Native Wildflower Seed Bomb Workshop +
Singing Plants (Live)

Sunday June 25th, 11:30am-1pm

Jo SiMalaya AlCampo
Amy Desjarlais (nee Tabobandung)
Ester Dulawan Tuldague
& Members of Kapwa Collective

Chimney Court in the Children’s Garden
at Evergreen Brick Works
550 Bayview Avenue, Toronto

Admission is free. All are welcome.

In celebration of National Aboriginal Day and the radiance of the Summer solstice, Jo SiMalaya Alcampo and friends will facilitate an all ages seed bomb workshop followed by a performance that features her Singing Plants installation as a live instrument. The afternoon’s activities will include traditional prayers, chants, and a participatory jam session with singing plants and indigenous instruments.

PROGRAMME

Native Wildflower Seed Bomb Workshop with Kapwa Collective

12-12:30pm

The only good bombs are seed bombs! This workshop will feature a hands-on demonstration on how to create seed bombs, an age-old agricultural practice now used for guerrilla farming.

Participants will combine seeds, clay and compost into small balls perfect for tossing in places in need of native wildflowers!

We will learn:

  • the importance of native plant species
  • how plants are crucial to sustaining bio-diversity
  • how nature recycles life through decay
  • and how to protect native pollinators like honey bees and butterflies

Participants will learn how the smallest actions can have meaningful impact.

All materials will be provided and you will leave with your own seed bombs!

Singing Plants (Live)

12:30-1pm

Amy Desjarlais (nee Tabobandung) will open the event with an acknowledgement and prayer/drumsong. Amy will share the EarthTALKER Water Project and music from the Sacred Water Journey album.

Ester Dulawan Tuldague will share a solidarity statement and talk about the Hudhud, one of the songs that the plants sing. It is a epic chant indigenous to the Ifugao People.

Jo SiMalaya Alcampo will talk about the Singing Plants and demonstrate how to play them.

Kapwa Collective members will engage the audience in an interactive activity that embodies the elements of wind, water, air and fire and teach rhythms passed on by Mamerto “Lagitan” Tindongan and other Ifugao Mombaki’s (shamans) from Bayninan, a village of Banaue in Ifugao.

Kapwa Collective will then invite Jo, Ester, Amy and the audience to join in a group jam session with singing plants and indigenous instruments.

 


Performer Biographies


Waabaakakazhe zhaashkeezgokwe (White Raven Woman with Turquoise eyes) Amik Dodem (Beaver Clan) Wasauksing First Nation—knowledge keeper. Ojibwe/Potowottmi Anishinaabe. Learn more about the EarthTALKER Water Project at: earthtalker.wordpress.com/about/about-amy/

Ester Dulawan Tuldague is the Municipal Coordinator of Kiangan in the Ifugao Association of Canada, an association of Ifugaos working or residing in Canada, especially in the Province of Ontario.

KAPWA COLLECTIVE is a group of Filipinx-Canadian artists, critical thinkers, and healers who work towards bridging narratives between the Indigenous and the Diasporic, and the Filipinx + the Canadian. We facilitate links among academic, artistic, activist, and other communities in Toronto. The Kapwa Collective functions as a mutual support group based on a Philippine core value. Virgilio G. Enriquez, known as the founder of Filipino Psychology (or Sikolohiyang Pilipino) initially proposed a concept of personhood centered on the core value expressed in the word kapwa. As described by the scholar Katrin de Guia: “Kapwa is a Tagalog term widely used when addressing another with the intention of establishing a connection. It reflects a viewpoint that beholds the essential humanity recognizable in everyone, therefore linking (including) people rather than separating (excluding) them from each other. Enriquez felt that this orientation was an expression of ‘humanness at its highest level’.” – from Kapwa: The Self in the Other, Worldviews and Lifestyles of Filipino Culture-Bearers. kapwacollective.tumblr.com

JO SIMALAYA ALCAMPO is an interdisciplinary artist who has developed technology that allows people to hear plants sing. Jo travelled to the Cordillera mountain region of the Philippines to meet with traditional teachers and indigenous rights activists, to learn how to develop an ethical code of conduct when integrating Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices in artwork. One response to this ongoing inquiry is the interactive installation: Singing Plants Reconstruct Memory in which living plants are keepers of story, cultural history and memory. Jo is a member of Kapwa Collective—a group of Filipinx Canadian artists, critical thinkers, and healers bridging narratives between the Indigenous and the Diasporic. Past projects include TBOLIxTO—a cultural exchange between the Lake Sebu School of Living Traditions (Philippines) and the community in Toronto; Restless Precinct—a site specific project on land, indigeneity, and decolonization in Scarborough’s Guild Precinct; and “Katutubong Binhi (Native Seeds) Offering”—a zine created as part of Marvellous Grounds—a project that seeks to document and create space to vision the ways that QTBIPOC (queer and trans Black, Indigenous and people of colour) create communities, innovate projects and foster connections within Toronto/Three Fires Territories and beyond. JoSiMalaya.com