ABOUT THE FEMME+ EMPOWERMENT EXHIBIT
Hi Community,
IN MID FEBRUARY OF 2020 I shot three film rolls (one came back half exposed) of portraits, with plans to gather and showcase for a FEMME+ empowerment event set in late March.
It was the month of celebrating love, but I was overcoming one of the most traumatic events of my life. As a victim of assault I felt stripped out of my own power. Ironically, I weaved myself between busy schedules of hard-working femmes+* who lent their time to answer my posed question:
“What makes you feel powerful?”
I cranked my film lever as their stories and truths filled the air between us. Strong maternal influences, generational traumas, heavy expectations behind the word “Ate”, stealing your sister’s lipstick, or about how loving who you’re not supposed to love helped you become who you’re supposed to be. This project is a beautiful labor of their internal love that rippled into my own healing.
The empowerment of femmes+* was and continues to be necessary work within the hetero-patriarchal Filipinx community. So when COVID-19 detoured our team’s vision, it felt devastating. Beyond this, unforeseen loss, disconnect, and the surfacing of systemic inequities sometimes makes it difficult to believe the truth of our own power.
But loss is not new to these subjects—
In fact, Women, femmes, queer, and/or gender-nonconforming identities have built power structures out of ruins; cultivating homes through resistence, time after time. It is in our history to stay empowered.
Now more than ever community proves to be our lifeline even from digital spaces. I feel eternally lucky to have served as last year’s Community and Outreach Director for {m}aganda. As I walk away, I vow to continue to flip the given hierarchy by centering and celebrating what Filipino culture is built on-- US. Women, femmes+, queers, everyone between that, beyond that, or all of that. MALAKAS AT MAGANDA.
SO, what makes You feel powerful?
Until next time, Community,
Loella Disto
{m}33 Director of Community & Outreach
