The Living Archive is an ongoing moving image project created to document contemporary Filipino identity beyond stereotypes and colonial narratives.
Too often, Filipinos are flattened into familiar assumptions. The caregiver, the entertainer, the migrant success story, the “resilient” worker, the quiet helper and other more dangerous tropes. These narratives rarely capture the depth, diversity, vibrancy and individuality of contemporary Filipino lives.
“Who are we when we are not translating ourselves for others?”
Developed through a workshop series from my visual practice as an artist and Lynda Lorraine Studio, the Living Archive invites members of the Filipino diaspora to explore identity through embodiment, language and self-agency using a filmmaking process inspired by Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests.
Participants created one continuous, unedited portrait film with no script, no performance pressure and no expectation to be polished. They were invited to simply exist on camera. Through stillness, speech, silence, gesture, song, poetry, laughter, grief, language switching and moments of uncertainty.
The workshop was informed by the teachings of Virgilio Enriquez’s Sikolohiyang Pilipino and the concept of kapwa [the shared self] alongside reflections on language, translation and colonial education.
Together, participants explored what happens when Filipino identity is expressed outside of Western expectations of performance, productivity and legibility. What emerged was vulnerability, humour, softness, confidence and great cultural pride. For many participants, this was the first time they had entered a creative space without pressure to perform perfectly. Through collective reflection and experimentation, participants spoke about feeling seen, affirmed and more confident in taking up space creatively and by extension in their lives as a whole.
The Living Archive is both a film and an evolving record. And a space where contemporary Filipinos can be witnessed in their full complexity, simply as we are.
