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Catching Up With Emmy-Nominated Costume Designer & Owner of gather here, Virginia B. Johnson

Show Description (Podcast Intro):

Today’s guest is Virginia B. Johnson. Virginia is a costume designer and the owner of gather here in Inman Square, which is in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the interview, we dive into her journey from a naval base in the Philippines to Greater Boston, her career in costume design, and the origins of her shop, gather here. We also talk about the importance of community to Virginia and her work, and her recent Emmy nomination. I’m so stoked for you all to tune in today. Enjoy! 

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Episode Transcript

Trish Fontanilla: All right. So welcome to the podcast, Virginia.

Virginia Johson: I'm so excited to be here. Trish, thank you so much for having me.

Trish: I'm going to have to share a picture. Virginia's one of my icon dressers in Boston. I don't know if you're on lists, but we should start nominating you for lists. If someone's like, What is the one word you would use to describe your clothing?, I would say joy. Inner child Trish and the 40-something Trish are both, “Oh, look at this bundle of joy that's walking towards me right now.“ So I love this. And then, of course, oh, you're in your shop. So there's all these drawings and quotes and being in the shop, too. This is what Virginia is. Or I don't know if there's some collaboration…

Virginia: I would say that that's definitely what Virginia wants to be, and is struggling always with trying not to get down in the dumps. So there's definitely an element of dopamine dressing. Getting up and being, “What is the boldest print and what is the most colorful thing? What things would someone else think clash?”. And then put those things together, because they bring me joy, and I just think we dress for the attitude we want to have. And same with the space gather here is also a reflection of, this is who we are. This is how we feel, even on a bad day.

Trish: Yeah, as I'm looking at my disco ball candle on my desk right now, all my colors are out, and I know some people don't love that. There's millennial gray out there, but that's also not my space.

But yeah, thank you so much for joining us today. We did interview you in 2018 for the blog, which is technically seven years ago, but I think the pandemic adds in an extra 40 to 50 years on all of us, at least mentally, maybe physically. So I'm really excited to catch up with you. But for folks that aren't familiar with you or haven't read our blog in the past. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Virginia: Yeah, I am a Filipina American who moved to Greater Boston twenty-two years ago, and I am a professional costume designer for film and television and occasionally for stage, and I also happen to own a small business, gather here. We're located in Inman Square in Cambridge, and we're a fabric, fiber, all kinds of fiber-related making space and supplies. And it was just a pipe dream back in 2010, and now will be celebrating 15 years in existence come February of next year of 2026 so super excited about that. I just try to balance my time doing costume design, and then being present and available to the shop. But as a small business owner, I'm also in charge of all of the admin stuff that is behind the scenes that no one cares about. But if it doesn't happen, the store doesn't run. So I have the really unglamorous parts of that job still.

Trish: First of all, I love that you highlighted that because, as a business owner myself, you know, there is this romanticism of, oh, you own your own thing. It must be so amazing. And it's like, yeah, to do the percentage of things that we love to do, I have to send out invoices on time, and I have to pay for the software and the hardware and all the supplies that I need to make the thing happen, and if I miss those payments, or if there's a price thing and I don't negotiate it, then things get hairy. And I talk about taxes and health insurance and all this other kind of fun stuff. Yeah, I love that. Like you're doing this costuming stuff, you own the business, but you're like, by the way, here's this other job in addition to the work that you do, because the work that you do for some people is for individual contributors, that is one job. So I love that you mentioned that.

So let's, let's flip it back and talk about where you grew up. How did you come to Boston?

Virginia: So I celebrated 51 years on this planet this past May, and I'm just like, really, and like you said earlier, with the pandemic, I swear to God, I feel like it's been even longer, like solid additional decade.

But I was born in Subic Bay on the naval base in Luzon, and my dad is from the States. My mom is from the Philippines. She's one of 13 children, and like very complicated Filipino colonial story, my grandfather is actually Chinese. He had immigrated to the Philippines. My grandmother and my grandfather met while they were in one of the prison camps during Japanese occupation, and they were liberated by the US. So even though some of my uncles were very anti-American presence in the Philippines in the 70s, my grandmother was very pro-America, was very pro-American military, because in her mind, her life would not have been what it was without that liberation. So we have a really complicated history, which many people do.

My dad being an American naval chief petty officer, my grandmother was like, this is the best, you could not have made a better match. Whereas some of my uncles were like, No way, don't do it. But my mom has always been a very strong matriarch, as was my grandmother, and she was headstrong, and just was going to do her own thing.

So we lived there, and I went to Catholic daycare, and then preschool and kindergarten, because it was a space where English was spoken primarily, and then Tagalog was spoken at home.

And we moved to the States, and when my dad was stationed in Long Beach, California. He made a point of asking to be located there, and they made that decision because they really wanted, by this point, it's me and my sister, us to have more opportunities to not be in a school system where we're being told to only wear dresses, skirts. What does it mean to be feminine? And despite my mom also thinking being pretty was super important, and that is also very complicated, being a pageant girl, all of that just so much to unpack. But they did make the decision to move to Long Beach so and one of the reasons they picked Long Beach is there is a huge Filipino community in that area because of the number of Filipinos that came over post-Vietnam war were married servicemen, service women.

Trish: I don't think I knew all that stuff about your past. I think it's really interesting to hear now, there's a very complicated feeling about the American presence. People forget the colonialism part about the Philippines.

Virginia: Yes, I know. I think it's important to note that there were a lot of people there, even in the 50s and 60s, that weren't Americans yet.

So I spent most of my developmental years, elementary school and junior high, in that area. I actually went to this really cool school in San Pedro called Dodson, and I loved my time at Dodson. It was this magnet school. We got to study all kinds of cool stuff. Also, the teacher strike happened while I was in school, and so I think that was my first real understanding of workers’ rights and the complication of, what are our parents supposed to do with us? Because education is not just about learning, it's also a form of child care. And from a working middle-class place, you know, mom's a nurse, nobody can just call out. They're not in a position. Everybody's just like, What are we supposed to do with these people, and, do we cross the picket line? I just remember being 13 years old, 14 years old, and like, Oh, we're having real conversations. Thinking, this is wild. And I was definitely pro-teacher. In the end, I was like, I stand with my teachers. I know lots of people hate junior high, but I loved junior high. It was really great exploratory time, and it was like a revolutionary public school.

