Public Programs:

Solidarity Banner Reassembly & Kwentuhan
Gallery TPW (170 St. Helen’s Avenue)
July 4–13
Wednesday to Saturday 11am to 5pm, exact times variable

Artist Kiri Dalena (Manila), a member of Filipino diasporic collective RESBAK, will be bringing the group’s “STOP THE KILLINGS” banner to Toronto, as a contribution to the Kamias Triennial’s group exhibition Long-Distance. During the course of the exhibition, the banner text will be reconstituted to read “END GENOCIDE” in solidarity with Palestine and in recognition of global colonial violence. Kwentuhan is the Tagalog (Filipino language) word for telling a story or chatting with someone. Dalena and KT4 invite you to informally kwentuhan as we work to compose the banner text.

The large-scale banner (28.9ft x 4.8 ft) was created in 2017 as a response to, then president, Rodrigo Duterte’s extrajudicial killings. The promise to eradicate drugs won the president the popular vote in 2016. Under the guise of a "war on drugs” Duterte’s death squads murdered Filipinos in the streets and in their homes without legal process, among them, dissenting voices of activists and journalists. Human rights groups estimate that approximately 30,000 people have been killed on the former president’s orders.

Retiring the worn original, the mourning pins used to spell out the text will be configured onto a new banner, in Toronto, to spell out “END GENOCIDE.” Visitors to the gallery can join the artist on a casual basis in this activity.

Kiri Dalena in Conversation with Glenn Philip Martinez Aquino
Gallery TPW (170 St. Helen’s Avenue)
Wednesday, July 10, 6pm

KT4 Artist Kiri Dalena, a member of the Filipino diasporic collective RESBAK, will be joined by fellow member Glenn Philip Martinez Aquino at Gallery TPW to discuss the collective’s activism both in the Philippines and abroad.

RESBAK (RESpond and Break the Silence Against the Killings) is an interdisciplinary alliance of artists, media practitioners, and cultural workers advancing social awareness with regards to the killings brought forth by the Rodrigo Duterte administration’s ‘war on drugs’. The collective’s well-traveled “STOP THE KILLINGS” protest banner will be part of KT4 Long-Distance at Gallery TPW.

Kiri Dalena (Manila, Philippines) is a visual artist and filmmaker whose body of work confronts the underlying social conflicts in contemporary Philippine society. Articulating certain realities of injustice and inequality, Dalena’s deep understanding of the mass struggle greatly influences her artistic practice, depicting forms and histories of civil resistance. Her works assert the importance of protest and activism against state persecution. Her exhibitions include documenta fifteen (2022), the Berlin Biennale 11 (2020); JIWA: Jakarta Biennale 2017; and Singapore Biennale: If the World Changed, Singapore Art Museum (2013).

Curator’s Tour with Karie Liao 
Gallery TPW (170 St. Helen’s Avenue)
Saturday, July 27, 1pm

Join Kamias Triennial co-director/curator, Karie Liao for a tour of the group exhibition at Gallery TPW.