PROJECTS

I Appreciate You We Grow Together (2013-)

SoMapagmahal (2016 - )

SoMapagmahal Photography Mxntorship Program serves the SOMA Pilipinas youth community through its partnership with local community-based programs. Equipping youth with knowledge of Ethnic and Fiipinx Studies and SOMA Pilipinas hxstory and current issues, youth artists learn to use photography as a tool for self and community advocacy every summer and spring semesters.

Most recently, SoMapagmahal 2019 youth artists participated in a hxstorical community action that defended our local Victoria Manalo Draves Park. We also had our first and largest photographic exhibition hosted by Bindlestiff Studio, Brown in the Sunshine, with support from API Cultural Center San Francisco.

SoMapagmahal is a play on the acronym "SoMa" (South of Market) and "mapagmahal" (a Tagalog- Filipino adjective describing someone who is loving, caring and empathetic). The program culminates in our zine publication, Brown Joy, and a traveling exhibit across SOMA Pilipinas.

SoMapagmahal is organized by Erina C. Alejo. Past collaborators and partnerships have included co-founders Derek Macario, Irwin Simpelo, Dara Katrina Del Rosario and Diana Li, Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center's United States of Asian America, Kate Dash (@been.milky), Kearny Street Workshop and their Office Gallery, SOMArts Ramp Gallery, Filipino Mental Health Initiative-San Francisco, Kapwa Konnections, Sama Sama Cooperative, SOMA Pilipinas, SOMA Pilipinas History and Heritage Committee's Ethnotour, South of Market Community Action Network, Pilipinx American Library, Southern Exposure and Youth Empowerment Fund.

Exhibitions:

2019 Brown in the Sunshine (With SOMA Pilipinas archives from Erina Alejo and Alejo Family). Bindlestiff Studio.
2018 Brown Joy. Bessie Carmichael Filipino Education Center Pre K - 8 Elementary School Campus.
2018 Brown Joy. SOMArts Cultural Center Ramp Gallery.
2018 Brown Joy. Kearny Street Workshop Office Gallery.
2017 Brown Joy. 15th Anniversary of Filipino Education Center Galing Bata Bilingual Program. Bessie Carmichael Filipino Education Center Middle School Campus.
2017 SoMapagmahal. Bessie Carmichael Filipino Education Center Pre K - 8 Middle School Campus.

Publications:

2021 Alejo, E. “B-Roll Madyik: After School Hours and SoMapagmahal Youth Organizing”. Pin[a/x]yist Anthology. Solomon Amorao and Custodio Tan, (Eds.)
2019 Alejo, E. & South of Market Community Action Network. (Eds.) Brown Joy. SoMapagmahal Photography Mxntorship Program, Land is Life and Reclaiming Our Spaces. Volume 4.
2017 Alejo, E. & Macario, D. (Eds.). Brown Joy. SoMapagmahal Photography Mxntorship Program.

Presentations and Workshops:

“Portraiture and Consent.” Workshop by Erina Alejo. Reclaiming Our Spaces Youth Summer Program, Bindlestiff Studio and Victoria Manalo Draves Park, 2019.
"Youth Community Photography as Pedagogy: SoMapagmahal." Workshop by Erina Alejo and Diana Li. 17th Biennial Filipino American National Historical Society Conference, Chicago, Illinois, 2018.
"Counternarratives In Youth Photography: SoMapagmahal." Presentation by Erina Alejo. Emerging Scholars in Social Justice Conference, California State University Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 2018.
"Forging Fierce Alliances & Radical Compassion through Creative Community-Based Pedagogy." Erina Alejo as panelist with Candice Custodio AKA DJ Kuttin Kandi, Dr. Amanda Solomon Amorao and Dr. Lily Ann B. Villaraza. Association for Asian American Studies Conference, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, 2018.
"Capturing Narratives: Engaging Youth Through Photography." Workshop by Erina Alejo, Diana Li, Derek Macario and Dara Del Rosario. Free Minds Free People Conference in Baltimore, MD, 2017.
“Creating Narratives Of Youth Of Color, SoMapagmahal Photography Mentorship Program.” Presentation by David Battle, Dayzsha Jaranilla, Julianna Nojadera, Dara Del Rosario and Erina Alejo. Creative Practice Exchange at the Museum of African Diaspora in San Francisco, 2017.