But also during that time, there was definitely a surge in violence in that LA area, and my parents were very concerned about us, and they opted to relocate everyone once it like became clear that my grandfather, on my dad's side, was diagnosed with Parkinson's, and so they picked us all up, and we moved to rural Iowa. I was 16 years old, it was probably one of the most, like, and I had moved like internationally. I had gone from everybody looks like me to most people look like me, and we all speak English, and so I totally lose my ability to speak Tagalog. And then to rural Iowa, where I had gone from a school that had 1000s of students to a school that had literally 400 students in total. Everyone knows everyone. They all grew up together. Their parents knew everyone, and we were really outsiders, and that at the time was incredibly painful, but I do think in the long run helped me develop a voice.

I really needed to learn to articulate who I was as a person, what it meant to have my identity if I wanted to share that identity and talk about my family and stand up for myself, and that was really important. I think it helped me later on as an adult, because I had a very strong sense of self. I didn't want to be part of a clique or the crowd. I couldn't be, I was just so different. I ate different food. I looked different. Nobody knew me. That wasn't an option, so I had to develop a voice, and I spent two years of high school there.

And then in the end, really wanted to be close to home, so I decided to go to college in Des Moines, Iowa, at Drake. One of the reasons that was a great option was that they had tons of financial aid. It was three and a half hours away from home, so I felt like I was far enough away, and again, I felt like I could explore who I wanted to be as fully as possible. And Des Moines was definitely bigger than the small town in eastern Iowa, which had one stoplight. I'm not joking. Small. I grew up in Southern California, and then came to someplace that had a stoplight, and that was so wild. So Des Moines, I was like, there's a lot of stoplights. I felt like a step up to where I wanted to be.

All of that to say, I knew I didn't want to stay there forever. And like many people that go to school at Drake, I ended up going to Chicago and then slowly working my way east, and I ended up in Boston when I finally decided I didn't want to piece together my whole year through these small theater gigs, where I was living out of my car, you'd maybe get a room in some patron’s house, or you'd stay in a cabin or something like that. And I was like, I really would like a little more stability. So I took a job at Tufts University, and that's how I ended up here. After all of that. I didn't even talk about how I was actually a bio pre-med major and ended up in costume.

Trish: I think a lot of Filipinos, you either become a nurse or a doctor, or you have some story growing up in New Jersey. I'm pretty sure I applied to the nursing program at Rutgers, even though I cannot even look at blood and not feel queasy. We all have a story of, oh, we tried it and it just didn't work out.

But so I'd love to dive into the costume design piece of it, you laid some of that groundwork. To me, it sounds like the origins of a costume person is growing up in a place where you have to choose to define yourself, and that's either I'm going to go with everybody else and what everybody else is doing, or I'm really going to go for it. And that decision-making of being thoughtful about what you're going to wear and how you're going to act, I feel like that's the origin story of a costume designer.

But for folks that aren’t in the biz, generally, if someone's like, oh, costume sounder, sounds cool. What does that mean? And then talk a little bit about how you got into that.

Virgina: So you really did sum that up. It's the intention and intentional choices of what you wear and when you choose to wear something, and so my job as a costume designer is really about taking the story, which is something that I'm attracted to. I love storytelling. I've always loved stories, so diving deep into the story, figuring out where we are, what time and place things are happening, and then who are the people in the story, and how do they dress, and how do they transform? And how does the story transform how they dress?

Because sometimes people think that costume designing is fashion, and it's not at all, because I am not creating the seasonal look. I am like doing mini fashion shows for every single person in the story, and sometimes the person in the story never changes their clothes because of the action or their socioeconomic class. And then I love digging into how the action affects how your clothes transform, and it's what I love about doing action films, because you think about what happens to you when you jump through a window, roll on the street, and a car blows up in the parking lot. What has happened to your clothes that if you've survived and you have now caught a train, does everyone on the train look at you, and can they tell what happened to you? Or they just think you had a really rough day. What's the evidence of what that action was? And I have always loved figuring that stuff out.

I actually became interested in costume design because, like I was saying about going to Drake, I had a really great financial aid package, and part of the financial aid package was a work-study job. And my work-study position was in the costume shop. And it was because I knew how to sew and embroider and all these things I learned at like six years old from my grandmother in the Philippines, textiles are incredibly important. We have our own rich textile history of transforming pineapple and coconut into cloth, and then a rich history of embroidery and handcraft, as well as crochet. And so I learned the art of embroidery and crochet from that side of my family, it was really important to staying connected with my family and my grandmother, who loved embellishment and traditional dress. I took traditional dancing classes because of her influence, and we helped make my costumes for that, which is just so intrinsic to who I am, and every stitch holds so much meaning.

Whereas, with my other grandmother she was a daughter of a farmer, and they had survived the Great Depression in the States. So for her, it was all about mending and knitting and making what you want to wear because you can't afford to buy it. So I learned this whole history of her wanting to dress a certain way and having to do it herself. And I love that about Nita. I still have her sewing machine, and by the time I was going to prom, she had invested so much time and care and teaching me to sew that I was like, I can do that. I can make something I want to wear that is reflective of all the parts of me. And no one else will have anything like this. And that was also something that Nita and Christina taught me, was that the act of making it yourself means that it is 100% yours. It is all about your labor and the labor of your family, because everything I make is in tribute and in service of continuing their story.

So it wasn't that big of a leap for me to then go work in a costume shop, learn more about theater. Those jobs were not things we thought about as kids. You know, it would be great if we went to community theater, dinner theater, the high school play. It's not like my parents had a lot of time for other things. And in the Midwest, it's not like we went to Broadway. We didn't, we didn't go to those places. And even in Southern California, what we were doing was typically very specific to the community that we were in, and not necessarily about going and seeing a show. We would go seek traditional dance and things like that. That was what was really important to us, was being in community.

And I think that's also what drew me to costume design, especially for theater. It is community in a collaborative art form. You dive in intensely, and it's always a trust exercise. Are we speaking the same language? Are we seeing the same thing? And when all is said and done, you see it on stage, and that is either proof that you were all in sync with one another, or it shows maybe where the weakness was in your communication, or how everyone was seeing things, and because it's a living work of art, you can continue to grow and make those changes and tweak them. It is absolutely one of the things I love so much about it. It is like the sewing circle. It's like all of these spaces where people rely on one another, it's not solo.

