Eliseo Art Silva: Finding the Wide American Earth

Eliseo Art Silva, who co-designed the history Filipinotown arch in Los Angeles and has been credited for putting Los Angeles’ Filipinotown on the map with his historic “Gintong Kasaysayan” mural, travels to Seattle to research and develop a new mural that links Filipino and Filipino-American history together in a four-panel mural on the wall of the newly-built Filipino Community Village. The film follows the painting of the mural, and speaks with student interns, those who brought Eliseo to the Pacific Northwest, and the artist himself about the mural, the artistic process, and hopes for connecting cultures together through art.

Producers/directors: Loren A. Roberts & Roberto San Luis.
Cinematographer/editor: Loren A. Roberts.
Some music from noted Filipino composer Nathan Matthew David.

HumanGood engaged us to document the process of developing the mural, which was to be painted on the wall of the new HumanGood community — Filipino Community Village. The community — and by extension the mural — demonstrates HumanGood’s commitment to empowering marginalized communities to care for seniors. However we were given complete autonomy to ensure that this was not a “marketing” video for the organization, and rather a celebration of the artistic process within a cultural conversation between Eliseo and the Filipino Community of Seattle.