Seven cities, one sprawling game of pass the art in Pasa Pasa 2027

Pasa Pasa 2027 media launch poster Rather than keeping art inside galleries, the festival takes it to where people already live, work, and gather. The Manila Indie Makers Fair showcased 34 independent creatives and brands at YSpace, while Manila Collective prepared for its ambitious citywide arts festival, Pasa Pasa 2027. Pasa Pasa 2027 will take place from January 9 to February 14, 2027, transforming 23 community spaces across seven Metro Manila cities into venues for over 50 artistic initiatives. Manila Collective, founded in late 2025, aims to promote Filipino art and culture through independent projects, and plans to make Pasa Pasa an annual event that expands to other regions. This is AI-generated. Read the article for full context. Report any errors. If the artworks on the walls of YSpace at the Yuchengco Museum were worried about being upstaged on the morning of Saturday, October 24, they had good reason to be. The Manila Indie Makers Fair, headed by the nonprofit Manila Collective, packed the event space with 34 independent creatives and brands, all clad in their most colorful attire and flexing their individual works of art. But the fair wasn’t the only thing going on. Onstage, Manila Collective was gearing up for its most ambitious project yet: Pasa Pasa 2027, a citywide arts festival that will spill across Metro Manila. Pasa Pasa 2027 official poster. A Manila-based nonprofit, Manila Collective champions Filipino arts and independent creativity. It has worked across cultural programming, placemaking, and intellectual property advocacy for artists. Justin Wee, newly-minted executive director of Manila Collective, explained that their team, which consists of less than five working members, are doing this for the passion. “All of us here have day jobs,” Wee mentioned. “But we do this to promote and advance Filipino art and culture.” Manila Collective executive director Justin Wee moderates a panel before the launch of Pasa Pasa 2027. Manila Collective hasn’t been around for too long. Founded in late 2025 by Mei Mijares, it quickly generated buzz online for its Manila Calling traveling exhibition, which brought the works of 70 Filipino artists, both established and new, to Spain and Japan. But Pasa Pasa 2027 is what all their other projects have been leading up to. “Pasa Pasa was an idea I had maybe two years ago; it’s always been at the back of my head,” Mijares said. “We wanted to make noise so we can do Pasa Pasa.” From January 9 to February 14, 2027, Pasa Pasa will turn 23 community spaces across seven Metro Manila cities into stages, galleries, and studios for 50-plus initiatives (and counting): exhibitions, performances, commissions, workshops, residencies, and experimental projects. Rather than keeping art inside galleries, the festival takes it to where people already live, work, and gather, and invites residents to help make it. Pasa Pasa 2027 map of partner community spaces. The events stretch across creative disciplines, from author exhibitions and eco-conscious fashion swaps to drag performances and underground DJ sets. Coordinating a multicity festival was no easy feat, but gathering creatives was the easy part. Manila Collective put out a call on Instagram, the platform where they’re most at home, and in a short period of time, they received 300 sign-ups. Mijares uses the term “DIY” (do-it-yourself) to describe Pasa Pasa. It’s an independent, non-commercial festival, without a corporate entity backing it up – though that wasn’t for lack of trying. “We pitched this idea [to big companies]. We were ghosted,” Mijares admitted. “We got heartbroken. And you know what? It drove us more.” Manila Collective founder Mei Mijares explains how Pasa Pasa 2027 came about. She says they are “privileged that everyone is just helping each other.” By everyone, she doesn’t mean just the creatives and their spaces, but also the government, both local and foreign. The festival’s headline project, Pasa Pasa Pasig, is a public art residency presented with the City Government of Pasig. Here, the multicity initiative bursts out towards international waters as seven artists from different countries will live and work alongside Pasig’s communities to make art. The delegation includes five Spanish and two French artists, which meant that Manila Collective worked hand-in-hand with the embassies of Spain and France. “The curatorial brief of Pasa Pasa was to require them to spend time with the communities and to build their output with the communities. They don’t impose what they want to do,” Mijares clarified about their participation. “They need to observe, connect, and build with their Filipino counterparts.” The team of Manila Collective and their partners pose for a photo after the launch of Pasa Pasa 2027. On Valentine’s Day, Manila Collective will take over Escolta with workshops, activations, and a party to close out Pasa Pasa 2027. But it doesn’t end there at all. In fact, Mijares says the festival is “just a starting point.” The bigger vision is to have this be an annual series of events and scale it up to other parts of the country. Manila Collective made noise to get to this point. Come January, the rest of Manila will hear it. – Rappler.com How does this make you feel? Loading