Trish: Thank you so much for walking through the costume design piece.

So you were just nominated for an Emmy, which I think is your first?

Virginia: It's my first ever, my first ever.

Trish: Amazing, congratulations!

Virginia: I'm still in shock. To be nominated by the Television Academy for outstanding period costumes is mind-blowing, because I do get a lot of people who ask me about just how I guess erratic my resume is.

I have done specials for PBS. I have done projects for Happy Madison, which is the Adam Sandler production house, where it's all slapstick and puke jokes. And then I've done super serious things, and then heavy action, and the new Salem's Lot set in the 70s, which is considered a softer period. It's not corsets and things like that, but it's still period, and it's horror. And then I just out of left field, did this show set in 1857, which is incredibly violent, but going back to these, the decisions we make when we get dressed in the morning, every single person that people see on the screen in this six part mini series was a labor of deep consideration.

My research period is nothing compared to people who specialize, who are PhDs in textile history or a certain period. I do my deep dive for a couple of months, I try to pull in as many resources as possible to get to what are the essential parts of dress for this snapshot in time. You know, we don't have iPhones in 1857 so there are daguerreotypes, there are paintings, there are journals, there's these other ways of learning, but we should consider this too. We prioritize in our history the people who are empowered to record that history. And one of the things that's important about this series, and one of the reasons I was drawn to it and why I gave so much of myself to it, is that we also depict various bands of Indigenous peoples who were on the continent from the beginning, and they are literally fighting for survival and fighting for the land that they believe that they are the caretakers of, and they're constantly being displaced and lied to and murdered.

And that dress is not in the history books. That dress is not like the tome of 1850s America, even some of the photographers from the later 1800s they were like, Oh, this is cool. And it may not have been all of the same tribe or the same region, they just were like, that looks good. This makes a really interesting photo. This is how we want to paint the people.

And so we turned to elders. I was so lucky. I reached out to a wonderful consultant, Julie O'Keefe, who had worked with my friend Jacqueline West on Killers of the Flower Moon, and she was able to find elders from the various Native communities to talk to us, because a lot of that is oral history. So they are telling us what they know and showing us how they make the things that we need to make to accurately depict this moment in time. And that was so incredible and also central to telling this in a way that felt authentic, and honored the actual people that were affected by, you know, American expansionism.

So I would like to think that the Television Academy and my peers who decided to nominate the show, that one of the reasons it stuck out to them was that we did put in that time and effort and created things that had not been seen before, and we did it in a way that was caring and very real. So I'll find out September 6th, what everybody…

Trish: Amazing…

Virginia: I am up against like some heavy hitters, but it is, like I said, it's an honor, and I worked with a lot of incredible artists and craftspeople, and just everybody put in so many hours and so much labor to make it possible for it to look the way it did. So it's just, it's pretty cool. I feel pretty cool.

Trish: Love the Filipino humbleness that is coming out. One, will you be in attendance? And two, will you make what you're going to wear on the red carpet?

Virginia: Oh, my God, Trish. I'm so stressed out about what I'm gonna wear, because there's a part of me that, like we started out with, I'm a dopamine dresser. I want a lot of pattern and color, and just to feel like I'm taking up space, because there are so many ways we are made invisible as women of color, children of immigrants, as artists, as creatives, as people who care about other people. I'm also on the East Coast. I'm not an LA person. There are all these things that I don't want to necessarily blend in. I also don't want to make a worst-dressed list. And my show was so dirty and grimy and real that I also want to be very real, but I also want to reflect who I am. So I'm torn.

Part of me is thinking, I'm going to make a set. As you know, I love a set. I love something that is clearly meant to go together. I also love embroidery, and I love big embroidered dresses. So I've been Googling, can I get some Filipino cloth and make myself an over the dress, some pineapple cloth to do an over- I don't know. I do want to honor who I am…

Trish: Barong-style…Yeah, I love the idea of embroidered tapestry. And you can weave so many parts of yourself, your biracial self, your immigrant self, all the many facets of you. But we'll be watching on September 6, everyone go into social media and message all the people interviewing and be like, have you seen Virginia Johnson yet? Just hype you up, because Filipinos love when there's someone in the community. We do love to show up and support.

But to shift, love to talk a little bit about your home base at gather here. So you mentioned what y'all do at the beginning, but how did you decide to open up? And in the location that you decided to open it up in.

Virginia: So when I talk about creating and collaboration, that has always been at the heart of what I want to do with whatever I'm doing, I want to be in community.

And I don't know if you also follow the work of Carl Lorenz Cervantes, a professor, a researcher, and he is always talking about kapwa, which is fellow humans and kindred and community, and how that is definitely part of the Filipino identity of our communities, and that we have been struggling with individualism and capitalism because of being colonized. Because at our heart, we want to be in community, and we want to be supporting one another, And oh, you need this. Let me give it to you. We can make a bigger table. We can grow more food. I will watch your child. Truly, this we are a village, and we will care for one another. And these ideas are constantly struggling with one another, and for me gather here takes that whole, I'm a business, but I also really want to be in community, and tries, sometimes successfully, sometimes I struggle with it, to blend those needs. I wanted to make sure that we were true to ourselves and true to this idea of sustainability, quality tools that don't need to be replaced, which is kind of very anti-capitalist, because we need people to buy things, right? That's how the system works. And so I can pay the rent, but at the same time, I don't want things to end up in the landfill. I want people to take time and put thought into what they invest in, and trust that what they're investing in will last them a very long time, that they are tools that they will be able to pass on.

And that, you know, you will have a place to go that will help you use those tools, that will support you in the use of those tools. And so gather here is that place, and then, because we're here in Greater Boston and space is at a premium, it's like a privilege to have a sewing or craft room in your home that doesn't displace where you cook or sleep or eat. So for us, creating studio spaces where you don't have to clean off your dining table, you can just come and rent an hour in the studio, and you can do your cutting. You can rent the sewing machine. You can steam all your curtains. We have powerful steamers. We have the equipment that you don't need in your home or don't have space for in your home, so that you can actually make things.

And then on top of that, we invest in a team of people that also want to help you. So in our studio, we always have a studio monitor. They're there to help make sure the machine is working correctly. Help you switch out to a zipper foot, wind a new bobbin. We are providing scissors and rotary cutters, and rulers, so that you aren't hauling around stuff or trying to find that stuff in your closet, because it's there. You know it's there, you know it's going to work. And that is kind of at the heart of gather here.

