“Markets of Resistance” Book Launch and Roundtable Discussion

The Ateneo Art Gallery, in collaboration with Baguio Kunst Publishing, invites guests to join the book launch of "Markets of Resistance" happening on 18 September 2025, Thursday, 3:00 PM at the Ateneo Art Gallery. The session will be joined by co-publisher and editor Angel Velasco Shaw, and a few contributors for a roundtable discussion. Copies of the book will be available at the Ateneo Art Gallery Museum Shop for PhP 4,500 per set. Guests may confirm their attendance through go.ateneo.net/MoRBookLaunch and reserve a slot for the session.

"Markets of Resistance" is a convergence of forty-four distinct voices. Academic, cultural and visual essays, interviews, poetry, and an archival matrix of documents, images and anecdotes woven into a dynamic tapestry, address socially and cultural charged issues: re/self/ decolonialization, cultural currency, the vibrant cultural heritage of the Cordillera in the Philippines and the Indigenous Peoples resistance to Spanish and American occupations, Baguio as a multicultural creative hub, radical pedagogy, and tourism.

It springs from the creative and investigative layers of the multidisciplinary “real-time” project, the original Markets of Resistance, a six-month experimental course in a variety of cultural immersions in Baguio and Cordillera Indigenous communities that culminated in a two-week series of activities held in the sprawling Baguio Public Market.

Manila-based undergraduate Fine Arts and Communication Arts students and faculty from Philippine Women’s University, and the Baguio-based AX(iS) Art Project collectively engaged in spoken word, performance art, film screenings, forums, workshops, and barter-trade, which are all inextricably linked to the works in the Markets of Resistance four-volume set (accompanied by a general introduction booklet). The interconnectivity of themes and topics within, across, and between volumes inspires alternative engagements with written and visual literacy—how we read, look, listen and create critical meaning. We invite our readers into this multiverse to meander through these multidimensional materials as if wandering in-and-out of the Baguio Public Market labyrinth—a product of a menacing American colonial past where Cordillera art, heritage, and culture struggle to thrive.

For inquiries, email aag@ateneo.edu.