By E. Maestro
A particular kind of grief belongs to diaspora. It arrives already carrying other griefs – distance, displacement, longing, belonging to two worlds without feeling secured in either. When violence struck the Lapu-Lapu Day Festival on 26 April 2025, it did not land on strangers in an abstract place. It landed on 43rd Avenue and Fraser Street, Vancouver, where many of us walk, shop, visit, celebrate with neighbours, elders, children, and friends. Eleven people did not go home that night.
On their one-year death anniversary, in the Filipino practice of Babáng Luksâ, we produced art that led to this exhibition.
The eleven people who died are not defined by the manner of their death. They are defined by everything they had — their laughter, joys, labour, the meals they cooked, the songs they knew, the people who loved them, their dreams that continue to live in the hearts of the people who love them. To remember them only as victims is to reduce them. The artists refuse that reduction.
To the families of the eleven lives lost: this exhibition thought of you. To the survivors who carry invisible wounds: you are seen here. To the immigrant communities who lost loved ones and suffered: your grief has always been legitimate, your demands have always been just, your strength has never been taken for granted.
For more information:
Mylene Maranoc – 604-716- 0573
Erie Maestro – 604-366-7218
PANCIT Arts Collective – migrante.bc@gmail.com
ReyFort Media 
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