We've always had studio space, and then we've always had workshops, because this knowledge should not be kept to ourselves or only in higher education spaces or relegated to old books in libraries. People want to make things. People want to sew. They want to mend. They want other ways to express themselves and create that isn't at a desk, isn't at a computer or on your phone, that isn't related to work, isn't related to productivity in that way that everything we do seems to be monetized. And I constantly remind people, just because we're good at something and we enjoy making something, doesn't mean it has to become the job. You know, we can just love doing the thing and being with others and do that thing and not suddenly feel like I make bags now all the time. You know, you don't have to.

Trish: You do get that feeling, as someone that did take a sewing class at gather here, after I sewed my first bag, I was like, is this a business? Am I really good at this? Because you do feel this immense sense of pride after you make something. And as someone that generally works at a computer all day but has a creativity streak, it was just lovely to sit and work on something, and I could kind of be on my phone. But also, you can't because you're on the sewing machine, and you're putting stuff together. But to just have this like singular creative focus for however long it took to put together that bag was really amazing. You know, we talk a lot about the absence of third spaces in today's world, and it's such a again, vibrant, beautiful, welcoming space to be in.

To tie, you know, if anyone has listened to anything you've said today, it is no surprise that you would have this community-driven We Care Wednesdays at the store. So we'd love to hear more about that if people aren't familiar with it.

Virginia: So like many people after the 2016 election, I was like, what more can I do? I just don't know how to use this energy in a way that's productive. I just want to help. I have access to community that are also eager to help, but just want to know more. And have that energy go towards something.

And January of 2017, we started hearing about all the different funds that would be cut under a new administration. And we're experiencing that right now as well. where we hear about, my favorite PBS station has had all its funding cut, you know, and I wanted to take this struggle I have with capitalism, and put it to good use, and I put it out there on Facebook of all places, and some of my former students from my time at Tufts, who also were struggling with what they could do in the workplace, or as artists, one of them was like, instead of just me to donate to a cause, why don't you think about this in a more targeted way so that it's not just you, that is giving your money. Let's find a way for you to rally people behind the cause, and also shine a light on a program, you think is essential to living in a sustainable, vibrant community. And I was like, oh, that's great. How do I do that? Oh, I write a blog for my business. I have a robust newsletter that people write back to. Let me figure this out. And by the end of January, we had launched this We Care Wednesday.

Wednesday is probably the day we would be closed if we were not open seven days a week. But we also do kids’ programming on Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday evening. So okay, well, for us it's kind of the start of the week because weekends are our peak. And then we're recovering, getting in product Wednesday is the restart kind of thing.

So we love alliteration, so We Care Wednesday, all sounded good together, and we started with Food For Free. And food is the nutrients and all of that are human, right? I will die on that hill. And I think at the time, there had been this announcement that funding was being cut from food assistance programs all over the country. And I decided that we'll start here. If you want to fight me, that people shouldn't have access to food. I felt really comfortable being like, then I don't know what's wrong with you. You shouldn't shop here. This is not controversial in my mind. So we started there.

And so every Wednesday, we donate five percent of our sales. Regardless, it could be you signed up for a class, PDF printing, whatever, to that month's recipient. We do a blog post about it. We share it in the newsletter. It's the header on Wednesdays.

And over the course of these years since the launch in 2017, we have donated almost $95,000 dollars.

We're doing twelve programs a year. And obviously November, December are peak. People are already out there doing their holiday shopping, and we definitely think about what are some nonprofits or mutual aid organizations that aren't getting as much attention as others, and we choose those because we know the donation is going to be a little heftier. But every May I do fund-a-thon for the National Abortion Fund, and that's always May. We’re always doing that in May because I'm doing fund-a-thon. It's something that I really care about. And then June, we always do pride organization. And it also just highlights for people, who are coming to the store or learning about us for the first time, or continue to support us, that we are very thoughtful and committed to highlighting a variety of organizations that could do really important work.

Trish: So full disclosure, I did not know that your first organization was Food For Free, and I'm on the board of Food for Free.

So what's next for you, Virginia the costume designer, and then what's happening at gather here?

Virginia: So I just started the prep period for season three of Dead City, which is a Walking Dead spin-off. It's shooting in and around greater Boston, Massachusetts. Lowell. I'm really excited. I've never done zombies before. And yeah, it takes place in-

Trish: Not a common thing you hear in jobs.

Virginia: Yeah. I, as I said, like to keep it eclectic, and just to find ways to ground it in reality.

And then for gather here in August, there will be two community events that we're actually hosting in Vellucci Plaza, which is in Inman Square. It's the park with the big stag sculpture in it, where Hampshire and Cambridge Street converge. And we're doing this community dye bath event, so we will have a variety of dyes. So you can do everything from tie-dyeing to over-dyeing, and just give your clothing or some fabric a new life. You'll have to wring it out and put it in a bag, and take it home with you. But we are doing this, craft in the evening August 13th and August 20th. And we are doing this in conjunction with Cambridge Plays. We received some funding to help support doing this community dye bath.

And then also we've done this collaboration with the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square, where we're doing picks and crafts. So we show a movie, you bring your crafting, the lights are at half so that you can still see your work. We did Rocky Horror Picture Show in June, we did Marie Antoinette in July, and we are doing Prêt-à-Porter, the Altman film, in August. And we sold out our first two. I really hope there's great attendance because if this goes well, we'll continue doing it into the fall and winter. It's just really fun to make and be with other people and experience a film in a movie theater. Crafting can be as solitary but as also as communal as you want it to be, and I literally cried at the end of Marie Antoinette one, because I love that movie so much. But two, because I was there with one hundred and sixty other people, and I was just knitting and enjoying a movie and walking out with everyone. It was just such a joy. So please, please, please come to the movies with us. And, you don't have to make things. There are people who didn't even know it was happening, and they're like, what is up? But, it's just a really fun way to be with others. And, it's matinee pricing, so it's thirteen bucks. It's so reasonable. And the Brattle Theatre is a foundation, and they can use your support.

Trish: Amazing. So I'd like to end with, if you could give a shout out to a fellow Filipino creator, artist, chef, someone out there that needs a light shone on them. Who would you give a shout out to?

