Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
San Francisco
August 2025- January 2026
MAKIBAKA: A Living Legacy boldly celebrates the culture, contributions, and presence of the Filipino community in the South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood and Bay Area. Presented by SOMA Pilipinas in collaboration with YBCA, and inspired by the Filipino term for collective resistance, MAKIBAKA brings together contemporary artworks alongside community-held objects, memories, and movements.
MAKIBAKA, co-curated by SOMA Pilipinas and Trisha Lagaso Goldberg, features artists including Erina Alejo, Kimberly Acebo Arteche, Rea Lynn de Guzman, England Hidalgo, Johanna Poethig, Weston Teruya, Lucille Tenazas, and more.
I worked for decades in the SoMa neighborhood. My 1984 mural Ang Lipi ni Lapu Lapu, which I restored last year, was the first to tell the story of Filipino immigration to the United States. Images of the mural along with my t-shirt from the first Megahood Street Fair (later to become the Folsom Street Fair) and movie style posters from 2000 “How I Saved San Francisco” which I did with my Inner City Pubic Art Projects For Youth at the SOMArts are part of this exhibit. Electronic signboards that I have saved for decades from DIWA, a Bay Area coalition of Pilipino-American Artists, video makers, educators, and performers in the late 1980s/early 1990’s.
https://www.kqed.org/arts/13979612/ybca-makibaka-filipino-american-soma-pilipinas-review
