5 Questions with Saluhan
Saluhan is a community collective based in Naarm/Melbourne on Wurundjeri and Bunurong Country. Saluhan was created to establish a network between creatives in Australia and the Philippines and has since expanded to include collaborative projects that combine arts and community development.
Their practice is underpinned by notions of kinship, reciprocity, and the desire to create spaces that interweave artistry and community.
Saluhan has previously facilitated Saluhan: A Filipino Community Arts Event (2019) for makers, artists, musicians, and local community in Melbourne, Adelaide and Quezon City (PH); Agimat (2021) a series of community printmaking workshops at Sunshine Print Artspace; Magkasama (2022), a monthly gathering to share in Filipino film and literature; Dialekto (2022), a series of artist-led workshops at Siteworks; and Residence (2022-2023), a residency project at Footscray Community Arts.
No.1
Tell us more about the Saluhan collective. How did it form, and what has sustained its existence?
MJ Flamiano (MJF): Saluhan was founded in 2019 by artist Aida Azin as a way of finding and bringing together creative pinoys living and working in Naarm, and as Manang Aida always jokes, as a way to make friends. (*´∀｀*) Relationship-building and reciprocity is at the heart of what we do and how we engage; we want to uplift the identities and communities of our archipelago. In the past two years, I’ve noticed a shift in the agency of the collective and the authorship of our narrative as a diasporic group—I think we’re now more intentional in the way that we take on projects and frame our work. Together, we have carved out a tiny space in the arts and cultural landscape, which is in this moment, authentically authored for and by us. The energy of feeling this and hearing it reiterated back to us from our community has definitely sustained us.
Catherine Ortega-Sandow (COS): Everything that we do goes back to the foundation of relationships and reciprocity within Saluhan. There have definitely been many long days embellishing bamboo sculptures and late nights sitting in the dark tapping away on our laptops, but we’re energised knowing that there is a supportive community underpinning the collective and the work that we do.
James Emmanuel McKinnon (JEM): To be in the Filipino diaspora (or any diaspora) is an experience that is as diverse as the context that surrounds us. With Saluhan, I’m excited to be pushing forward the ways in which we represent the Philippines and Filipinos, and channeling who we are as creatives to broaden the perspectives on what we might expect Filipino culture to be. Saluhan’s name comes from [the Tagalog word] ‘salu-salo’: a party, banquet, or gathering, which summarises our intentions and desires as a collective.
No.2
In the press release for Radical Hospitality: Kain Na Tayo!, it’s stated that the event was influenced by Maria Orosa, a Filipina food scientist behind banana ketchup. It’s widely known that banana ketchup is a familiar condiment for many people from the Philippines and its diaspora. What dishes will be presented at this eight- hour event?
JEM: For merienda (afternoon tea), Papa Bear Bakery in Braybrook will be providing a range of empanadas, cakes, and other sweet treats flavoured with ube, coconut, and leche flan.
Throughout the day we’ll be offering Filipino snacks: Piatos chips, Mang Juan vegetarian chicharon, polvaron (milk powder-based Filipino shortbread), dried mango, and chicharon with suka (vinegar).
Dinner will be catered by our Kapampangan friends at FiloFeeds. Pampanga is one of the culinary capitals of the Philippines, and we’re looking forward to a number of classic Filipino ulam (dishes). There’ll be sisig (pork jowl and ears, pork belly, and chicken liver, seasoned with calamansi, onions, and chili peppers), chicken adobo (chicken marinated in soy, vinegar, black peppercorns and bay leaves), beef caldereta (beef stew with lots of vegetables), ginataang (vegetables braised in coconut milk), and pancit gulay (vegetable stir-fry), amongst many other dishes!
FiloFeeds will also be providing dessert: mango float (classic trifle with mango and graham crackers), and latik (steamed rice cake with brown sugar and coconut).
MJF: We’re also working on a Mountain Dew signature cocktail for the event (currently in the test kitchen) so stay tuned!
COS: Expect to see some edible installations—think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory meets barrio fiesta.
No.3
For many diasporic people, particularly those from minoritised backgrounds, food is often the first point of reference for outsiders, which can lead to a kind of consumption that is not generative. How do you think Kain Na Tayo! attempts to interrogate this?
COS: Kain Na Tayo! is a retelling of Filipino food that invites the audience to engage with food through the lens of imperialist histories and collective ingenuity. There can be a tendency for people to engage with food using an extractionist mentality, but Kain Na Tayo! invites the audience to learn about these contexts and to reflect on how food and the ritual of consumption can be perceived as the totality of our shared and interlinked experiences and histories. In every dish we invite guests to reflect on both the stories and processes embedded within the dish and to locate themselves in relation to what they are consuming.