Virginia: Well, I'm going to shout out a Union Square neighbor, Jen Palacio, who owns Tiny Turns Paperie. Jen has created something incredibly special, has expanded, has really brought the art of the letter and community building to the Bow Market area, and is essential to doing other large-scale gatherings in that area. I'm just happy to call her a friend and to get to see her occasionally. And just so proud of what she's built.

Trish: I think I have a parol Christmas ornament that I got at one of the fairs at gather here that she was tabling at, so she's really awesome. I'm so excited that she opened a storefront. And please, please, please support small business.

But thank you again, Virginia, so much for taking time to share your story, and all the amazing things that you're working on. We'll be rooting for you on September 6th. And just thank you for being an awesome part of our community.

Virginia: Thank you Trish. Thanks for being my friend and for always rooting for me. It's so special, and it's so important to feel seen in part of the Boston Filipino community.

Closing

Trish: This has been The BOSFilipinos Podcast. I'm your host, Trish Fontanilla. Thank you to Virginia for taking time to chat with us today. Let’s all cross our fingers for an Emmy win! 

To learn more about Virginia or gather here, we’ll include the website and some socials in the show notes. If you’re looking for a full written transcript of the episode, check out BOSFIlpinos.com. 

And if you like our show, you can subscribe on your podcast platform of choice so you don’t miss an episode. You can also follow us on Instagram, we’re @bosfilipinos,. And if you have ideas of what we should cover, are looking to sponsor an episode, or nominate a fellow Filipino in greater Boston, you can let us know at info@bosfilipinos.com or DM us on Instagram. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you soon.

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Ellie Tiglao & Lani Asunciòn on Transmuting Imperialism's Impact: A Culinary & Visual Exchange

Show Description:

Trish Fontanilla, BOSFilipinos co-founder and host of the podcast, welcomes cultural practitioner Ellie Tiglao and artist Lani Asunciòn to discuss their new project. Their upcoming event, "Transmuting Imperialism: A Visual and Culinary Exchange," features Filipino communal dining, projection mapping, and multi-disciplinary performance exploring cultural identity and resistance. 

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Episode Transcript:

Trish Fontanilla

[Intro music plays] Hello and welcome to The BOSFilipinos Podcast. My name is Trish Fontanilla, and I'm one of the BOSFilipinos co-founders, and your new podcast host. As some folks know, the show has been on hiatus. Our previous host, Katie [Milliken], did everything from interviewing to editing to distributing the podcast. So it took us a minute or two to get together the resources to get back in the game. I'm excited to bring the podcast back to your ears again, and I'm even more excited to have cultural practitioner Ellie Tiglao and artist Lani Asunciòn as our first guests back. They'll be talking about their new project, and fair warning, we will be talking about food. A lot. So maybe grab a snack before you start. Enjoy.

Trish Fontanilla

So Ellie and Lani, welcome to the podcast. And so I did a brief intro of the two of you at the beginning, but I would love to hear more about yourselves, and we'll start with Ellie.

Ellie Tiglao

Thanks, Trish, glad to be here having this conversation. I'm Ellie. I consider myself a cultural practitioner. For a lot of folks, that means that I do food, but for a long time I've been really interested in food and art, especially as not just as storytellers, but story keepers. Outside of that, I spend a lot of time doing more cooperative consulting with a worker co op called CoEverything, which is my new gig. Post Tanám we can talk a little bit more about that later.

Trish Fontanilla

Awesome. And I wanted to comment, we were talking about this before we started recording how people thought me and Ellie were the same person, because back in the day, BOSFilipinos started with food pop ups, and they just met two Filipino women and thought, oh, this is the same, and I'm like Ellie, and I look a little bit, our eye prescriptions is different, our height is different. We're just different human beings. It's like a right now, it feels like the Spiderman pointing at each other meme, because there are some people that thought we were the same person, and potentially some people that still think we're the same person. So I just wanted to prove two different people, and Ellie's working on some incredible things. But now we're going to Lani tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Lani Asunciòn

Hi, I'm Lani Asunciòn I go by they/she. I'm an artist, an educator. I'm currently the curator at Pao Arts Center, doing public art and temporary performance works, part of the Un-Monument project with the city and supported by the Mellon Foundation. And I teach at Mass Art, teaching public art, and I am a founding member of Digital Soup, the local queer multimedia collective.

Trish Fontanilla

Amazing. So I was trying to figure out when the first time I saw your artwork was one my memory is not always the most amazing, but I think the most delightful interaction I had, was I was walking on the [Rose Kennedy] Greenway and just taking pictures. And I always try to look up the artist afterwards, and I looked you up, and I was like, she's Filipino. Why wasn't it on the fog horn? Why didn't I get a phone call from my mom, from the telephone chain that we've got a Filipino on the Greenway? So that's, is that going to, if folks haven't seen it, you have some artwork on the Greenway, and that's going to the Fall, I believe.

Lani Asunciòn

It'll be there until November.

Trish Fontanilla

Amazing. So if you haven't already, please go to the Greenway and know that the Filipinos out there got some representation in the city, which is awesome. So the reason why we brought you on is you both are collaborating on a new project, and so I would love to hear a little bit more about the project and then how the two of you found each other and started collaborating.

Ellie Tiglao

We were actually just reminiscing a little bit, and I had thought I've been here for over 15 years, and I've known Lani for a majority of that time, actually more time than not, I will say. And we came to know of each other when EMW [East Meets West] bookstore was still around for folks who don't know. It was an arts, tech and community space centered on serving AAPI community, but was really welcoming of all sorts of BIPOC cultures and voices, and it's no longer running. But I was a Programs Director there, and it was a super important and storied space for people making art in the Boston area. And I just came to know of Lani's work then, but I would love to hear, I don't know, make a little space for Lani to talk about what...

Lani Asunciòn

Yeah, I mean, that place is endeared to my heart, and I volunteered at the art gallery there with Stephanie and Kai. So, and they're mutual friends, and Kai also was in the opening performance at Greenway. So there's all these connections.

Trish Fontanilla

Yeah, I used to go there [EMW], and I did not interact with either of you, which is banana pants to me, so look at us. Yeah.

Lani Asunciòn

Then we transitioned, right? Well, your pop ups...

