Kwentong Bayan Collective

Asog - Film Screening

9/30/2025

We are excited to announce that Kwentong Bayan Collective and Pinay Collection are hosting a community film screening of Asog directed by Seán Devlin, a second generation Filipino-Canadian filmmaker.

Date: Monday November 3, 2025
Time: 7:00 PM (run-time: 1h, 39 min)
Location: Cineplex Yonge-Dundas and VIP
Address: 10 Dundas Street East, Toronto
Trailer: https://tinyurl.com/y8b7n94a
LINK for tickets (only available online)
M ore info

“Essential viewing as queer cinema, as political cinema and as climate cinema” - Eastern Kicks

The Art of Solidarity

7/7/2025

Kwentong Bayan is honoured to have contributed to the new book, The Art of Solidarity: Labour Arts and Heritage in Canada, edited by Rob Kristofferson and Stephanie Ross.

We share highlights from our past 13 years working with migrant careworkers, 2SLGBTIAQ+ folks, and other groups through community arts.

Order your copy from Between the Lines Press, Another Story Bookshop (Toronto) or your local independent bookstore.

Asian Representation in Comics

5/1/2025

Althea is featured in the “Asian Communities in Canada: Representations in Comics" online exhibition - available worldwide and runs until June 15, 2025.

Q&A on Sunday, May 18, 2025
2:00 pm to 3:00 pm (Mountain Time)

Image from "Bagoong ni Uncle Dan" a digital comic crafted with sepia ink and natural inks made from turmeric and coffee harvested in the Philippines. This work honours the wisdom passed down through generations and celebrates the Filipino tradition of bagoong.

ArtsEverywhere Festival

4/21/2025

Join us for a curated afternoon of conversations around labour inspired by ongoing conversations with Elwood Jimmy, Indigenous programs curator at the Musagetes Foundation.

Toronto-based Kwentong Bayan Collective’s artistic mandate is to explore a critical and intersectional approach to community-based art, labour, and education.

Yola Mamani is an Aymara broadcaster, radio producer, youtuber and activist for Indigenous, women’s and domestic workers’ rights based in La Paz, Bolivia.

Labours of Love:
Conversation with Kwentong Bayan Collective and Yola Mamani

A dynamic conversation around the intersection of art, activism, and domestic and care labour/workers.

May 3, 2025
1:00-2:15 PM
ArtsEverywhere Festival
River Run Centre, Guelph, Ontario
Free event

The labour and maintenance highlighted in this afternoon's events are often invisible from a colonial lens, but it is important and necessary work that strives to move us toward wiser and kinder practices/ futures in relation to Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations, climate emergency and the overall global dissonance and polycrisis that we are currently witnessing, experiencing and feeling.

Eastern Comma Artists in Residence

3/31/2025

Kwentong Bayan Collective are the 2025 Eastern Comma Artists in Residence. The Eastern Comma Artist-in-Residence program is named after a butterfly found near water sources in the eastern half of North America, and sporting comma-like markings on the underside of its wings. Held annually, this primarily literary residency has also engaged visual artists and musicians in its history. It is an initiative of the Musagetes Foundation and has its roots in a long-time programming relationship with the rare Charitable Research Reserve, which also includes the Question Mark Butterfly Fellowship, and the Long Dash Festival, an event bringing together the worlds of art and science.

ROCK PAPER SCISSORS Workshop

2/3/2025

All workshop materials will be provided. No experience is required. All are welcome.
Rock/Paper/Scissors is co-presented by PS Guelph, Musagetes, and Art Gallery of Guelph.

Rest and Release: Preventing Burnout
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Art Gallery of Guelph

Kwentong Bayan Collective artists, Althea Balmes and Melanya Liwanag Aguila will facilitate movement, reflection and creativity to deepen our relationship with rest and prevent burnout.

What does burnout feel like?
How can we integrate more rest in our everyday creative practices?
What do we need to learn about ourselves in order to better take care of ourselves?

Participants will create a self-care zine and learn breathing techniques, movements and meditations to help release tension and relax the body and mind.

Circle of Care

10/31/2024

Circle of Care comes full circle...from October 2023 to September 2024, KBC organized Circle of Care, a monthly grief support group for the 2SLGBTQIA+ BIPOC community. We facilitated art activities that encouraged self-awareness through creative expression. Participants explored their personal experiences with grief, and the impact of global events on our collective mental health. We shared a community meal each month.

The photo above features our "Lanterns of Light" - made of recycled glass jars and pressed flowers - to explore how to create light for ourselves and others during times of personal and global suffering.

We are grateful to all the Circle of Care participants for their support over the past year and thank our venue sponsor, The 519 for their support.

Liberation Jeepney 2024

7/1/2024

KBC created a Liberation Jeepney to embody creative resistance and community-engaged art. We shared our prototype at the 2024 Trans March and plan to develop this project in the future.

Learn more about our project and how it was inspired by the vibrant Philippine Jeepney currently at risk of being phased out.

GladCon 24

6/1/2024

Althea will be vending at GLADCON ’24. A Queer indie comics, arts & crafts market.

Glad Day Bookshop
Saturday June 15, 2024
1-4 PM
One day only!

Please support indie makers and one of the oldest gay, lesbian, bi, trans and queer bookstores in the world - they need our support to keep open!

Care Activism book launch

11/2/2023

November 8, 2023
7:00 PM
Another Story Bookshop

On November 8th, Dr. Ethel Tungohan launches her book, Care Activism - Migrant Domestic Workers, Movement-Building, and Communities of Care in Toronto.

Kwentong Bayan Collective will present an interactive performance that affirms the history of activism and leadership by migrant care workers in Canada.

There will be guest speakers and snacks by Kanto by Tita Flips. Please join us!

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