OUR roots
Here you can read about our core values and how we dicovered each others talent through shared beliefs.
The vision
In advancing and supporting ancestral art forms and materials in Australia and the Philippines in all our endeavours, Ub Ubbo Exchange promotes creative talent by organising projects, exhibits, and cultural exchanges in both countries.
THE MISSION
As it grows, Ub Ubbo hopes to draw materials in the creation of our art from the immediate and natural environment materials more deeply and sustainably, such as pigment for paint, earth for clay art, and fibre for fabric manufacture. We also hope to use recordings of the sounds of nature in the area, and involve more local artists and their instruments in our music productions.
We aim to use 100 percent local materials and involve local artists and craftspeople. Ultimately, Ub Ubbo Exchange stands for integrity in art, which proceeds from a greater respect for the gifts of our immediate environment. We will inspire new possibilities for understanding life by celebrating the strength and potential of the human spirit in every.
Behind our Logo
The Logo Represents Serveral Images. One image is the life rings in a tree. The Ancestors of Sagadan villagers planted trees to provide building materials for future generations. The Logo suggests the spinning of a pottery wheel. Work in clay is an honest and ancient representative of arts and crafts disciplines.
The Three smaller images and the larger outside image represent a complex whirling mass, accommodating a vast universal partner. The four images represent the dynamics of human partneship. Viable relationships strengthened through interavtion with compatible participants.
THE SPIRIT OF UB UBBO
Indigenous communities in northern Philippines have long leaned on unbreakable bonds to nourish the collective. Ub Ubbo, an ancient cooperative system that pools labour and resources to accomplish social milestones such as marriage, agricultural cycles, and death and illness, is the bedrock of the eponymous artists’ group based in Sagada and Australia, founded in 2009, and whose members were brought together by the same spirit of cooperation and celebration.
Initially founded around the development and maintenance of the Sagadan cultural hub, Ub Ubbo Exchange, a non-profit foundation, has since organized art exhibits and cultural exchanges in Australia and the Philippines. These activities have brought together both indigenous and mainstream artists from countries, enriching experience and knowledge both ways, and ensuring the initiative’s sustainability and potential.
With interdependence at its heart, Ub Ubbo Exchanges’ informal structure in its early stage helped build cooperation, friendship, and trust that had helped cut across cultural differences and preferences.
Our acceptance of interdependence has been the steel thread binding the fabric of Ub Ubbo, whose early successes have been achieved mainly through personal contacts and collaborations with like-minded individuals and institutions that have spread the message of friendship and mutual artistic development.