Weaving Pusô with Isola Tong
What does it mean when digital archives of disappearing traditional crafts from the peripheries get translated elsewhere? What is this desire to share and preserve ancient Filipino practices on the internet? What is this impulse to remember and store disappearing cultural memories in digital video format on platforms like YouTube?
In this workshop, we shall be weaving pusô (hanging rice), a pyramid-shaped rice ball wrapped in woven coconut or banana leaves which was a way in ancient times to store, preserve, and transport cooked food in long voyages. They are usually stored hanging in batches. I will teach a method from one of the YouTube videos I curated in my web-based work “Vessels of Disappearing Craft” which is part of the KKKMY project. We shall also steam pusô with shiitake and bamboo shoots inspired by my Filipino-Chinese background and Japanese culinary influences during my time as a scholar in Osaka.
Materials, equipment, and ingredients will be provided. Slots are limited to 10 people.
About the artist
"Isola Tong (b. 1987) is a Filipino-Chinese artist, architect, writer, and theorist whose work spans various mediums, including immersive installations, community-based projects, fiber art, sculpture, and digital design. Inspired by indigenous craft and animal architecture, she gathers and weaves organic and industrial materials to create vessels that explore the relationship between bodies, technology, and the environment through a transcultural global-south lens. She questions the assumption that nature and culture are oppositional and mutually exclusive, and contends that environmental issues are politically entangled.
She obtained a B.S. in Architecture at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, and an M.F.A. in Environmental Art and Social Practice at UC Santa Cruz, California. She has exhibited internationally including Het Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam), A+ Works of Art (Kuala Lumpur), Art Gallery of Burlington (Ontario), UP Vargas Museum (Manila), Post Territory Ujeongguk (Seoul), MG+MSUM (Ljubljana), Tangent Projects (Barcelona), the Sami Center for Contemporary Art (Karasjok). Isola Tong has also performed for Indexical and the Museum of Art and History (Santa Cruz, CA). "