: altheabalmes.com
Althea completed her Master of Information degree in User Experience Design at the University of Toronto.
She teaches visual storytelling workshops throughout the city.
Website: altheabalmes.com
Jo SiMalaya Alcampo (Writer)
photo by Dhalia Katz
Jo SiMalaya Alcampo is an interdisciplinary artist whose art practice includes community storytelling, interactive installations, and electroacoustic soundscapes.
Jo volunteers with Caregiver Connections, Education and Support Organization (CCESO) - an organization that supports migrant caregivers and is a member of the Kapwa Collective - a mutual support group of Filipinx Canadian artists, critical thinkers, and healers bridging narratives between the Indigenous and the Diasporic.
Website: josimalaya.com
Jo volunteers with Caregiver Connections, Education and Support Organization (CCESO) - an organization that supports migrant caregivers and is a member of the Kapwa Collective - a mutual support group of Filipinx Canadian artists, critical thinkers, and healers bridging narratives between the Indigenous and the Diasporic.
Website: josimalaya.com
