In its second year, multi-disciplinary arts program URBAN x INDIGENOUS (UxI), will showcase their program Remember Our Place?, honoring ancestors in a society which is driven by the act of leaving them behind.
Exploring the Pilipino community’s displacement in San Francisco, UxI will also parallel the struggle among native people of the Lumads in Mindanao, Philippines.
With thousands of residents being displaced yearly, and a rate of eviction at 123%, the rising rents in the city as well as an unstoppable increase of wealthy tech folks, will likely continue to force out native inhabitants. Some of the most gentrified areas are also the most culturally significant in the city and include the Mission District, a historically Latin neighborhood, and the South of Market (SOMA), a historically Pilipino neighborhood. Taking into account the situation found in SOMA, an unfortunate and familiar exodus is stomping on the native people of Mindanao.
Beginning in 2015, thousands of residents of Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippines, have experienced mass displacement, warfare, and deaths due to a long-running communist insurgency. Albeit a public outcry, military and government officials unwaveringly continue to insist that there is “no campaign to kill anybody in this country.” However, indigenous peoples continue to experience daily killings by the military and private companies, who choose to put the blame on tribal conflict.
Remember Our Place? will speak to the historical exodus sweeping Mindanao and the modern-day gentrification blanketing San Francisco. Through performance activation, visual arts exhibition, and cyphers, we will ask the questions which spark and cultivate an inclusive space of dialogue and exploration where we will deepen our understanding of the injustice that has been done to our people both locally and in native lands.
Envisioned by "hip hop dance artist and indigenous arts advocate," Samantha "SAMMAY" Dizon, UxI aims to unite cultural and urban performance-based artists and strengthen the network of urban-indigenous multi-media artists towards collective action through arts as activism.
URBAN x INDIGENOUS is supported by the SOMArts Cultural Center’s Affordable Space Program, which provides subsidized, large-scale affordable space and technical assistance to nonprofits. SOMArts receives support from the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Community Arts and Education Program with funding from Grants for the Arts/The Hotel Tax Fund.
June 12, 2016 at 12pm - 8pm
Bay Gallery, SOMArts Cultural Center
934 Brannan St
San Francisco, CA 94103