04/20/2026
Sharing moments from our recent event, Finding Pilipinos: Reclaiming Identity, Reconnecting Community, held on March 27, 2026 at Collingwood Neighbourhood House. This gathering was made possible through the support of the United Way Anti-Racism Initiative Grant and Plato Filipino.
The event featured We also heard from visual artist and photographer Karen Zalamea , an award-winning artist based in Burnaby/Vancouver, BC. She discussed her photographic work on the Joyce-Collingwood Food Hub and her current exhibition at the Art Gallery at Evergreen. Her series, Every Surface Is a Shrine, examines the shifting boundaries between material, memory, and place, and reflects her ongoing reconnection to her ancestral home in the Philippines. Through her practice, photography becomes not only an image-making tool but a method of care, labour, and cultural inquiry.
We also heard JP Catungal (he/him), Assistant Professor at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice and Co-Director of the Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement at the University of British Columbia. He shared insights from Kuwentong Pamamahay, a collaborative storytelling project that builds an accessible and resilient digital archive reflecting the intersectional experiences of Filipino Canadiansโexploring place, culture, and what it means to make a home.
We are deeply grateful to our community members who joined us in conversation, and to for generously providing food.
Events like this continue to strengthen our collective advocacy toward building a Provincial Filipino Cultural Centre. The works and dialogues shared reaffirm the importance of amplifying Filipino Canadian experiences, histories, and identitiesโnot only across Metro Vancouver, but throughout the province.
