anti-commodities and othered ecologies (2025)

Shifting Grounds Summer Festival
performance-lecture
PACT Zollverein, Germany
photos from Dirk Rose
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This work examines the ongoing extractive logics in present day Philippines. Where feudal configurations from the Spanish and American colonial period still survive today, through landlordism, haciendas, and monoculture plantations. This speculation on ‘othered’ ecologies is told through a few common food items found in local markets, that were the main trade items during the height of imperial extraction from the Philippines.

i am a feral colony (2025)

PACT Zollverein residency
performance, sound installation, single-channel video
Choreographisches Zentrum NRW, Essen, Germany
footage from Merve Cowling
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The site is a field of interrogation. This divergent way of production stands in contrast to both existing commercial goods and broader forms of commodification. Rooted in local practices valuing more than just economics, it persists from past practices or emerged as a direct response to various forms of commodification, particularly those originating from European colonial hegemonies. This work has been developing as a series of sound performances, archival deep dives, and food gatherings.

ambient narratives (2025 - ongoing)

sound installation, artistic research, multimedia
co-created by Tonio Flores II, Ekopraxis, & Dulungan Youth
supported by Heinrich Böll Stiftung Southeast Asia
and TAWID sonic entanglements
photos: Meg Padpad & Javie Barcinal
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Ambient Narratives is an ongoing research and artistic inquiry that attempts to surface tensions between climate, development, and memory through art and public dialogue, which are crucial in a context where decision-making often excludes those most affected. This work uses sonic knowledge to tell the story of a changing landscape in the typhoon belt, listening to how people and more-than-human voices adapt, resist, and reimagine resilience in a climate-vulnerable Philippines.

tabok/suba // river crossing (2025)

Subong ang Tiun, Solidarity in Performance Art Festival
performance, sound installation
Iloilo City, Philippines
photos from Marc M. Lozano
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During the performance, various streams of ideas and experiences were explored, focusing on labor and the societal perceptions surrounding physical labor. This included blue-collar work, such as that of farmers and construction workers, as well as household tasks that are often feminized and labeled as dirty or menial jobs. The performance featured public acts of doing dirty laundry, symbolizing the struggle against the stigma attached to these forms of labor. Stained white clothes, marked by mud and soil, were washed repeatedly, yet the stains remained, reflecting the collective limitations in remembering and recording lessons from the past.

critical pathways // a moving feast (2024)

Utrecht University: Pathways to Sustainability
and Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons
performance-workshop, installation, cyanotype prints
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In this series of gatherings and workshops, we unravel these ongoing and emerging pathways for just transitions within food systems in the Philippines through local projects that center localized farming/gardening systems and community-led processes. An exhibition of works-in-progress and first-draft thoughts on food systems based on my practice, rooted in a larger food justice movement were shared.

kaput (ongoing)

kaput ecological space
Ekopraxis and Dulungan Youth
performances, workshops, gatherings, activations

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kapüt in Kinaray-a is a word that roughly translates to "to hold, to touch". It is an ongoing practice site for learning, convening, observing, listening, making & experiencing art, cooking & eating together, growing food & growing plants, etc.

a meal is a map (2025)

presented at Bangkok Climate Action Week 2025
visualization, narrative mapping, facilitation
Tonio Flores in collaboration with Philippine Youth Atlas
ASAI Bangkok Chinatown, Thailand
supported by National Geographic Society
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a collective tapestry