The Tandang Sora Project: Building Care and Public Memory

Exhibition - Friday, November 17 - Sunday December 17, 12-5pm
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 18, 3-5pm

Curatorial Statement:
The Tandang Sora Project: Building Care and Public Memory is an exhibition of the ongoing efforts to commemorate and amplify the history and contributions of care labor of immigrant Filipino women, with the ultimate goal of building and installing a monument. Inspired by the heroine Tandang Sora, a figure akin to Florence Nightingale in Filipino history, who tended to the sick, hungry, and wounded revolutionaries during the 1896 Philippine Revolution. Tandang Sora’s example and contributions are not unlike the many immigrant women who are a part of the lineage of care labor, especially in Queens, in New York City.

The Tandang Sora Project comprises of artists, designers, and culture workers Maria Arenas, Princes Diane De Leon, Xenia Diente, Dennis Madamba, Jaclyn Reyes, Kimberly Tate, and Ezra Undag. Beginning in 2022, the team’s work has been oriented around community co-creation practices, including participatory research, portraiture, and art-making. Guiding questions included: How do we activate and visibilize culturally-informed methods of “care”? How do we do this in spaces and sectors they are needed, such as health and wellness, political and solidarity work, and the arts? The culmination of these efforts to collect histories, synthesize learnings, and imagine new monuments will be on display. The show will offer opportunities for attendees to add their knowledge to the history, as well as give feedback on the monument designs and proposals.

In addition to raising awareness and consciousness, the exhibition aims to offer tools, solutions, and opportunities to manifest more care in public space and public memory. By engaging these themes publicly, the hope is that viewers’ understanding of the historical aspects of Filipino care labor will be deepened, and thus a foundation of consciousness is laid to manifest a monument to care labor.

Participating Artists and Culture Workers: Maria Arenas, Princes Diane De Leon, Xenia Diente, Dennis Madamba, Dax Masiglat, Jaclyn Reyes, Kimberly Tate, Ezra Undag

Curators: Jaclyn Reyes

This project is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.