Inshallah Montero: Reclaiming Filipineza | Shaping the Dream Landscape of the Filipina Immigrant

“Reclaiming Filipineza” is a project in collaboration with the Filipina immigrants living in Athens. I aim to create a video tapestry of their subconscious landscape with the information collected from their dreams at night. What are the recurring elements that appear in their subconscious mind? This dreamscape aims to deepen the understanding of their power and identity through knowledge of the dream work of our Filipino ancestors, the Babaylan.

A Greek dictionary from 1998 included the word “Filipineza”, which meant both a Filipina woman and a “maid”. The stark reality of educated Filipina women working as maids or nannies in the European continent is in contrast to the history of women in the Philippines. The Philippines is known to be a matriarchal society, where women held equal positions with men even before the Spanish colonized the islands in the 16th century. Women working abroad in countries like Greece are the breadwinners of their families. They are called “Overseas Filipino Workers” (OFWs) and have lifted their families out of poverty and contributed greatly to the Philippine economy. They are a superpower.

In pre-colonial times, Filipinas were trusted to be Babaylans. This role was mostly assumed by women in a community and was equal to the role of the male Datu or Chieftain. A Babaylan is a healer and priestess who serves as a medium of communication between the human and the spirit world. Women are believed to be more attuned to nature and the spirits around them because they are considered to be portals from the dream world to the real world by giving birth to life.

A Babaylan believes that people have twin souls. The first is Ginhawa, our breath of life, connected to our physical body. Kalag is the other, the astral soul of our being, overseeing our spiritual needs. When we sleep, it is said that Kalag travels out of our body into the spirit world, thus creating our dreams. Dreams usually carry messages from the gods or spirits.

“Reclaiming Filipineza” is a project I would like to create in collaboration with Filipina immigrants in Athens. Together we will carry out a dream journal workshop, piece together their journey in the spirit world, and create a dreamscape that shows us what elements are often repeated in their dreams and what hidden messages may lie behind them. Aiming to reveal how dreams might deepen our understanding of the Filipina diaspora, the dreamscapes will be turned into a digital video map, on which people will be able to see an actual landscape made up of fragmented and sensorial images pertaining to each element of the dreams.