The Tandang Sora Project: Highlighting Filipino caregivers thru art
By Marivir R. Montebon
New York - The month-long exhibit on the history of Filipino caregivers and the culture of care as an essential fabric in Filipino American society was one of the cultural highlights of 2023. The Tandang Sora Project exhibit opened on November 17 at the Flushing Town Hall in Queens looked at care, thru various art forms and facets such as memory, connection, storytelling, blessings, engagement, support, attention, place, and rest. It closed on December 17, 2023.
The Tandang Sora Project honors Filipino caregivers through the arts and memorializes Filipino revolutionary leader Melchora Aquino (dearly called Tandang Sora) who nursed the sick and wounded during the Filipino anti-Spanish colonial uprisings. In photo is Rachelle Peraz-Ocampo, local media practitioner and NAFFAA New York chairperson with her two children during the closing day of the exhibit.
Tandang Sora is the revered local name for Melchora Aquino, a Filipino revolutionary leader during the anti-Spanish colonial war in the Philippines who took care of the sick and wounded freedom fighters. Literally, Tandang Sora means ‘old Sora’ with Sora as the nickname for Melchora. A substantial number of Filipinos in the diaspora are in the care industry, particularly as nurses, doctors, and caregivers to the elderly and youth.
Taking a restful pose at the Care as Rest suite, with artist and organizer Ezra Undag (left-most).
The project exhibit was curated by Jaclyn Reyes and presented by the Little Manila Queens Bayanihan Arts. Participating artists were Maria Arenas, Princes Diane De Leon, Xenia Diente, Dennis Madamba, Dax Masiglat, Jaclyn Reyes, Kimberly Tate, and Ezra Undag.
Inset: Care as connection by curator Jaclyn Reyes and Care as storytelling by Dennis Madamba
‘Care as blessings’ by Xenia Diente.
Dennis Madamba’s digital rendering of ‘Care as Story-telling’ using Montebon’s articles on Filipino caregivers, nurses, and doctors. Click on the link here https://tandangsora.nyc/community-journalism/?fbclid=IwAR0lqkfYZF3mErFWags_18yQOEpZ5XBNP9aSeIHmiAAsUOATDqvmO30_opI
The waterbearers as caregivers by Jaclyn Reyes who envisions a water monument to rise in honor of Filipino caregivers in the diaspora.
At its care as storytelling suite, the Tandang Sora Project featured nine digital art illustrations by artist Dennis Madamba using the theme of the stories written by this writer for OSM! Online Magazine.
(Click on link here https://tandangsora.nyc/community-journalism/?fbclid=IwAR0lqkfYZF3mErFWags_18yQOEpZ5XBNP9aSeIHmiAAsUOATDqvmO30_opI)
The Tandang Sora Project aims to establish, in the long-term, a monument to honor the generational Filipino care givers in the Philippine diaspora.#
