Life College, Puerto Princesa, Philippines: Atty. Rea Alcantara, Angela Laconse, Jomer Panoncio, Leopoldo Alarcon, Jr., Daniel Rey Lastrella, Ana Monical Jaranilla, El Cid Bocacao, Dr Madilyn Daco, and Jan Michael Vincent Abril
Karubwaten It Tina officers and members: Jolino Pugad, Solita Ongot, Jeffrol Kimil, Gemmalyn Lagon, Evelyn Lecian, Gina Lecian, Benda Talbo, Ebrina L. Pugad, Ebrita Pegas, Emelyn L. Ongot, Jelly Gamayon, Jenalyn Lecian, Jezemiel Ongot, Jovelyn Lecian, Lilita Ongot, Migno Lecian, Rejanin Ongot, Anniong Pardas; Bagerar (elder): Satya Cenon Ongot, chief claimant of NATRITI CADTNagkakaisang Tribu ng Tina + Samahang Nagkakaisang Kabuhayan sa Tina Association, Barangay Culandanum, Aborlan, Palawan
This project developed with consent of the weavers and is discussed in Filipino and their language through the tribal leader and in collaboration with the team of Life College in Palawan.
With support from Forest Foundation Philippines + British Council Philippines
‘We can not meaningfully proceed with restoration and connection, without ‘re-story-ation’. In other words, until we hear stories being told again, our relationship with the land cannot evolve and grow. Who will tell these stories, and how are they passed on?’ (Gary Nabhan, in Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2013.)
Stanley McNulthy (UK)
Miao Li (NL)
Maki Obara (USA)
Bruna Cerasi (BRA)
Olga Glagolya (RUS)
Dr Britta Boyer Loughborough University(UK)
Series of hybrid workshop and conversation took place in 2023, and was presented to the public in 2024.
For more information visit : https://karubwaten.cargo.site
Every year MARD seeks extracurricular opportunities through research projects around the world that students could join with to contribute, learn and expand their regenerative practice. These short-term research initiatives provide a unique opportunity for participants to engage in co-research, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. By participating in these research projects, students and alumni gain hands-on experience, expand their professional networks, and contribute to meaningful solutions that promote regeneration and resilience. Through the frameworks of permaculture and relational learning the project process guided how we understand growing, harvesting, dyeing and creation with Pandan and Yantok, plant species who became learning agents connecting local knowledge and ecological representation. Interweaving communities coming from different cultural, political, economic and ecological backgrounds brings in the deeper questions and reflection on ethics of learning and listening. How we understand these ethics through the lens of regenerative design?
For our first collaboration as MARD course was being invited into the journey of co-design to interweave regenerative craft and ethics from around the world and connect as an online community in ‘Karubwaten it Tina’, a co-creation project initiated by Life College with the Tagbanua weavers and craft makers of Tina, Aborlan, Palawan, the Philippines.
Karubwaten it Tina strives towards engaged ecologies, connecting ecosystems, communities and a new generation that links craft, learning and futures in a regenerative way. Karubwaten, meaning made by hands, is a community conversation using weaving as the language of knowing and constructing living relationships between land and the Tagbanua weavers.
Karubwaten it Tina gives agency to explore the meaning of ‘becoming collective’ and built a deeper understanding how making is integral to life and the future of the Tina ecology. The collaboration was set as a series of exchanges in form of hybrid workshops, supporting connection where Tagbanua community gathered to meet online with our MARD community.
All our students received harvested yantok and pandan from the community to cocreate at home and learn collaborative modes of making and exchanging. The first steps of the process was a process of welcoming each other in a conversation of exchange, introducing our ecosystems and the ways of how we practice community in the places we live. And from there build a collective exchange, connecting as makers and communities whilst investigating ecosystems, material, meaning, language, collective weaving techniques and skills samples.
Pandan plantation and weaving workshop
With the support of this project and Life College a collective agreement and the formation of a sustainable land use and regenerative management plan had been developed that is aligned to the local and national government’s 2030 agenda.
Activating a process of deep listening and making was key for our online community to learn from the Tagbanua weavers and craft makers and connect with the stories from place and species. Additionally, a workshop on regenerative land use and weaving practices had been developed with the community. In co-creation with students from the Life College in Palawan the Tina weaver community have developed and planted a Pandan location near the village in terms with regenerative permaculture principles. The leaders of the community developed a manual for land management and framework for using the weavers workshop location in the community. The route has visible pathway on foot which is easy to follow and to walk on with very little to no obstruction along the way. The pathway is very accessible for the farmers when they are to haul equipment and harvest goods. Non-fruit bearing plants and lumber trees abound in the forest. There are few wild crawling creatures in the region, which is also quite humid and abundant of wild insects. The pandan plantation area is beside the river and is located 673 feet (205 meters) above sea level.
Raw Materials and harvest
The natural resources of the Tina weaver community are identified and protected through the Ancestral Domain Sustainable Development and Protection Plan ( ADSDPP), the Tina Ancestral Domain provides the community and weaver the natural resources they need for their livelihood. Barangay Culandanum is richly endowed with diverse plants and animals. A wide range of forest products is identified in the area sustaining both home consumption and the market needs of the residents.
The physical and natural resources surrounding the community are abundant owing to vast areas of ancestral lands still covered in thick forest/vegetation. However, the available resources for livelihood are limited only for the tribe’s daily maintenance and consumption. In the case of the raw materials, both Pandan and Yantok, the weaving community rests on mountain ranges with abundant supply of raw materials. Since the process of harvesting raw materials like Pandan poses some danger to life as they go deeper into the forests, it is intuitive to encourage them to establish plantation areas near them.
The project identified a critical discussion point on who takes charge in a design process, on what questions are asked, and what stories are shared. What is just, equal and right for the process and aims of the community? Who steers the story of place? The Tagbanua weavers shared a Tina-led process through making and how it is passed on for generations and impacted how they live with ecosystems in place. The design processes and hierarchy of doing reversed, shifting away from the model where design proposes from the outside and move towards understanding the sensitivity of place, people and materials and growing from the inside.
Co-design from an indigenous Tina-led perspective shifts the process of design, and starts with being invited into a community and built commons through the making of relations. The Tina-led process taught MARD what storytelling means, shifting away from our projected assumptions and how stories ‘are the hands’ that make the work. The hands that carry knowledge from generation to generation.
Working with a place-based relational ethos and ethics asks to build authentic relations from reciprocity through deep listening, observing and un-making. Learning from situated regenerative relations teach design practice about the complexity of interrelations and create space to identify new terms of engagement and exchange.