Enduring the Downtime

Description

The island of Negros is known as Òthe sugar bowl of the Philippines.Ó But this romantic turn of phrase obscures a dark reality: during tiempo muertoÑthe months of Òdead timeÓ between sowing and harvesting caneÑfarm laborers go without wages and food. ÒIt is death built into the clockwork mandate of the sugar plantation,Ó write artists Amy Lien and Enzo Camacho. In their Artist Op-Ed, the duo looks to bungkalan, a movement that offers a means of survival and militant political resistance for farmer-activists who cultivate unused plots of plantation land to grow both food and community. Bungkalan, they write, Òembodies an insistence on preserving life in the face of an impossible structure.Ó

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