MJF: Despite being a huge migrant group here, Filipino food is virtually unknown in the mainstream, though there’s definitely more businesses in Naarm producing Filipino food than ever before. You generally only have familiarity with the cuisine or dishes because of some familial or local connection— such as when a friend, family member, partner, etc. is Filipino and so makes you something that way. It’s also a very specific and abrasive ‘flex’ we often encounter from non-Filipinos, specifically white people, who like to make a point of the best adobo that they’ve had or like to list all the dishes that they know, expecting an enthusiastic and impressed response just for naming a single dish.
This for me is obviously a point of irritation and part of the tension of producing food-focused events in contexts that encourage the literal consumption of one’s food and culture. In our case, this event has given us the chance to delve deeper into the murky parts of Filipino food, [which is] underpinned by colonisation, neo-imperialism, foreign ownership and mining of natural resources, including agriculture. It’s always part of the critique and the conversation, and in each plate of food that we present... sarap na, I promise.
JEM: For Kain na Tayo! food is merely the gateway to the larger Filipino experience. The increase in Filipino eateries and restaurants in Naarm (particularly in the CBD) has made culture more accessible for a lot of non-Filipinos here, however, with Kain na Tayo! we’re inviting people to sit with us for an afternoon and indeed into the evening to delve into the Filipino experience through poetry, story-telling, and art. While food revolves around consumption, this is just the beginning of the conversation as we go deeper into the histories. We hope audiences come away nourished not only by Filipino food, but also Filipino hospitality.
No.4
The event has a sharp focus on intergenerational perspectives. Can you speak more to this? Why do you feel intergenerational dialogue and expression is important?
MJF: Saluhan was created by artists and creatives in our 20s and 30s, and collectively, our history and experience has been shaped by our place in our parents’ migration stories. We are the children of Filipino migrants, mixed-race couples, and the 1.5- and 2nd-generations. We are the nightmare kids of Pauline Hanson’s ‘swamped by Asians’ rhetoric and this comes with a strong set of politics, perspectives, and responsibilities, which are unique to our generation.
In planning this event, there was a strong desire from within the team to engage with older Filipino-Australians artists to hear their stories and contextualise our broader diasporic experience. As such we connected with Tito Alfred Nicdao, a veteran actor and artist based in Naarm, who will lead our bilingual children’s story-time session with his daughter and fellow actor, Charlotte Nicdao. Tito Alfred migrated in the 70s; he has shared his assimilation experiences with us and has conveyed his subsequent feelings of ‘returning home’ when the landscape and zeitgeist changes in your absence. It’s a very different experience to us and one that feels important to share as Saluhan becomes positioned as part of the wider ‘Australian’ diaspora. Our experiences are nuanced, different, and even opposing at times, so we’re wary of being presented as a homogenous group, especially in front of a white audience.
JEM: Intergenerational dialogue and conversation is incredibly important for any diaspora. As Fil-Am rapper Ruby Ibarra says ‘Alamin ang iyong ugat’ (Know your roots). For many of us in the Filipino diaspora, the circumstances of migration for our families is diverse and varied and includes escape from political persecution, economic opportunity, and to be closer to other family. For us, understanding and knowing where we come from, and how we came to be here is critical in understanding and dissecting our own cultural identity.
COS: It’s important to exercise a level of reflexivity about one’s own position in the world and to also resist the temptation to subscribe to reductive homogeneous notions of ‘diasporas’. A thread line in all of our projects is to disentangle ideas of what ‘Filipino/x identity’ is while creating a space in which we can use our nuanced experiences to counter imposed narratives of who we are and how we are meant to exist.
No.5
What else can the audience expect at Kain Na Tayo!?
COS: Fanta in a martini glass and coconuts dressed in a barong.
JEM: Throwbacks to classic Filipino disco on the dancefloor.
MJF: A little chaos, probably. A blend of wholesome family-time in the afternoon and tropical house after dark.
Aida Azin
Catherine Ortega-Sandow
James Emmanuel McKinnon
MJ Flamiano
Find out more
Next Wave and Saluhan team up for a unique eight-hour event bringing together artists, chefs, musicians, and storytellers to guide audiences through a series of installations and performances, illustrating the ingenuity of Filipino food culture.
Influenced by Maria Orosa, the Filipina food scientist behind one of the Philippines’ most beloved ingredients—banana ketchup—Radical Hospitality: Kain Na Tayo! draws on her creativity to invite audiences to explore issues of climate crisis and consumption through diasporic and intergenerational perspectives. Maria’s use of native fruits and vegetables in product manufacture helped combat the food insecurities experienced in the Philippines throughout the early twentieth century; establishing a legacy that continues to influence contemporary Filipino cuisine today.