Funding:

2019 Artists and Communities in Partnership - Creative Youth, San Francisco Arts Commission
2018 Mini Grant (School Year Funding), Youth Empowerment Fund San Francisco
2017 Sponsored by APICC, United States of Asian America, Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center
2016 Alternative Exposure, Southern Exposure

Agrarianaa (2019)

Agrarianaa: Art Inspired by APA Agricultural Roots is a multimedia exhibition in San Jose and San Francisco featuring artists and farmers rooted in the rich history of Asian Pacific American agricultural crafts, legacies and present-day community placemaking. Artists in the show reflect on ancestral farming and gardening practices, addressing topics such as migrant labor, environmental activism, land and food sovereignty. Each exhibition includes artists who highlight how a regenerative agricultural ecosystem can sprout into the resilient spaces necessary to heal and thrive in community.

Curators:
Michelle A. Lee, Diana Li, Erina C Alejo

Agrarianaa at SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco
934 BRANNAN STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103
Exhibition Dates: May 2-23
Gallery Hours: Tues – Fri, 12-7pm, Sat 12-5pm
Opening Reception: May 2, 6-9pm
Closing Reception & Literary Reading: May 23, 6-9pm

Jurors:
Sita Bhaumik, Artist, Educator, Writer, and cook with the People’s Kitchen Collective
Aileen Suzara, Land-based Educator, Eco-Advocate, and Cook

Participating Artists:
Angela Angel, Caryl Henry Alexander, Choppy Oshiro, Emerald Maher, Eryn Kimura, Frances Huynh, Grace Hwang Lynch, Hanna Chen, Julio “Somos One” Magaña-Saludado, Libby Paloma, lisa pradhan, Lucien Kubo, Lydia Nakashima Degarrod, MalPina Chan, *O.M. France, Vasudhaa Narayanan, Pallavi Sharma, Patricia Ong, Reiko Fujii, Roseli Ilano, roshni kavate, Susie Kagami, *The Rooted Recipes Project, The Round Rock Collective

*Denotes invited artists

Participating Farmers:
Anh Doan, Austin Tom, Christina Chan, Kellee Matsushita-Tseng, Kristyn Leach, Mai Nguyen, Rishi Kumar, Scott Chang-Fleeman, Shin Mune

Presentation Partners: Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, Chinese Historical Society of America
Funded in Part by: Grants for the Arts, California Arts Council, SF Arts Commission, Zellerbach Family Foundation
Sponsored in Part by: SOMArts Cultural Center

Agrarianaa at Japanese American Museum of San Jose
535 NORTH FIFTH STREET, SAN JOSE, CA 95112
Exhibition Dates: Now – October 13
Gallery Hours: Thu-Sun 12:00pm – 4:00pm
Opening Reception: March 9, 12-3pm
Artist Talk / Community Event: August 17, 1-3pm
Closing Reception: September 29, 1-3pm

Participating Artists: Shari DeBoer, Judy Shintani, Reiko Fujii, Tina Kashiwagi, Mitsuko Brooks, General Sisters, Sita Bhaumik, Lucien Kubo, Yurika Chiba

Presentation Partners: Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj)
Funded in Part by: California Arts Council, Grants for the Arts, Midori Kai, and National Endowment for the Arts

Byen Pre Pa Lakay (2014-)

Byen Pre Pa Lakay (Haitian-Creole; You Are Almost But Not Yet Home)

Byen Pre Pa Lakay explored a family's resettlement experiences from Haiti to San Diego, California. Developed into two short films, installation, photograph series and a photo book, Byen Pre Pa Lakay located San Diego county's geopolitical position as the most active participant in refugee resettlement in the state within the last 10 years.

