BAGUIO CITY – The city government recently re-launched an exhibit of multimedia portrayals by young people featuring their concept of place, of their sense of place, as part of this year’s celebration of National Heritage Month this May.
Rosella Camti-Bahni, Gender and Development (GAD) Specialist of the City Planning and Development Office, said that as differentiated from space, a place is significant because of its attachment to a person and the people and defines the meaningful attributes of a place such as the enduring connections people had developed with the place through the relationships between and among the people, stories told of origins and beginnings, and memories of the past that serve as inspirations to the present and help set directions for the future.
The exhibit is entitled ‘Dugad Mi’ which are Ibaloi terms that mean ‘our place.’
She pointed out that these terms were chosen for the exhibit to illustrate, from the point of view of the community, what is relevant, significant and meaningful for them.
This exhibit is the output of Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) leaders from 25 barangays in the city who underwent a series of modular trainings preparatory to the exhibit.
Further, the modules introduced the participants to the foundational concept of a place in the context of place-making, focusing on how memories and stories shape community identity and values.
According to her, by exploring local history and heritage, participants gained insights into their community’s unique elements where creative exercise in visual arts enabled participants to connect personally to the community, fostering a deeper appreciation for their cultural assets and heritage.
Bahni claimed that this creative approach to place-making encouraged participants to consider heritage conservation in their barangay
She said that the project which was first launched during the Ibag-iw festival last year through the City Planning and Development Office and sponsored by the Baguio City Creative Council is a strategic planning approach because it provides a situational analysis of the existing heritage resources in a community and the future direction how the community wants to conserve their heritage.
Moreover, the use of creative expressions to present the community’s context and vision creates a framework that combines heritage conservation and artscape as a basis for planning and policy making which is suitable for a creative city like Baguio.
The project raised the young people’s awareness and appreciation of their communities and bridged the inter-generational knowledge gap between the youth and their elders about the history and heritage of their community.
Bahni asserted that it helped trace their roots through their history and heritage and gave them the opportunity to envision a community for their future, thus, the young people who participated in the project will never look at their community the same again.
With a refreshed perspective grounded in their history and heritage, she noted that the young people can proudly say that their community is their place. By Dexter A. See
