Omehen

Omehen: The Garden as Chronicle and Strategy of Resistance​ (2019-present) is an ongoing experimental collaboration that focuses on the creation, maintenance, and distribution of a precarious vegetable garden in Ateneo de Manila University. Omehen means “harvest” in the Manobo Talaingod language. In the forefront of the project is supporting the Lumad people of Mindanao, particularly the Bakwit Schools, and their struggle to seek refuge, education, and community in the capital as they experience land grabbing, redtagging, and state-sponsored killings. The project is a facilitation of exchanges of knowledges between all collaborators – students in Ateneo and the Bakwit schools, a Lumad agriculturist, Ateneo’s concerned staff, faculty, and administration – in growing four local crops namely ampalaya/bitter gourd, kangkong/”swamp cabbage”, sitaw/string beans, and okra.

Curator

Abhijan Toto

Abhijan Toto is an independent curator and writer, and with Pujita Guha, the co-director of the Forest Curriculum. He has been the Curatorial Assistant to the Artistic Director of the Samdani Art Foundation, and Assistant Curator for the 2018 edition of the Dhaka Art Summit. Previously, he served as the Programs Manager at the Bellas Artes Project, Manila and Project-and-Curatorial Assistant, Council and the Against Nature Journal, Paris, France; the Majlis Cultural Centre, Mumbai, and the Asia Art Archive. He is currently a fellow of the Forecast Platform at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, and has been a fellow of the Tate Research Centre: Asia, at the MMCA, Seoul and researcher-in-residence at the HSLU-University of Applied Arts and Sciences, Luzern Switzerland and at the Tentacles Art Gallery in Bangkok. He is a member of the Chareon Contemporaries collective, based in Bangkok. Selected exhibitions include Occupy Exhaustion, Haus der Welt, Berlin (2018); Postscripts, Bangkok Biennial (with the Chareon Contemporaries Collective) (2018); History Zero, Mumbai Art Room, Mumbai (2017) and is participating in the School of Storytellers, part of Ghost2561, with the Forest Curriculum, and Southern Constellations, Moderna Galleria, Ljubljana (Contributing Curator, 2019). He will participate in the TransCuratorial Academy in Phnom Penh and the Parasite Workshop for Young Curators (2018), and has participated in the Curators‟ Workshop, Kochi Biennial (2016) and Gwangju Biennale (2018). He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University of Baroda, India and holds a certificate from the ENSBA, Paris.

Artists