Ellie Tiglao

Right, well, I feel like we really had our chance to collaborate together when the restaurant became possible. Because Tanám was always meant to be a small space, obviously, but one that could handle multiple mediums. So it was built with collaborations like what Lani and I had been talking about in mind, and so Lani, I'll say, has like a big presence here, especially around projection art. And all of that led to a conversation to a narrative about pineapples. What else would you say about that time, Lani?

Lani Asunciòn

Well, we're talking about pineapples. And I was like a series called Pineapple Girl series that I was doing after I finished graduate school. I like to continue that work. And then I started learning a bit about the Dole family history, the historical Dole House in Jamaica Plain. So then Ellie was talking about wanting to bring in artists to activate the space through an immersive interactive you know, the meal speaks through story, like food through storytelling and storytelling through performative embodiment. I was like, I'm down. That sounds great. And there was also a zine that accompanied it. And throughout the meal, both of us spoke to the folks that were joining us, and it was this really immersive, interactive experience in space.

Trish Fontanilla

So can we go back to the pineapple? To go on our first tangent, how did you connect about pineapples?

Ellie Tiglao

Well, generally speaking, whenever conversations about how the space might be activated come into play, there's never a set agenda. What is coming to mind right now? And Lani had just been working on Pineapple Girl. And I think the themes that were being explored were also really interesting to me. And it was actually the only menu at Tanám that was very ingredient focused. So every course had pineapple involved, and Lani brought all sorts of ways of engaging with people, and from creating a zine to bringing physical objects into the space for people to touch and interact with. Obviously conversation was happening dialog, but also projection art. So there was a lot of richness in that space for people to explore the sort of things that were happening in Pineapple Girl.

Lani Asunciòn

That series started in New England, so it was a project that went between Hawaii, so part of the videos were shot in Hawaii and also in New England. It's three seasons, so one of the seasons is missing, so it has this discussion about being in the diaspora and dealing with time, space and everything in between. And technically the zine, if you, anybody wants to read it, it's at the SFMA [School for the Museum of Fine Arts] library. They do have it in their collection.

Ellie Tiglao

I just want to say that I've also got a couple copies. So if you want one, Trish, and happy to share one.

Trish Fontanilla

Look at me. Getting stuff. To go back to go back to the origin story. So the two of you started collaborating inside of the Tanám space, and then what was the impetus for you to launch it on its own?

Lani Asunciòn

The way I remember it, I was checking in with Ellie. I was like, How are things going, you know, after Tanám and what are you doing? What are your hopes? Where are you looking towards now and then we're talking about project grants and funding.

Ellie Tiglao

Yeah, you know,I haven't said anything to the outside world. This is the really the first time. So hey, hey world, thanks Trish, and thank you, Lani, for for making that conversation possible. But it really mattered to me what was happening at Tanám, the sort of storytelling that we were doing, and the space that we were making, and I also knew that, you know, never say never, but where I was sitting, I just felt like I couldn't do it as a business again. But did I love it enough to try and get some art money for it like I knew that we were, we would be working on something amazing. It's just not making a business. So we just started talking about, kind of what it might mean to work together. And also, you know how, I think from the beginning, just thinking about how we bring in others into our work has been a big part of our collaboration, but the for those out there listening, the name of the project is Transmuting Imperialism's Impact: a visual and culinary exchange. So it's a big, long title. That's what we got grant money for. But for this coming event that we'll tell you more about, we wanted to focus that storytelling on solidarity. So pagkakaisa and solidaridad were two words that we wanted to bring together to just show also who's in the room.

Lani Asunciòn

It was nice to check in, and then it was really fun and awesome to dream the project together, grant writing is one thing, but dreaming the project and the work to propose and to actualize into the world. So that's something that I was really excited to do, and I'm excited not to literally do it with you, and then others will enjoy it and be present. So I just think it's been really wonderful to think about what is solidarity within the Filipino diaspora, and within Puerto Rican diaspora, and we have so many folks joining us, it feels very generative to think about the community that we're not just a part of, but we're building together. So that's exciting.

Trish Fontanilla

That's awesome. I mean, not everyone's telling their stories around food or connecting the way that Filipinos do, or even immigrants, and it just the way that we keep ourselves alive and keep our joy and hope alive. And it's so cool to see projects like this, especially right now, where we might think to not speak up or not tell our stories. Right now, it's especially important to share our humanity and share our stories, and so I'm really excited to hear more about this project. Diving into the next event that's coming up this month. There's a lot happening at this event. So it's food for all the senses, from mind to stomach to eyes. Let's talk about this event and where it's going to be. Ellie, if you want to talk about the food piece, speaking about solidarity of including other cultures in the food that will be served that evening.

Trish Fontanilla

Okay, we are introduced to the folks there [the venue, Cloud & Spirits] through anAsian professional network in town. Actually, one of the people who's going to be cooking with us is Aldrin Agas from Kuya's Cooking, and he is the one who really made the connection around saying, like, yes, this is a perfect space for what you're doing. So it all came through our relationships, and we're excited for that space, also as an event. Space is uniquely set up with a commercial kitchen that's going to make it really possible for us to make an elaborate meal. We have expectations of welcoming people into the space. There'll be multiple places that they can see art, including a memorial. There'll also be opportunities for people to both participate in the art, experience it, receive it, and also have food together at a communal table. So the food is going to be served in some traditional style called kamayan, that just means to eat with your hands. And so folks should expect that they will fully be engaged with their senses while they're eating, including touch. That tells you a lot when you're able to use your hands to eat. And maybe also, kind of difference here that was very present at Tanám was communal aspect of it, so you're not usually eating with strangers and negotiating who's going to take that last bit of duck. So that's definitely something to expect. And while we are definitely heavily focused on Filipino flavors and art making, we have lots of collaborators who are coming from elsewhere, and the idea to bring their culinary traditions in really comes from this wanting to honor who the people are, who are with us, who are gathering to tell the stories. None of us are part of monolithic culture. So really, how that's all come out is just been in relationship the storytelling that happens when you gather people together, and especially with this group of having time to spend together and think out loud about what matters to me, how does this fit into how I think about food in my culture. That's all been really important learnings that is going to show up in the food.

Trish Fontanilla

Awesome.

