Tour of Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser: Pina, Why is the Sky Blue? with Fritz Pino
Installation view, Piña, Why is the Sky Blue? Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser, MacKenzie Art Gallery, 2022.
About
This tour will be presented in Tagalog and/or Cebuano. We look forward to welcoming members of Regina’s Filipino community for a Tagalog and/or Cebuano language tour of Piña, Why is the Sky Blue? Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser led by Fritz Pino, followed by a community response and conversation.
Bio
Dr. Fritz Pino (she/her) is a scholar and a community organizer with the Filipino and 2S2SLGBTQIA+IA+QIA+IA+Q+ community. She completed her PhD in Social Justice Education and Masters in Social Work at the University of Toronto. She also earned a Bachelor and Masters degree in Psychology in Cebu, Philippines, where she was born and raised. Her field of research focuses on transnational migration, queer and trans population, aging, and community development. Dr. Pino speaks 3 languages fluently, namely, Cebuano, Tagalog, and English.
About the Exhibition
In this video/virtual reality installation, Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser explore an artificial intelligence assistant that has gained consciousness through an upload of customary Filipina and Ecuadorian world views. Taking cues from pre-colonial matriarchal lineages, the artists evoke links between ancestral knowledge and an imagined future AI. Drawing on interviews with the artists’ families and broader communities, Comilang and Speiser present an intersection of futures and traditions as a continuum held together by feminine knowledge and power.