THE HARVEST CREATIVE COMMUNITY HUB

November 25, 2022 Opinion

The Bayo Foundation together with Baguio City proudly presents the HARVEST CommUNITY Hub, a
physical space in Baguio’s iconic Botanical Garden to bridge meaningful collaborations between designers, makers, communities and creatives through time-honored Filipino crafts, specifically that of handweaving, basketry, and hand carving. The launch of the HARVEST Hub falls during Baguio’s famed 10-day long Ibagiw Creative Festival—with this year’s festival focused on being “locally creative, globally competitive.”

Through the City of Baguio and the Department of Tourism, the hub is able to help marry its artisan past with sustainable tourism. “HARVEST stands for ‘Heritage and Artisanship Reimagined as a Vehicle for
Economic Growth, Sustainability, and Technology,” says Anna Lagon, Bayo’s co-CEO and the Bayo Foundation’s executive director, “the name is strategically created so that it can serve as the hub’s guiding principles and the idea of harvest itself connotes a sense of community and gathering for nourishment.”

Lagon highlights “UNITY” under its name as it is a place for Filipinos to connect through craft, with a shared history, heritage, and identity. The narrative of sustainability, with Bayo’s own #JourneytoZero mission towards circular fashion, is woven into every element of the HARVEST Creative CommUNITY
Hub. It opens with a weekend-long event to showcase the space and a runway presentation of different designs made in collaboration with Filipino creatives and the Bayo Foundation partners.

The building of the hub itself is a product of collaboration and circularity: Baguio City’s LGU provided wood from fallen pine trees to build a façade, while famed Baguio-based artist Venazir Martinez hand-painted a mural using Boysen’s air-purifying paints. Filipino design houses Zarah Juan, Harvic Dominguez, Vin Orias, and Valdes Designs will showcase fashion pieces that incorporate traditional Filipino handwoven fabric created by the hub’s handweavers.

Baguio City is the chosen location for the HARVEST Creative CommUNITY Hub as it is a UNESCO Creative City, recognized for its rich cultural arts and crafts. The HARVEST Hub is located at the Botanical Garden, 37 Leonard Wood St., Baguio City About the Bayo Foundation Launched in 2017 as Bayo Manila Inc.’s Corporate Social Responsibility arm, the Bayo Foundation was founded to further the company’s commitment to use fashion as a vehicle for social good.

The Bayo Foundation does this through projects that put sustainability at the forefront, focusing on female empowerment and uplifting local communities through a flourishing Filipino industry. As Bayo is a participant member of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), the Bayo Foundation uses the UN’s
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as framework for all projects. Each undertaking touches
at least two key SDGs, which include climate action, gender equality, and sustainable cities and communities.

With every project, the Bayo Foundation collaborates with principled partners such as Local government Units, fashion industry creatives, and other respected corporations that share the goal of sustainably uplifting local communities and the Filipino industry. In a few short years, the Bayo Foundation has involved itself in helping local communities in Aklan, Bulacan, and Cebu for hand-weaving, and Benguet and Misamis Oriental for silkworm farming.

The principal campaign of the Bayo Foundation’s efforts is #JourneytoZero, which moves towards transforming Bayo’s clothing production chain from linear to circular, creating no waste in the process. Some projects under the campaign include Weaving in the City, an initiative with the City of Pasig to introduce handweaving as a livelihood opportunity for people in urban areas, the Community Partner Program, a collaboration between Bayo Manila’s team and communities in the Cordillera Administrative
Region to develop and market locally-crafted products, and most recently, the creation of HARVEST
Creative CommUNITY Hub, a space to connect local makers to those who are interested to learn about traditional Filipino folk arts, with the intention of preserving, nurturing, and uplifting the craft.