Ellie Tiglao

So this menu is definitely going to be pretty eclectic. As far as even Filipino food goes, I'm really interested in making sure the flavors are there and also making sure that there are Mainstays that people can recognize and anchor to. Of course, there's going to be pork belly at that table. Of course there will be vinegar with onions and garlic to dip it into. But we'll also be making adobo duck confit. As far as going into other people's cultures, you know, Lani was talking a little bit about suman, one thing that we are thinking of bringing into that space is a black rice suman that's made in the same way that arroz con leche is made in Puerto Rico, that's got coconut and warming spices and ginger in it, for example. And we love the fried things, right? Lumpiang shanghai is going to be there. But there's also a Lebanese type of fried spring roll that's made with phyllo. We're going to do a variation on it's called rakakat, which is, it's basically a cheese lumpia with parsley and other seasonings in it. So look to expect mostly Filipino food with inflections from Puerto Rican cultures, Lebanese cultures and Black American.

Trish Fontanilla

Amazing. Oh, boy, you just said cheese. And this is too much. Too much for me. Yeah.

Ellie Tiglao

Get ready. Hope you come hungry. Well, actually get ready to interact and then eat.

Lani Asunciòn

So the art and multimedia protection and immersive space will be performances by local artists and some folks even coming in remotely from the West Coast. So folks will be eating and enjoying the wonderful food that will be all tied to the different stories and performances. And there will be Kali, which is Filipino martial arts. We'll also have biko performance, so somebody will become that and embody that in the space. There's also DJs and VJs. So there'll be visual folks live mixing also while the DJ is mixing music. There's also a memorial to someone within our kapwa who we want to remember, and we want to have spaces of remembrance so that will be activated with digital media and other offerings. There will be also a takeaway zine that will talk about the project, and folks can learn more about each of the performances and the work

Trish Fontanilla

Amazing. And is this a one time thing? Is there going to be something similar? Or do people really just need to get at this one because it's going to be the only version of this curated food and art piece.

Ellie Tiglao

I don't necessarily think that this is going to be the last time, but we're definitely investing a lot in July 19th, and we'd love it if folks are thinking, Oh, should I do this? We want to see you there, because there's going to be a lot here. And by also by folks coming out, they will be, in some way, part of the co creation of it, because it'll really let us know what folks are here for. And we would love to have your support and any kind of support, being present, be it financial, whatever that looks like for you, will help this work continue and thrive.

Trish Fontanilla

Yeah, I always tell people, if you don't have capital, capital, social capital, is always great. So sharing with five people you know whether they're Filipino or not, I love bringing non-Filipinos to Filipino events because they're like, I don't even know what this culture is or because there isn't a lot of stuff within the city. I feel like, if you lived in California, they're like, Oh, I've had adobo before. So everybody, please, we would love to see you there, but feel free to share with your networks, email, social, etc. Do you have another event planned out as of yet, or do you have a timeline as for when the next thing's happening. What you what can people expect for the future of the organization?

Ellie Tiglao

We are looking at trying to have something in the next couple months. A lot of it is still being shaped, but we already have a title for the next one, I'll say.

Trish Fontanilla

Oh, okay. And how can people get involved? Are you looking for specific volunteers or partners or sponsors?

Ellie Tiglao

I think Lani had spoken a little bit to it. Presence can look like all sorts of ways, from attending to engaging with us. Part of it is also that this is the arts, and it's something that survives through people's not just attention, but spending a little money to make sure that the sort of thing can continue beyond that, obviously we are so interested in still continuing to imagine this work as not just Filipino, but potentially more diasporic. So we've been happily continuing to meet with people and think about how their work might weave into what we're doing. And so if folks like to cook, I will say, definitely reach out. There's all sorts of ways for people who know their way around the kitchen to get involved and be part of something that is a little bit more beyond a prep list and a little bit more hands on with how things are going to look and feel and taste.

Lani Asunciòn

And I'd also like to add, if folks are interested in offering support, if they have a space that they wanted to offer, that they'd love to activate a project like this in let us know. We would love to be supported in that way, and to like, learn more about what that looks like. And also, if you're interested in performing or doing any kind of performance work, especially if you're Filipino and just want to try something experimental and something different, it's been such a pleasure to curate the folks coming in now. But if folks wanted to approach and share ideas with us, I think that would be great,

Trish Fontanilla

Amazing. All right, so I've got a couple kind of lightning round questions. My favorite question to ask is, what are your top three favorite Filipino dishes? There's some nodding, there's some thoughts going through people's brains.

Ellie Tiglao

It's really funny because as as I've gotten further into my work doing food, even though I'm not doing the restaurant anymore, it's still very ingrained in me to actually orient towards. It's memory and meaning, personal meaning. And so yes, kare kare is delicious. Most people claim that as the best, and I'll take it. Yes, kare kare is good, but for me, laing, which is to taro leaves and coconut milk, often kind of spicy, usually with pork. It's so simple. It's what I ate every night when I was doing food research in the Philippines. And so I love to make it and it's just not often present for people here to eat. People don't think about eating leaves that are generally poisonous for you, it eventually becomes food. I'll also briefly say tinola, because that's such a good entryway, so comforting. And I don't think I've had any friend ever come over and eat it and say I did not enjoy that.

Trish Fontanilla

It's got grandma vibes. It's got some Lola vibes.

Trish Fontanilla

I think that's what I want. I want to be auntie. I want to be grandma. I will bring the dishes to church meeting, and then the last one is sinigang. So when I think about what is native sinigang, feels like, Oh, that was definitely our dish, you know. And every region has their different way of souring. So I love it. I will take it with tamarind. I will also take it with fish heads and fish collars. Yeah, all of that just simple stuff.

Trish Fontanilla

Simple but delicious and also complicated. If you're not familiar with Filipino dishes, I always liken them to Italian dishes in that you cannot make spaghetti for one generally, unless you're really measuring out those noodles, it is very hard to make Filipino food for one person or one serving and not have leftovers for the rest of the family. So I feel like Filipinos always make food, not just for dinner, but for a baon [generally leftover food for work/school snacks], for food the next day for you to take it to whatever tita which is auntie, lola / grandma, whoever could make that event. You then have a couple other servings to take. All right, Lani...

Lani Asunciòn

Yeah, it's really simple. My very favorite, I was gonna say, is lumpia, just because everybody makes a little. As a child, I would be that kid, small enough so I could just reach my hand over the tray when nobody's looking, I could just eat them. People are like, where is all the lumpia? And I'm playing already. As a kid that was my favorite, and I just ate so much of it.

