Migration Art

Today is artsy day for me and my colleagues. We hosted a poster making contest on the theme: Alay sa OFW, Alay sa Bayan. There were about 40 contestants from highschools in Manila. They drew, painted, colored, erased, outlined, and doodled to their heart's content in 3 hours and voila! we have this great collection of works which depict the migration phenomenon in the eyes of highschool kids.


Some observations I made:

- Family concepts are either sources of inspiration or are problem areas
- Dollars or money representations were all over the artwork
- Nationalistic symbols as the backdrop
- The OFW as a hero

I was looking forward to something more than these but I might be asking too much. Alas, media has seeped into the creative consciousness of people, blurring the images, dramatizing only the popular ideas, and confining migration perpectives to these cliches. Sad!