Revolutionary AYAT - Lani Asuncion x Survival Arts
On Naumkeag, Massachusett, and Pawtucket land || Arsenal Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Revolutionary AYAT (2021-22) is a multimedia public art project by Lani Asuncion in collaboration with Survival Arts, through ritual performance and ceremony held on Memorial Day 2022 at The Hiker (Kitson—created by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson) monument in Arsenal Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This statue is one of 13 monuments in Massachusetts, out of 52 reproduced across the United States, 50 of which are on display throughout the country. It is meant to mark the American soldiers that fought in the Spanish American War and the U.S. Imperialist occupation of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba and China. The word ayat is the Ilocano word for love.
Revolutionary AYAT project is a multimedia collaborative community art intervention which aims to contest public narratives of war, colonialism, race, and migration.
Lani Asuncion and Survival Arts present a counter narrative in performance, movement & sound, and community training for social justice.
Picture 1 - Front of monument text reads:
“Spanish War Veterans 1898-1902.
Cuba. Philippine Islands. Porto-Rico. U.S.A.”
Picture 2 - Close-up shot of the face of The Hiker from an aerial shot.
Picture 3 - Back of monument text reads:
“This monument erected by the City of Cambridge to her sons who on land and sea defended the nation’s honor in the war with Spain, the insurrection in the Philippines, and the China Relief Expedition 1898-1902. Dedicated October 12, 1947 under the auspices of Leslie E. Hunting Camp No. 12 United States Spanish War Veterans.”
ANCESTRAL
wisdom and spiritual strength for protection.
RESISTANCE
against oppression. They said they came to save us… what they didn’t say is what actually happened.
SURVIVAL
as warriors, we fought back. We have long since won. We survived. We remain undefeated.
Through the media of augmented reality (AR), performance, ritual, and community public art this project questions established Imperialist narratives and instead centers and enacts an alternative ethics of care, healing, and solidarity. This project will uplift the protection of Filipinx, non-binary, gender expansive and womxn identified BIPOC bodies who are most vulnerable against white supremacy, race hate crimes, and sexual assault. Part of this project incorporates a healing community circle kali training followed by a collaborative public performance with Survival Arts that aims to protect mind, body, and spirit against violence.
Focused initially on the specific site of The Hiker in Arsenal Square in Cambridge, MA the project will expand to include each of the replicated statues throughout Massachusetts and the United States. This project was awarded the 2022 Public Art for Spatial Justice grant from New England Foundation for the Arts.
— Lani Asuncion
“In this performance, Asuncion takes the role of Babaylan, a healer who rings their kulintang across Arsenal Square down the street from Harvard. The voice of the gong moves through the air to create protection in a space that harbors hate and death, and attempts of erasure. Through this space of intention and care, they weave an inabel of golds, reds, blues, and whites. It cloaks all of the performers in the Square, and beyond to those who hold their breath in hope for a future where our ancestors’ lives are honored and remembered.”
The strange and false depiction of violent imperialist history upon the Philippines embodied on the statue of the Hiker, stands symbolically in Arsenal Square, a place of weapons making, selling, and distributing in the colonial past.
As brown bodies walking through the space, it is disturbing and offensive to witness and see the glorification of the murder and pillage of our peoples and our countries since 1898, from the Philippines to Puerto Rico, to Cuba, Hawai’i, Guam and all colonized islands of the Pacific seas. As we’ve learned from the Palestinian and Black Liberation struggle, our very existence is our resistance. We stand here, our bodies and breaths alive where they tried to wipe us out. We survived many generations, holding many lineages within our veins, resilient & defiant.
Standing behind us stood the figure of the Babaylan, the Healer setting the space and protecting our work. We are still here, embodiment of the Warrior & the Healer. The spirit of our ancestors is alive with & within us today.
— Jamie Yancovitz
We began the ceremony, setting our intentions and laying offerings to the land. First, the Warrior lay down the blade to the earth in prayer before saluting to the ancestors, and beginning slow movement accentuated by the blade.
In silence, we moved in a clockwise circle around the statue of the Hiker — the Warrior and the Healer — ancestral pillars of our wisdom and spiritual strength.
The Babaylan began to chime their gong, first in solemn reverence, then with reverberating speed and rhythm, as the Warrior moved with the live blade. In concentric circles, the Warrior and the Babaylan moved in synchronicity through the ceremony, using bodies and weapons, voice and sound.
Earth Protector & Warrior Mama, a third figure to our sacred triangle, held two sticks, and clacked them together in kali rhythm.
As extensions of their rising spirit, their weapons of both killing and healing come together to create energetic frequencies that transcend the physical and metaphysical realms. Both the powerful movements of the live blade, and the synaptic sounds of the gong moved in solemn ritual.
This ritual marks the rejection of the offensive words and violent erasure of historical truth. In vengeance and veneration of our ancestors, giving them honor for this survival, and releasing righteous rage through body, mind, and spirit.
STAY TUNED for the Video Drop!
Please see REVOLUTIONARY AYAT for more information about the project and continuing efforts to speak the truth of our survival.
Countering the Narrative: TRAINING FOR SELF-PROTECTION
On Naumkeag, Massachusett, and Pawtucket land // Cambridge, Massachusetts
Survival Arts works to build skills in situational awareness, self-protection against violence, and understanding the historical connections between liberation struggles across the globe, from the Philippines to Hawaii to Puerto Rico to Cuba, to the Indigenous & Black Liberation movements on Turtle Island.
In response to the public narratives around the Spanish-American and Philippine-American War, and contextualizing the contributions, labor and sacrifices of Filipino-Americans since 1898 and throughout the 2019 pandemic, Survival Arts works to create space for intergenerational healing, historical truth-telling, and community education to protect against violence in many forms.
The pedagogy and praxis of Survival Arts Academy is rooted in a vision where mothers are honored as creators, children are empowered to be leaders of the future, and all members of the family are trained to be warriors. Training includes tactical movement, breath and energy work, while uncovering the stories of warriors and matriarchies of the past. Our movement teachings come from a long lineage of Kali, indigenous Filipino fighting arts, that has been protecting the family since 1897, and influenced militaries and fighting techniques for centuries.
Gratitude to Creator for this breath. To the ancestors for their survival and our presence. To Mother Earth for nourishment, remembrance, and grounding. To our community for cultivating powerful energy. To our descendants for learning. To the warriors, mamas, protectors, healers, and survivors. We are in this together.
To the world, may we continue to challenge the wrongful and violent depictions of history to create space for truth and healing.
salamat / thank you.
— Survival Arts
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Photography & Cinematography by delosphoto
Lani Asuncion x Survival Arts
All Rights Reserved.