Trish Fontanilla

So those are, if people aren't familiar, they're basically like, egg rolls. And you can have different fillings. I have, like, PTSD from lumpia, just because I always had to be cutting in the corner. And I can feel it in my arm, the cutting of the carrots.

Lani Asunciòn

They're so fine.

Trish Fontanilla

Even as a kid, you have to help. You have to do something. And I was in the corner, deveining shrimp. Another reason why I'm like cooking, yeah, so it could be veggie, could be meat, could be seafood, could be, um, there's another version where you can put bananas and brown sugar. Turon is my, one of my faves. And you can freeze it and eat it later. So I always...

Lani Asunciòn

If have some air fryer...

Trish Fontanilla

Yeah, if you want to be if you want to be healthy, but Filipinos aren't always the healthiest...what are a couple other your faves?

Lani Asunciòn

I really love dinuguan. It's my favorite because I like liver. So it's just like I like that richness. At first, when I was younger, I didn't like it because we call it blood meat, and chocolate meat was also another name for it.

Trish Fontanilla

I was gonna say blood meat. It was never... it was always chocolate.

Lani Asunciòn

Yeah, that's all you meant to say. But they told me it was chocolate. And I was like, it smells funny. Another one was like it's blood. And I was like...

Trish Fontanilla

It's so much, y'all, if you are listening, it is so much better. I remember eating as a kid and hated it, and now as an adult, I always look for it. Yes, it is another one of those things, simple but complicated. It's a pain in the butt to make. A friend of mine, she became friends with the butcher because she was like, here's what I need for my Filipino food that I can't find at the supermarket. But yeah, that's one of my faves, too.

Lani Asunciòn

Yeah, I always like to get it at Pinoy Kabayan [sadly, dear reader they just closed, but a new Filipino spot will be opening in its place],they have it here in downtown. They usually have it frozen, even if it's not fresh. And the owner, he makes the best. It's just like the right balance with the vinegar. And then the last one is suman. I just love sticky sweet. And you can put caramel or no caramel, and you can put coconut milk on it and put little, don't know, flowers would can really get fancy, they just eat it. And that smell of the banana leaf to me that I don't know, it's just kind of home, because in Hawaii, we also use taro, but it's like lau, lau. So it has that banana leaf smell.

Trish Fontanilla

I love making things in banana leaves. And it's hard to find them fresh in a lot of places. But my pro tip for people is there's always frozen. If you look in some freezers in Chinatown or other places. I make cassava cake with banana leaves, which is also...maybe this was a bad idea to end with.

Lani Asunciòn

Now we're hungry.

Trish Fontanilla

Sorry to everybody listening. And so I my last question is, if you could give a shout out to fellow Filipino creators, chefs, community member,s someone doing something awesome in Greater Boston or Massachusetts, one person. Who would it be? I say one person, because I think once we start saying people, then we start getting into this Oscar speech, and I'm gonna have to play music for us. But is there someone recently or someone that's always been helpful? Who would you give a shout out to?

Ellie Tiglao

I'm gonna give a shout out because she's she's doing the thing making sure Filipino food has its place in Massachusetts. Kristine Marie Bautista, she recently opened a place called Bits and Bites Bakery in Saugus, and met her when she started running a Filipino festival in Malden, a few years ago. So she continues to make sure that y'all get your fix.

Trish Fontanilla

She's really great. If anyone's ever been to a Boston Asian American Film Festival, she's usually there and she's serving different Filipino desserts and dishes. Total supportive community member, and the Malden Filipino Festival, which was really big, pre-pandemic, and she asked me to be a siopao [steamed meat buns]. So it sounds more delightful than it actually is, because after you've had six or seven, oh, wait, this was my dream, and then maybe we shouldn't have all of our dreams.

Lani Asunciòn

At once.

Trish Fontanilla

Yeah, at once. Lani, how about you?

Lani Asunciòn

I've been hearing a lot about Ashley Lujares and Mango Tao, so shout out.

Trish Fontanilla

She just did a pop up that I went to at Nine Winters, which shout out to them. It's a new Korean American bakery in West Cambridge. So got to give a shout out to all the women owned businesses as out there. But yeah, she's doing the pop up thing too. It's really great. All these, I was gonna say young folks, as if I'm your elder, all the millennials, soon to be titas out there. But it's really cool to see, especially post pandemic, seeing people out and about and doing these pop ups again, and seeing how popular they are. People wanting to try something new and be included in this community, which is really awesome. So to close out, how can people connect with you individually? So Lani, I know you have a website, but what are, what are the best ways for people to reach out if they want to chat with you?

Lani Asunciòn

Yeah, you can reach out on my website. I have a contact page, and usually it goes my email, Instagram, messaging, LinkedIn. I have that, too.

Ellie Tiglao

Yeah. Personally, I'm not on social so much these days, but if you send me a message that way, that's still going to reach me. Definitely recommend an email. I can definitely share that after this. But if anyone has questions about the project at all, we have a shared email address, which I'll make sure Trish has and can share out with folks listening.

Trish Fontanilla

Well, thank you both so much for taking time to talk about Filipino food. I am sorry to everybody, we don't have access easily to all these foods that we're talking about. But hey, reach out to your Filipinos titas out there in the universe, and I'm sure some of them will invite you to their kitchen to have some food. But I really appreciate from the two of you and hearing about your event. And everybody go follow them on social or reach out to them and go to this next event and all the other things coming up this year. So thank you.

Ellie Tiglao

Thanks, Trish.

Lani Asunciòn

Thank you, Trish, so much.

Trish Fontanilla

[Outro music] This has been The BOSFilipinos Podcast. I'm your host, Trish. Fontanilla, special thanks to Lani and Ellie for taking time to chat with us today to learn more about them, we'll include their email and socials in the show notes. If you're looking for a written transcript of the podcast that'll be available on bosfilipinos.com. And if you like our show, you can subscribe to The BOSFilipinos podcast on your streaming platform of choice. You can also follow us on Instagram. We're @BosFilipinos. And if you have any ideas of what we should cover, are looking to sponsor an episode, or nominate a fellow Filipino in Greater Boston, you can let us know at info@bosfilipinos.com, or DM us on Instagram. Thanks for listening and see you soon.

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