An eight-month long project, Byen Pre Pa Lakay originated from Alejo’s pilot field research at Nile Sisters Development Initiative where they assessed refugee acculturation in education among adults.

Acknowledgements

Moise-Francois Family, Brian B+ Cross, Michael Trigilio, Lisa Cartwright, Shane Anderson, Adriene Hughes, Bennetta Jules-Rosette, Clarissa Reese, Nile Sisters Development Initiative, Rene Vargas Madrigal, Dorothy Lee, Buen Paso Collective, Erick Msumanje, Michael Ano, Elizabeth Stringer, FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism, Studio for Ethnographic Design, Alejo’s family and the staff at the UC San Diego Dept. of Visual Arts, Dept. of Human Development, the African and African-American Studies Research Center, the Career Services Center and the Cross Cultural Center.

Funding graciously provided by The Arthur C. Clark Center for Human Imagination Research Grant and the Department of Visual Arts Class Project Grant.

Exhibitions

Kearny Street Workshop's APAture 2016: Here Film Showcase, October 9, 2016
Round But Square UC San Diego Undergraduate Art Show, May 2015
African and African Studies Research Center Annual Banquet, May 2015
NEW TOPICS* VIS 167 Social Engagement in Photography Group Exhibition, June 2015
Charted Territories with artist Alexis Hithe, June 2015

WHO WE ARE

Appendix is a growing collective of multi-ethnic Asian Pacific Islander womxn and gender nonconforming, queer and allied artists whose practices in the Bay Area work to reclaim personal, intimate and diasporic narratives of intergenerational memory, healing, and trauma.

WHAT WE DO

In lucid moments of stress or pain, the appendix is an organ whose unread cultural histories push their way into significance, carrying weight on an overlooked past, present and future. As Appendix members, we focus on how we often overlook our bodies until trauma is enacted upon it. Coming to terms with this knowledge allows us to create spaces for healing and fluid artistic production in our potluck gatherings, exhibitions and self-produced programming through networking, performance art, energizers and in-depth check-in and discussion sessions.

OUR WORK AND PRACTICE

Formed in 2016, through an eponymous exhibition at the Pacific Heritage Museum, Appendix artists draw from a wide variety of 2D, 3D, experimental, digital media and conceptual frameworks, such as Asian Futurism, Fluxus, and autoethnographic modalities. Folx in the collective blend together art, education and organizing, with the goal of creating cultural change through tender moments of healing.

In community, Appendix members have organized with Kearny Street Workshop’s APAture, the Asian American Women Artists Association, the Asian Art Museum through producing community art, and SoMapagmahal Photography Mxntorship Program, an arts program for youth of color in South of Market’s Galing Bata Afterschool Program at Bessie Carmichael Filipino Education Center Pre K-8.

I Appreciate You // We Grow Together (2013-15)

I Appreciate You// We Grow Together is a collaborative and participatory performance-based workshop series by Erina and you all aiming to explore site-specific interdependence, inspired by Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed and the New Games Movement of the 70s. We come to engage each other in actualizing those actions we've always thought about to validate another's impact on our lives. Project by Erina in collaboration with all present participants.

Series:

November 2015 at Private Residence
December 2013 at Private Residence
May 2013 -- A collaboration with UCSD MFA Kate Clark and University Art Gallery Curatorial Fellow Michelle Hyunh at University Art Gallery in UC San Diego on May 7, 2013 as part of We'd Love Your Company.

Hauntings (2015)

Hauntings is an exhibition of works curated and created by Jayne Manuel, Elaine Raif and Erina Alejo that reference individual and collective sensory experiences linked to embodied cultural memory.

Complex Personhood, 2015. Erina Alejo. Four window panels mounted on a steel bar and steel ropes, 4” x 4” x 3”. The askew framing of the panels reproduce ghostly reflections, referencing Avery Gordon's theory of complex personhood and hauntings.

Unholy Shapes, 2015. Erina Alejo. 2,000 unblessed communion wafers purchased from Amazon.com that were strung across the ceiling by fishing line hoisted on wood, 6” x 16” x 12”.