Streets of Diwata

October 25, 2020
Bonifacio and Lapu Lapu Street, SOMA SF

 

WALK THE STREETS OF HEROES AND EXPERIENCE STREETS OF DIWATA

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LAKBAI DIWA DIASPORIC SPIRIT SURVEY

Please take our survey about your experience at Lakbai Diwa Diasporic Spirit. Your responses will be extremely helpful in guiding our thinking about future programs and understanding the impact of our work. Your answers are both confidential and anonymous. At the end of the survey you can enter a raffle for a $100 Visa gift card.

FINAL DESIGNS OF MGA DIWATAS/DEITIES

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FIRE DIWATA
BY CECE CARPIO

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WATER DIWATA
BY NIKILA BADUA

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TRANSCENDENCE DIWATA
BY MEL VERA CRUZ

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AIR / WIND DIWATA
BY PAOLO SALAZAR

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EARTH DIWATA
BY DEE JAE PA’ESTE

October 24, 2020 Incident

Our history as a people and as a diaspora is fraught with discrimination, displacement, and erasure by colonizers and white supremacists.

In these times full of divisiveness and fueled by hate towards “the other,” we, as a community, should hold strong to what our immigrant ancestors have sacrificed to build, to our heritage and culture, to the rights and freedoms that we have.

Our repeated and ongoing attempts at reclaiming that which was lost, which was stolen from us, and healing ourselves of our ancestral and ongoing trauma are met with hostility and viewed as an attack and act of rebellion by the very system and ideology that has marginalized us. A system and ideology that is falsely, out of fear, trying to protect itself from those it has disenfranchised and stolen from, including this land we live in.

This, sadly, has not gone away. This is something that is still happening to us up to this day. In fact, it just happened at the Streets of Diwata mural painting event on October 24, 2020 where an entitled white man on an electric wheelchair who, for reasons that are only clear to him, considered it his right to disrupt the event by complaining about the murals that were being painted and tried to erase it by hosing it down with water. He also sprayed water on our production organizer and one of the muralists. Being hosed down and erased is a source of our trauma. Being hosed down and erased reeks of asserting supremacy, authoritarianism, and racism. It is an indelible part of American history, our history.

Show your support and solidarity, come and view  the Streets of Diwata murals at historic Bonifacio Street and Lapu Lapu Street in San Francisco. Amplify your voice and take a self guided tour then fill out a survey. 

These acts, no matter how small, are radical and significant. 

The fact that we exist in spite of it all is revolutionary.

Streets of Diwata Mural Artist’s Blogs

 
Blog
The Victory at Mactan
The Victory at Mactan

“Lapulapu’s defiance, bravery, and leadership serve as a source of our ancestral strength as we continue to create our own history filled with triumphs against our tribulations.”

Filming the Lakbai Diwa Dance Ritwal
Filming the Lakbai Diwa Dance Ritwal

"I'm in the process of de-colonizing my mind. That journey can be dark at times. This project gave me light.”

Kanyon “Coyote Woman” (Hahashkani) Sayers-Roods: Mutsun-Ohlone and Chumash Two Spirit Indigenous relative
Kanyon “Coyote Woman” (Hahashkani) Sayers-Roods: Mutsun-Ohlone and Chumash Two Spirit Indigenous relative

“All of us, all of our communities, are impacted by colonization, and when we recognize those layers, we can see how the impact has brought us to where we are.”

Lipad Bukod sa Hangin ng Alapaap
Lipad Bukod sa Hangin ng Alapaap

"It is while carrying the pain of humanity and soreness of livelihood exhaustion that we were re-born. The resistance of being free to create was hindering my own freedom to be.”

Breathing to Heal and Survive
Breathing to Heal and Survive

"I have to remind myself to breathe and meditate to keep sane and positive.”

Art and Intuition
Art and Intuition

"We weren’t high or anything. The kicker was that right after that happened we received a text message from Santi saying “naniniwala na ba kayo sa anting-anting??? (now, do you believe in anting…)”

 

Inspirations To Manifest Elemental State Of Being
Of Sacred Deities And Their Powers

Elemental State of Being
FIRE STATE OF BEING AS DEITY
FIRE STATE OF BEING AS DEITY

Organ Heart

Sense Tongue/taste

Color Red, blue

WATER STATE OF BEING AS DEITY
WATER STATE OF BEING AS DEITY

Organ Kidneys/bladder

Sense Ear/hearing

Color Yellow, blue-green

EARTH STATE OF BEING AS DEITY
EARTH STATE OF BEING AS DEITY

Organ Stomach

Sense Eyes/sight

Color Brown, green

WIND STATE OF BEING AS DEITY
WIND STATE OF BEING AS DEITY

Organ Lungs

Sense Nose/scent

Color Grey, white

TRANSCENDENCE IN-BETWEEN SPACE STATE OF BEING AS DEITY
TRANSCENDENCE IN-BETWEEN SPACE STATE OF BEING AS DEITY

Sense Intuition

Color Black, dark brown

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

 
Featured
Nikila Badua
Nikila Badua

Born on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, Nikila Badua is a self-taught multimedia artist, designer, and performer inspired by an earth-based wisdom of Roots and Culture. Mother and community organizer, her work as an advocate for youth, indigenous, and environmental rights has played an influential role within shaping her foundation as a “community artist”. As a painter and muralist, her art weaves underlying stories, traditions, and elements of the sacred indigenous with modern influences of the urban underground, and is guided by a maternal connection to the natural wisdom of the Earth; Thus birthing the art alias “MamaWisdom”.

Paolo Salazar
Paolo Salazar

Paolo Salazar is a San Francisco-based Interdisciplinary artist and educator, originally hailing from Baguio City, Philippines. His work has been exhibited in bathrooms, candy stores, and dive bars. Paolo has also completed public murals and private commissions around the country. Ultimately, Paolo is inspired by bringing people together in friendship and creative collaboration.

Mariela G. Montero
Mariela G. Montero

Mariela Montero is a San Francisco-based artist whose experience as a Filipinx American womxn informs her practice, which is rooted in diaspora studies and post-colonial theory. Mariela works in mixed media painting, sculpture, and installation. She is a collaborator of Appendix, a collective of multi-ethnic Asian American womxn, queer and allied artists. Mariela earned her MFA degree at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2017 and has worked with the organizations such as Asian American Women Artists Association and Kearny Street Workshop.