A Mingei International Museum collaboration with San Diego Filipino Cinema
The_ Tela Nobela (Stories on Fabric) and the Sine Kwento (Stories in Film)_ art installation designed and curated by Benito Bautista and Emma Francisco Bautista is a community collaboration with the Filipino and Filipino American community in San Diego and the inspirational assistance of the Silayan National Filipina Organization, San Diego Filipino Cinema volunteers, and the filmmakers who participated.
In partnership with Bonita Museum, the first Tela Nobela and Sine Kwento exhibition opened in November 2020 during the height of COVID-19. The installation looks at the contexts of Filipino clothing and fabric–their very personal and cultural meanings–as a backdrop for Filipino stories. San Diego Filipino Cinema plans to bring the expanded Tela Nobela and Sine Kwento art installation to major cities in the U.S.
The Tela Nobela showcases the stories of the first and second-generation Filipino immigrants and the present-day generation of Filipino Americans through the donated clothes cut and sewn to become curtains of personal stories, weaving the ambitions, dreams, struggles, triumphs, and imaginations as well as the contributions of many generations of Filipinos into a site-specific piece. We invite the viewers to be curious, imagine, and interpret the fabric used to shelter the bodies of the donors.
Complementing the Tela Nobela is the Sine Kwento installation which represents an expression of the global Filipino experience where memories become curtains composed of film posters providing the viewers a glimpse of the stories expressed through cinematography.
The Tela Nobela and Sine Kwento art installation is an invitation to learn more about the global Filipino stories and to participate in the San Diego Filipino Film Festival happening during Filipino American History Month on October 3-8, 2023.
For more info about San Diego Filipino Cinema and the San Diego Filipino Film Festival, please visit sdfilipinocinema.org and sdfff.org.
Written, designed, and installed by Emma Francisco Bautista and Benito Bautista.