 | Kwentong Bayan Collective contributed to the book, Home is In The Body featuring 2SLGBTQIA stories & artwork from across the Filipinx diaspora. Althea and Jo contributed interviews, and Jo wrote the closing text for the book. Please contact Anak Publishing for more info |
 Kwentong Bayan Collective is honoured to be Myseum of Toronto's 2020/2021 Artist Collective in Residence.
We have collaborated with Myseum to present Stories of Collective Care in the Time of Covid-19 a series exploring collective care in Toronto and beyond through panel discussions and storytelling. Please join us for a series of online conversations with essential workers, food justice advocates, and community educators from May to June 2020. Learn about grassroots strategies of community care and mutual support. Experience some of the cultural practices being created during this time of global transition. Free events, register online.  From Migrants Rights Network: "Canada is seeing a rise in Coronavirus / COVID-19 cases, accompanied by growing levels of xenophobia and racism. Crises do not affect us all equally – migrant, poor, and racialized communities will be the first excluded from response measures and the worst affected by the economic downturn.
We must demand collective responses that leave no one behind, including migrant workers, undocumented people, low-waged students, poor people, and refugees. Pandemics know no borders, neither should our solidarity. We call on individuals and organizations across the country to join us in uniting against racism. Groups from across the country call on federal, provincial and municipal leaders to ensure worker & migrant Justice as part of the COVID-19 response. Please sign this Call to Action and "Leave No One Behind"
 Please join us on Sunday, October 20th, 2019 for the screening of the feature film, “Becoming Labrador” at the 19th annual Reelworld Film Festival.
SYNOPSIS: A whole generation of Filipino migrants have travelled halfway across the world to work in the icy plains of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador, leaving behind families and friends as they struggle to adjust to a remarkably different climate and culture in Canada. Becoming Labrador takes an intimate look at what it means to uproot yourself to try and find a new home. Becoming Labrador Sunday, October 20th, 2019 Screening 6:30pm Famous Players, Canada Square Language: English, Tagalog 70 Minutes Co-presented by the Reelworld Film Festival and Kwentong Bayan Collective Tickets available at <https://www.reelworld.ca/becominglabrador>  HABI: Weaving Stories of Migrant Labour and Indigenous Resurgence A public programming series by Kwentong Bayan Collective June 2019 Small Arms Inspection Building (SAIB) Kwentong Bayan Collective’s new project, HABI: Weaving Stories of Migrant Labour and Indigenous Resurgence explores the inaugural convergence of National Indigenous People’s month and the newly announced, National Filipino Heritage Month in June 2019. In the Filipino language, “habi” means "weave” - referring to the practice of weaving, or the patterns found in woven materials. HABI is also the process by which something is kept together and made whole. This month-long public programming series will explore Indigenous history, labour, migration, and our relationship with the land. All programs are free of charge and will be held at the Small Arms Inspection Building, located on the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation along Lake Ontario’s eastern waterfront. View full schedule Kwentong Bayan Collective acknowledges the generous support we have received from Mississauga Culture and the Small Arms Inspection Building to make this program possible. 
We are glad to support IntersectTO - a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) tech community in Toronto that is offering FREE Tech Support Workshops for migrant workers & organizers.
Volunteers can teach you practical skills, including:
Support is offered in English, Tagalog, Spanish, Tamil and French. Childminding and refreshments provided. The first Tech Support Workshops will be held on Sunday May 19th at the Workers’ Action Centre with more dates to come!  Kwentong Bayan Collective will present "PIN@YS IN COMICS" with Trinidad Escobar, as part of Pinay Power II: Celebrating Peminisms in the Diaspora. This gathering will bring together self-identified Pinays (Filipina-identified, including queer and trans women) from across the diaspora to learn from one another and to create an agenda for peminist liberation in the 21st century.
The Pinay Power II Conference will be held April 17-20, 2019 on Tiohtià:ke, located on the greater Turtle Island. The Kanien’kehá:ka peoples - who are also known as the Keepers of the Eastern Door and are a part of Haudenosaunee Confederacy - are the traditional stewards of this land.  Bong, Cristina, Maria Cecil and Gladys rehearsing with facilitator, Karen Ancheta. Photo by Eloisa Guerrero. Please join us for Re-Imagining Stories of Care Work - a collaborative storytelling and audio-visual art performance about the invaluable contributions of migrant caregivers to Canada’s social, economic, and political past, present and future.
Collaborative storytelling by Caregiver Connections, Education & Support Organization (CCESO) and audio-visual art performance by Kwentong Bayan Collective. With support from Karen Ancheta, Storyteller/Facilitator and Leon Aureaus, Artistic Director, Carlos Bulosan Theatre. Presented by the Myseum Intersections Festival.  Thanks to Ysh Cabana for writing about the Komiks Zine Fair in The Philippine Canadian News. Read article
"Toronto-based artists Jo SiMalaya Alcampo and Althea Balmes have been hosting pulp fiction weekly meet-ups since July 2017. Participants have been encouraged to network, to create and bring their comics/komiks to completion..Zines, tiny photocopied and stapled books that are often with political text and images, deck the Lillian H. Smith Library branch. Kwentong Bayan Collective believes that a new model for komiks and pop culture events will take shape over time." |
