Our project featured an iterative and inclusive approach to community engagement with UM’s collections of Philippine materials. This included an ongoing initiative that welcomed participation from Filipino Americans in Michigan, Filipino American and Filipinx artists, and Philippine-based curators and Indigenous culture bearers.
The structure for engagement varied. Our initiatives included single-day visits for local communities’ interaction with a selection of materials, three artists’ residencies that encouraged creative interpretations of our Philippine collections, workshops to explore knowledge repatriation and institutional partnerships with Filipino colleagues and Indigenous Peoples, and a visit to the Philippines to turn over copies of the collections to Indigenous communities. Through these engagements, we aimed to pilot programming that fostered meaningful connections between our collections and communities of Filipino descent.
Hosting Artists and Culture Bearers
Reflections and recommendations for hosting artists and culture bearers in Philippine colonial collections
Community Engagement
A series of collaborative events invited Philippine-American community members and students to connect and engage with the University’s Philippine collections.
Sharing Collections: ReConnect/ReCollect Goes to the Philippines
In August 2023, the ReConnect/ReCollect project facilitated the turn over of documents and photographs in digital and print formats to various community-based organizations, archives/museums, and Universities in the Cordillera region of the Philippines.