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1:00 PM-6:00 PM,

Girls gotta do what girls do?

Interactive salon performance | Dealing in Distance|By Sarnt Utamachote, Tanya Villanueva & Francine Lima, Sharon Rose Dadang Rafols, and two members of Philippines Sex Work Collective

Dealing in Distance: Girls do what they got to do © Artschoolnow Salon, Dan Ni, Jaykim, Nguyễn Đình Chiến

Girls gotta do what girls do? © Artschoolnow Salon, Dan Ni, Jaykim, Nguyễn Đình Chiến

This interactive performance, toured already in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh city and Bali, engages with local audiences on the topic of gender, queerness, labor and migration. The results (of letters and photographs from that tour) can be seen in the exhibition at “Dealing In Distance”. For Manila edition of the salon, Tanya Villanueva will be offering hair-cutting service, while Francine Lima offers personal tea ceremony, Sharon Rose Dadang Rafols will offer a teach on simple print-making using kitchen tools, and two members of Philippines Sexwork Collective will offer a singing session.

About Dealing in Distance
Initiated by the Goethe-Instituts in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, and Manila, Dealing in Distance is a travelling art festival that brings together artists from Southeast Asia and Germany to explore themes of migration and identity across distance. This event is part of Dealing in Distance — Manila, running from January 30 to February 1.

About the Artists

  • Sarnt Utamachote is a Southeast Asian nonbinary filmmaker and curator based in Berlin (Germany). They are co-founder of un.thai.tled collective, a platform for Thai diasporic artists based in Germany. They are also a part of the Cruising Curators collective. Their recent curatorial project "Young Birds from Strange Mountains" at Schwules Museum Berlin (2025) focuses on queer artists and archives from Southeast Asia and its diaspora. Their research about exiled Cambodian artists in East Germany was featured at D21 Leipzig, MDBK Leipzig, Echoes of the Brother Countries (2024) at HKW Berlin, and at Kunst Raum Mitte Berlin. Their recent short film "I don’t want to be just a memory" (2022–24) had its premiere at 74th Berlinale Forum Expanded.

    This installation represents their ongoing project In Nobody’s Service which took place already at Galerie Wedding Berlin (2024), and Thailand Biennale in Phuket (2025).

  • Tanya Villanueva is a 42 year old artist born in Valenzuela, Philippines. She is the current main coordinator of ArtSchoolNow Salon- a slow-building project that hopes to find ways to queer learning and artmaking by making art a form of community service. Her work as a visual artist is guided by the fact that art has always been perched on the idea of excess, all the while living in a condition of lack.

  • Francine Lima is a papermaker and book artist who creates works that expand on the tradition and process of papermaking, intertwining the materiality of paper, fibers, and other materials with personal and societal observations. As an auxillary to her papermaking practice, she serves tea in the form of small, intimate ceremonies that dive into different flavors and sensations while also exploring connections among participants, creating unique moments each time. The leaves and other byproducts of each session are later turned into paper.

  • Sharon Rose "SHAOI" Dadang Rafols is an artist, educator, and community development consultant based in Dumaguete City.  From 2006 to 2012, she served as an Education Peace Officer for the Silliman University's Justice and Peace Centre. She has volunteered abroad as a Training and Communication Advisor for the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Uganda (2013-2014) and Ministry of Agriculture in Minna, Niger State , Nigeria as part of the Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO). She is also a member of several organizations, including Amnesty International, the Philippine Community Organizer's Society, KASIBULAN (an all-Filipina artists' organization) , and the Mindanao People's Peace Movement. She runs Shaoi Arts and Crafts, a small business inspired by peasant women who weave bags and baskets from the local pandan plant. She also facilitates art therapy for women survivors of rape and domestic violence.

  • The Philippine Sex Workers Collective was established in 2009 by WHORE (Women Hookers Organizing for their Rights and Empowerment), a pioneering organization founded by Huwomanity, and Huwomanity itself, a women's rights organization. WHORE was the first and only organization in the Philippines at that time to advocate and campaign for sex work as work, going against the prevailing feminist movement which regarded sex work as a form of violence against women. This marked a significant milestone in the struggle for sex workers' rights in the Philippines. The Collective unites sex workers across sectors, including trans and male sex workers, to fight for their human rights. Member organizations include Shawushka (trans sex workers), Deviant Daughters (women university student sex workers), Deviant Dudes (male university student sex workers), Red Nobles (male sex workers), with WHORE serving as the lead organization.

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