The University of the Philippines Center for Women’s and Gender Studies (UPCWGS) invites everyone to Babae, Babae…Bakit ka Gumagawa? on 18 March 2026 (Wednesday), 1:00-5:00 PM at the UPCWGS Conference Room. This event is the 11th session of the discussion series, “Conversations Through Art (CTA): Tapping Various Creative Modalities for Intervention, Growth, and Transformation.”
Register here.
The event will be a community-core afternoon filled with art exhibits, humanity-driven anik-aniks, and Asian artists talk-and-listens.
In the first talk, “In Search of a Road of Togetherness: Rethinking the Public in a World of Boundaries,” independent cultural worker Yun Chen (51 Personae) from Shanghai and artist Lilin from Hong Kong will share their collaborative journey over the past few years, tracing how their work has moved between Shanghai and Hong Kong. They will also reflect on how they attempt to build empathy and connections outside institutional frameworks, and how they continue to support and inspire one another intellectually and politically.
The second talk, entitled “Babae, Babae…Bakit ka Gumagawa?,” features TkTk Feminist Printmakers and The O Home who will talk about their experience visiting the Correctional Institution for Women (CIW) where they interacted with ten political prisoners who are part of the campaign Free Our Sisters, Free Our Selves. The political prisoners drew and wrote about their experiences. The artists say, “Dito sa Babae, Babae…Bakit ka Gumagawa?, pag-uusapan natin ang mga mahirap sabihin na sasabihin pa rin at ang mga mahirap gawin na gagawin pa rin, kahit na may umaalingawngaw na – bakit?”
CTA is an initiative by artists, advocacy builders, social workers, and those in the helping professions to collectively promote arts for social change. Envisioned as a series wherein various creative modalities are highlighted in each session, the invited resource speakers will be individuals from different parts of the world who are making contributions to the establishment of the expressive arts practice or use specific creative modalities for personal-professional, community, and sectoral development.