Through her Creative Work Fund grant, master weaver Jenny Bawer Young has been developing the tapestry Chewang Chi Biyeg/River of Life with apprentice weavers at the Manilatown Center in the International Hotel in San Francisco. On the first Saturdays of each month, from 3-5 p.m., community members are invited to learn laga, the backstrap weaving art of the indigenous Kalinga people of the Northern Philippines with Bawer Young. Workshops are free and everyone is welcome.
The completed tapestry will connect themes of the Chico River Struggle for indigenous ancestral lands of the Kalinga people with the I-Hotel fight for home, place, and community for San Francisco’s residents of Filipino descent. It will be unveiled on August 4, 2017, the 40th year commemoration of the International Hotel eviction.