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ESKWELA Live Talk with UGATLahi and Gantala Press. This conversation brings together practices that acutely denounce the social turmoil of the present, from effigy protest art to independent publishing. Moderated by Lisa Ito, member of Concerned Artists of the Philippines.

UGATLahi (Ugnayan at Galihan ng mga Artistang Tanod ng Lahi) Artist Collective is an organization of artists, art enthusiasts and critics with a common goal of creatively expressing visual resistance to the existing oppressive social order. Since the early 1990s, the group has produced images and expressions of protest through performance and installation art, notably their well-known effigies of the Philippine president during the annual State of the Union address.

Founded in 2015, Gantala Press is an independent, non-profit, volunteer-run Filipina feminist press that centers on women’s stories and issues, producing a variety of projects that includes publications, small press fairs, discussions and workshops tied to people’s movements. Championing the potential of feminist publishing as a social practice and in solidarity work with women artists and collectives as vital political action.

Lisa Ito is a writer, curator, and cultural worker. She is a faculty member of the Department of Theory, University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, currently serves as Secretary-General of the Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP), an organization of progressive artists and cultural workers founded in 1983, and a member of the Young Critics Circle (YCC) Film Desk. She was among the fellows of “Condition Report”, a Southeast Asia-wide curatorial development program of the Japan Foundation from 2015 to 2017.