August 29, 2016, was the opening night of a textile art exhibit entitled “Panahi”. I was invited to come to the opening night to see the artworks. According to the artist, Liv Gloria, “panahi” is a female activity that needs to be preserved because it is a big part of Filipino culture. I never thought of sewing this way until I saw how beautiful and detailed the exhibit pieces are.

Panahi: a Contemporary Textile Art Exhibit

Liv Gloria’s “PANAHI: NEW WORKS ON VISAYAN CONTEMPORARY TEXTILE” is a 2016 Individual Grant recipient of The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), and is focused on promoting Visayan culture and heritage through the creation of new works in contemporary textile art.

The textile art exhibit aims to share more understanding and appreciation of our local traditional textile, in this case, that of Negros Island and explore the possibility of merging it with contemporary multiple media, methods, and techniques to create new works.

PANAHI advocates peace and creativity through a different art form and encourages community participation in the empowerment of children, women, Persons-with-Disabilities (PWD), Indigenous Peoples (IP), and the LGBTQ (Lesbians, Gays, Bi-sexuals, Transexuals, and Queers). This textile art exhibit desires to show the importance of the influence of local traditional textile in the development of a community.

Who is the artist?

Olive Cuadra-Gloria is a first-time National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) grant recipient for her individual proposal entitled “PANAHI: NEW WORKS ON VISAYAN CONTEMPORARY TEXTILE”. She is an alumna of the University of Saint La Salle. Now a mother of four, she advocates spirituality and peace through her works on textile art.