Curated by Erina Alejo and SoMapagmahal Photography Mxntorship Program, Brown in the Sunshine is a multidisciplinary exhibition that centers and celebrates life as SOMA Pilipinas youth in the sunshine.

Sunshine is symbolic in childhood, particularly for the lived experiences of youth in SOMA where the sun’s rays illuminate our community cultural wealth. Sunshine embodies our intergenerational joys and struggles in advocating for our SOMA Pilipinas community against displacement and gentrification. Like affordable housing, accessible public parks and spaces and equitable education, sunshine has become a limited commodity in the high cost of living, concrete and technology that encompasses our SOMA neighborhood.

Brown in the Sunshine celebrates SoMapagmahal’s three years of centering SOMA youth narratives through works by the program’s youth artists, including, most recently, their civic engagement with defending and protecting our local and historical Victoria Manalo Draves Park. The exhibit also features archives from artist, educator and SoMapagmahal co-founder Erina Alejo and their family’s organizing work with SOMA Pilipinas, most notably, with Filipino Education Center’s Galing Bata Afterschool Program from the 90s to the present.

In dialogue, the youth artists and Alejo’s works centers resilience, resistance and possibilities. As audiences, we are constantly humbled by the generosity and empathy of our youth artists in engagement of one another as cultural producers in community and self-advocacy. The exhibition embodies being Brown in the Sunshine-- a phrase referencing Roy Ayer’s 1976 classic, “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”.

Exhibition run: May 4 - June 9, 2019

Opening Reception

The opening reception for Brown in the Sunshine will be held on May 4, 1-5pm. The reception is free and open to the public, light refreshments will be provided.

The opening reception coincides with Sammay Dizon's Daluyan: Embodied Storytelling at Bindlestiff Studio. Tickets to Daluyan are available for purchase online and at the door.

Brown in the Sunshine Exhibiting Artists

Erina Alejo (Curator, Educator, Archivist, Qultural Werker)

SoMapagmahal Youth Artists, including:

Aaliyah Espanol-Rivas
Allyna Jimenez
Angelhan Bustos
Arnold Briones
Caleb Afenir
Dayzsha Jaranilla
David Battle 
Dyani Wilson
Jasmine Tran
Jean-Luc Sherron
Josiah Medina
Juliana Nojadera 
Samantha Teves

Featuring Archives from The Alejo Family