28/04/2026
Savage Mind, Goethe-Institut Launch Traveling Writing Workshop Across Bikol
The Goethe-Institut Philippinen, in partnership with Jaya Jacobo and Kristian Cordero, and in collaboration with Savage Mind, will host Writings-in-Progress (WIP), a traveling writing workshop scheduled from May 10 to 17 across Albay, Sorsogon, and Camarines Sur.
Unlike conventional workshops held in fixed venues, WIP unfolds through movement. Its participants, writers including Jacobo, Cordero, and Mazlum Nergiz, along with fellows from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao will engage in writing, translation, and dialogue while encountering the region’s landscapes, histories, and communities. Guiding part of these conversations is Travels in the Philippines (1873) by Fedor Jagor, whose accounts of Bikol provide a historical lens against which contemporary reflections may be situated.
The itinerary itself reads like a map of Bikol’s cultural imagination. At the foot of Mayon Volcano, participants will consider how landscape shapes narrative, how beauty and disaster coexist in story and memory. In Mount Isarog and Mount Asog, attention turns to ecology, indigenous memory, and the persistence of oral traditions. The waters of Lake Buhi and Lake Bato, long tied to livelihood and local knowledge, open conversations on sustenance and community narratives. Historical memory surfaces in the ruins: Cagsawa Ruins, Barcelona Ruins, Naglagbong Park, where remnants of colonial churches and volcanic destruction and people's negligence stand as material archives. Religious and secular sites including churches in Daraga, Joroan, Buhi, Canaman, Gainza, and Iriga City, as well as the Peñafrancia Shrine and Old Cemetery in Naga, the PNR Station, Cecilio Press, the House of Angela Manlang Gloria (formerly the Smith-Bell Company) in Tabaco City, frame discussions on devotion, ritual, labor, economy, and their imprint on Bikol writing. The group will also visit the Philippine Ceramics in Tiwi and the weaving houses in Buhi and living sites of community engagements like the Mirisbiris Nature Center (Sto Domingo, Albay) Lola Sayong (Gubat), Isarog Highlands (Naga City). A group of male cantors and the indigenous people in Joroan are expected to do musical performances of the gozos and the Pasyon Bikol.
Throughout the week, participants will also engage with Bikol creatives among them Fr. Wilmer Tria, Dr. Mary Jane Guazon Uy, Frank Peñones Jr., Abdon Balde Jr., Dr. Chris Newhall, Glenda Tapel Newhall, Raffy and Raf Banzuela, Maya Muñoz, and Trixie Adviento Odiamar, whose works span literature, visual art, science, and community practice.
Integral to the program are tribute sessions honoring figures whose works have shaped Bikol cultural and intellectual life. The list includes Nora Aunor, National Artist for Film and Broadcast Arts, who brought regional and marginalized narratives to cinema through films such as Himala and Hinulid (2016), the latter recognized as the first full-length feature in the Bikol language. Poet and translator Marne Kilates authored Children of the Snarl and Other Poems and Time’s Enchantment, and translated Bikol and Filipino works into English. Carlos Ojeda Aureus wrote Nagueños, a work of fiction often compared to The Dubliners by James Joyce for its portrayal of Catholic life in Naga. Gualberto Manlagnit, poet and former mayor of Tigaon, authored Mga Piling Obra, a finalist in the 2017 National Book Awards. Literary critic Maria Lilia Realubit produced foundational studies such as Bikol Dramatic Tradition and Bikol Literary History, which helped establish Bikol literature as a field of study.
The workshop is supported by local government units in Buhi, Camalig, and Tiwi; the Parish of Our Lady of Salvation in Joroan; the Parish of St. Anthony of Padua in Iriga; The Oriental Hotel in Legazpi, On Due Hotel (Camalig) and The Downtown Hotel (Naga) and Psusog, a youth advocacy group in Buhi.
As it moves across the region, Writings-in-Progress positions Bikol not just as a setting, but as a working archive, one where landscape, history, and language remain in active conversation.
