The Balikbayan Project presents: Ingat Kayo!

Ingat Kayo! meaning “take care” in Tagalog is a common greeting shared amongst loved ones and oftentimes the last thing you hear before leaving home and embarking on a new journey. Bringing together the work of five Filipino youth artists: anata laylay, Aurora Yol, Luigi Pulido, Sophia Santos English, and Khim Mata Hipol, this exhibition serves as the culmination of their journey together as the first cohort of the Balikbayan Project. This programming series provided an opportunity for the youths to commune, grieve and respond to the continued need for a physical space in the Filipino community while exploring themes tied to their own unique identities and artistic practices from within the diaspora. Balikbayan, literally meaning return to one’s country, refers to the practice of shipping goods from overseas Filipinos back to their families and signifies the return of youth to their own roots through culture, community, acts of care, sharing, and resourcefulness.

Opening Reception: January 17, 5–8 PM; Featuring a performance by Luigi Pulido.

Exhibition Duration: January 17–March 21, 2026

Location: #205-268 Keefer St. (2nd floor of the Sun Wah Centre)

Gallery Hours: Wed–Sat, 12–6 PM

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the BC Arts Council, City of Vancouver, United Way’s Kapwa Strong Fund, and Frog Hollow’s Youth Small Grants. We would also like to thank the contribution of our food sponsors, Plato Filipino, Subo Cakes, and Mabuhay House.

Artist Biographies

Sophia Santos English:

Sophia Santos English (they/she) is a third generation Filipino-Canadian filmmaker and arts & culture organizer working, playing and dreaming on the traditional unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ  Nations, also known as ‘Vancouver’. Currently she is building low barrier, community oriented spaces for emerging BIPOC artists that can look like hosting a home-cooked meal, workshops, mentorship opportunities and film screenings. 

As part of Centre A’s Balikbayan project, they deepened their connection to ancestral roots, welcoming the vulnerabilities and shifting identities that surfaced within the conversations in the supportive cohort. Alongside their artistic work, they are drawn to ideas both big and small such as organizing as world building, collecting oral family history & diasporic archives, pondering on what plants might make a good dye and moving more slowly to care for their geriatric canine.

anata laylay: 

anata laylay (they/them) is a trans nonbinary Filipinx curator, ancestral medicine worker, and textile artist from the rivers and hills in Hagonoy, Bulacan and Catanauan, Quezon. anata laylay is currently living and working on stolen and unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, səlilwətaɬ land. As a curator, their practice centres Filipino history, healing, Kapwa, and the QTBIPOC experience led by community collaboration and slow, intentional creation. 

With curation and storytelling at the heart of their practice, their art mediums have shifted into many different forms but they are passionate about working with fibre arts, natural dye, plant materials, and weaving. Through different iterations and formats, anata laylay reflects and works with themes of shared histories, liberation, connection, climate justice, and ancestral practices. Their work has been exhibited across the Lower Mainland while their graphic design and film work has been showcased in the Philippines, New York, California, Montreal, and Toronto.

anata laylay is also deeply focused on community organizing, activism, and continuing to learn as a Filipinx healer and ritual worker. anata laylay is committed to honouring their ancestors, community care, decolonization and fighting for national democracy and genuine liberation!

Aurora Yol:

Aurora Yol (she/her) is a Mexican-Filipina visual artist born and raised in Valle de Bravo, Mexico. Currently living in unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh land, she is pursuing a BFA in Visual Arts with a minor in Curatorial Practices at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Previously a contemporary dancer, Aurora’s practice is focused on oil painting and drawing, revolving around themes of nature, labour, and more recently, with a feminist reconciliation of her heritage as a Mexican-Filipina and the belief systems of both Pre-Hispanic and Christian cultures. With a background in sculptural ceramics, other mediums such as analogue and digital photography, woodworking and installation-based approaches come through in recent projects. Her work has been displayed in group exhibitions in several venues at Valle de Bravo and at ECU, where she has been a two-time recipient of the Brissenden Scholarship.

Luigi Pulido:

Luigi Pulido is an artist, writer, and cultural worker who dreams of taking longer naps. His practice explores the intersections of new media, colonialism, and data capital through performance, sculpture, and video, whereby the body becomes a site of inquiry. He is currently completing his MFA in Visual Art at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

He received his BFA in Sculpture at the Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts, formerly ACAD) in Mohkinstsis (Calgary). His work has been shown in Canadian Art, Marion Nicoll Gallery, Exposure International Photography Festival, Salmon Arm Art Centre, and EMMEDIA. He has also contributed writing in EAWP3 at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery, distributed by C-Magazine, Southern Alberta Art Gallery’s Arts Writing Prize Reader and Hungry Zine.

Khim Mata Hipol 

Khim Mata Hipol (b. 1999, La Union, Philippines; lives in North Vancouver, works in Vancouver, BC, Canada) is a lens-based artist and curator working on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam peoples. His practice examines how identity is shaped and commodified through photography, with particular attention to tourism, souvenirs, and government symbols. By exploring these intersections, Hipol investigates how nations construct collective identity and how individuals, through portraiture, adopt or resist expressions of patriotism and nationalism. His work simultaneously questions these symbols, invoking themes of colonialism and foreignness.

Hipol earned a Certificate in Photography (2019) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography with a Minor in Art and Text (2023) from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. He has received the BC Arts Council’s Individual Arts Award (2025), the Audain Travel Award (2022), and the Chick Rice Award for Excellence in Photography (2023), among other distinctions, including long-listing for the Lind Prize (2022, 2023). His works have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Centre A, Vancouver Civic Theatres, Griffin Museum of Photography, Filter Photo, Pendulum Gallery, Access Gallery, Trout Museum of Art, Exposure Photography Festival, and Cianu Umuk Gallery. His work is held in collections in the Philippines, Canada, USA, and Germany.