Minda
Mindanao, in the southern Philippines, holds the second oldest conflict in the world—traced to Spanish colonization and extended through American and Japanese occupation, the Marcos dictatorship, and today's War on Drugs, clan violence, and terrorism. Since the 2017 siege of Marawi, martial law has remained in effect, emboldening armed groups to target perceived enemies, including the Lumad, the island's indigenous peoples, whose schools are frequently accused of harboring radicalization and, as a result, attacked—displacing communities and interrupting the education of thousands. Colonialism's legacy persists in Philippine education itself: in its values, language, structure, and leadership.
This is the context in which I met Dale, a Lumad student completing his secondary education at an evacuation school in Manila, hundreds of miles from home. Our conversation returned again and again to collective and intergenerational education, the value placed on different forms of knowledge, and the inseparability of Lumad identity from ancestral land. "I want my community to flourish," he told me—his interest in new technology directed toward sustainability and agriculture, never personal gain. "Education is not individualistic," he said. "It is collective. School is for everyone."
I made this work to honor that conviction, and Dale's insistence that his story belongs not to him alone, but to his ancestors and community. It is built primarily from hand-drawn illustration, in keeping with his appreciation for hands-on learning, and deliberately avoids privileging any one of the Philippines' estimated 185 languages.
Two motifs recur throughout: the rectangle, marking what has been taken—knowledge, identity, land—and tracing paper, marking interruption, from colonial mentality to surveillance to outside agendas layered over a story that isn't mine. One image—a thumbprint beside the grain of mango wood beside a can of sardines—recalls a specific history: outsiders trading a can of sardines for a Lumad elder's land, "signed" away by thumbprint. The narrative is meant to be read in fragments, not in sequence; a companion guide is available for readers who want to go further.
The title, Minda, is a nickname for the island, and also a regional word for mind and intellect—the capacity to be aware, to reason. I ask you to consider Dale's education as he does: through a decolonial lens.
Artist Statement
Minda considers the entanglement of education and armed conflict in Mindanao, Philippines, through the story of Dale, a Lumad student. Rather than argue a position, the work insists on witnessing—an act better suited to a country already saturated with words and disinformation.
Built primarily from hand-drawn illustration, the narrative turns on two recurring motifs: the rectangle, marking what has been taken—knowledge, identity, land—and tracing paper, marking interruption: colonial mentality, surveillance, outside agendas laid over a life not mine to narrate. Image carries the work rather than language, in part to sidestep the hierarchies among the Philippines' many languages, though English and a Western frame remain present—an inheritance not fully undone.
The zine format, and its materials—newsprint, tracing paper—were chosen deliberately: independently produced, historically tied to marginalized communities, and demanding of the reader's patience. Throughout, I resisted letting trauma remain only ugly, insisting instead on beauty as a form of resistance, not denial. As a Filipina in diaspora, I made this work from a position neither fully inside nor outside the Philippines—one that demands ongoing accountability to the community whose story this is.