Rolling Stone Philippines features Abang-guard and the Makibaka Exhibit

“As Abang-guard gets its first official solo museum show this year, it’s specifically the Filipino migrant histories that come to the fore. Their exhibition, Abang-guard: Makibaka, opened last March at the Queens Museum, which is located on the grounds where the New York World’s Fair (NYWF) was held from 1964 to 1965.

Abang-guard takes this charged temporal marker as a conceptual anchor. Ask them about it and they will give you an hours-long history lecture: It was also in 1965 when Filipino migrant farm workers like the labor leader Larry Itliong initiated the Delano Grape Strike in California, campaigning for higher wages and a retirement home. In that same year, the Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality Act was signed, bringing a wave of Filipina nurses into American shores.” - Pristine de Leon

The full article is available both in print and web at Rolling Stone Philippines.

"Nurse Unseen" Documentary Screening and Reception 05.18.25, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Queens Museum will have a film screening of the documentary Nurse Unseen, followed by a reception. This documentary is being screened in conjunction with the exhibition Abang-guard: Makibaka.

Nurse Unseen (2023) explores the little-known history and humanity of the unsung Filipino nurses risking their lives on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic while facing a resurgence of anti-Asian hate in the streets.

The Philippines is the leading exporter of professional nurses in the world. In the United States, almost one-third of all immigrant nurses are Filipino. Since 1965, over 150,000 Filipino nurses have immigrated to the U.S. Yet, there has been little to no representation of Filipino-American nurses in U.S. mainstream media.

Furthermore, research has shown how Filipino-American nurses died at a disproportionate rate during the COVID-19 pandemic. Filipino nurses make up 4% of the registered nursing population in the United States, but at the height of the pandemic, accounted for 31.5% of the nation’s COVID nurse deaths.

On film, no one has yet told the deeper and complicated history of Filipino nursing and U.S. colonialism and its direct ties to what we are experiencing now in the age of the pandemic and the frightening resurgence of anti-Asian hatred and violence. Nurse Unseen explores why so many Filipino nurses left the Philippines to work in the U.S. healthcare system and why they have been so disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

Abang-guard Makibaka at Queens Museum 03.16.25 - 10.05.25

Artist duo Abang-guard (Maureen Catbagan + Jevijoe Vitug) contends with visibility through the lens of immigration and labor in their multidisciplinary practice. For their first museum solo exhibition, Abang-guard reconfigures the iconic architecture of the 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair’s Philippines and New York State Pavilions as a scaffold to structure their investigation into the layered significance of the year 1965 in Filipino American labor history. Abang-guard takes stock of how these narratives have been lived, remembered, erased, and fought for. Makibaka, roughly translated from Tagalog as “coming together for change,” is a rallying cry used by Filipino movements and communities in fighting against exploitative systems. The spirit of makibaka is woven into Abang-guard’s paintings, sculptures, performances, and videos that pay homage to significant Filipino American sites. 

Abang-guard: Makibaka is organized by Sarah Cho, Assistant Curator and will be on view at the Queens Museum from 03.16.25 - 10.05.25.