Today's guest is Grace Villamil, a multidisciplinary artist exploring interconnectivity between humans & nature through installation, video, and sound. She has performed live-video manipulations as accompaniment to electronic & live instruments in venues over the globe. Her work TAYO was done in collaboration with Ione (Pauline Oliveros’s life partner) and Lisa Kelley (founder of the deep listening community) to bring awareness to the separation of children and families & give support to immigrant communities in Kingston and around the world. Most especially this project directly addresses the immigration issue in the United States focusing on the children, women, and families who have been separated by ICE. You can view TAYO at 615 Broadway in Kingston. 

TAYO, the inclusive “We” or “Us” in Tagalog, the language of the Philippines, (Grace’s background and where her parents emigrated from in the late 1960s) is a light+sound activation and ongoing community sculpture at Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening Plaza in Kingston NY. The TAYO sculpture is an on-going community effort where anyone can add a stuffed animal in solidarity with the children. The stuffed animal is a symbol of the unconditional love children are constantly giving to the world. TAYO is a physical manifestation of the strength & love a community can bring in our most trying and difficult time.

Grace shares her experience as a daughter of immigrant parents who wanted the best for their daughter which to them meant full assimilation, and how she later fell in love with the Philippines after traveling there as an adult. We discuss her piece TAYO, and why it was important for her to bring a shrine to the immigrant families to Kingston. Grace openly shares about her journey into and through her art, why and how she makes her pieces and the fear around creating. You can see images of the pieces we discuss as well as enjoy the meditations that are a part of Coloring Book. Grace writes, "It can be freeing to live in and with the unknown and unanswerable," and this is what we get to explore through her art. Thanks Grace!

I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving! Want to join in with some gratitude practice? Here are 50 Questions to Inspire Gratitude!

Today’s show was engineered by Nick Panken of Freedom Highway on Radio Kingston.

Our show music is from Shana Falana !!!

Feel free to email me, say hello: [email protected]

Leave me a voicemail with your thoughts or a few words about who inspires you! (845) 481-3429

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