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The Nayong Pilipino Foundation (NPF) invites content creators to participate in Rhizomatic Interventions: Call for Digital Content.

We seek proposals for creative digital content that can be produced in one’s home or studio. The material will be used for the NPF Heritage Space Program for the future Nayong Pilipino Cultural Park and Creative Hub in Parañaque City. The submitted projects can also be launched and activated on a web-based platform. 

We encourage ideas for actionable and sustainable creative solutions for imagining the Nayong Pilipino Foundation cultural park and creative hub. We wish to invigorate the creation of digital futures by seeking proposals for the creation of digital content. We support projects that offer more equitable solutions for sustainable cultural practices as well as those that can also serve as propositions on new and more humane ways of interacting digitally and engaging with each other.

The NPF supports the co-production of knowledge, multi-sectoral participation, and transdisciplinary collaboration. The call titled as such welcomes proposals that have the potential to spread across online and offline platforms, embodying knowledge systems and practices across locales that in turn can be propagated and sustained elsewhere. 

Rhizomes are underground rootstalk that grow horizontally and propagate by producing new root stems. Multiple shoots grow out of the soil above ground over an expanded area although these are interconnected underground. This system enables plants to survive unfavourable seasons and tough environmental conditions. The rhizome inspires connections from any point, spurs traits not necessarily of the same nature, and grows in multiple directions. Although the plant visible above ground lasts only for a limited time, the rhizome endures. Rhizomatic interventions are therefore ways of learning, thinking, creating, interacting, and networking based on this botanical metaphor. The call welcomes cultural interventions that are non-hierarchical, heterogeneous, decentralized, and emancipatory.

A. Types of Content

  1. The digital content may be any of these types and purposes.:

Types

Format/purpose
Animation
Video		 Lecture for educational purposes
Featurette documentary
Workshop to teach a skill or impart local wisdom.
Performance (music, choreography, theatre, story-telling) accompanied by performance notes.
Advocacy/information campaign to popularize evidence-based research and policy.

2. The Nayong Pilipino Foundation will prioritize works aligned but not limited to the following areas of inquiry:

a. New Solidarities During Crisis 

These are narratives on new solidarities formed during the covid-19 pandemic, ordinary people making a difference in their communities and in the frontlines, or collective power as engines of effective action. 

b. Saving Our Sites for Ecosystem and Human Wellbeing

The creative content should generate transformative education and advocacy for the conservation of natural and cultural heritage in various regions in the Philippines, what makes these places remarkable, and the stakeholders in these locales. The proposals may also shed light on multi-dimensional indicators of ecosystem and human wellbeing. 

c. Civic Formation for Nation-building

Creative content under this area of inquiry may show the importance of Filipino knowledge systems and practices for rethinking civic formation towards nation-building as a continuing project. Proposals that underscore creative agency and participatory approaches are most welcome. 

d. Sustaining the Nayon

Content under this category should amplify ideas on community-driven sustainability, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, and Place Wisdom for community resilience.

e. Taking Stock of Our Cultural Assets 

The creative content will highlight our Sagisag Kultura, the importance of culture bearers, and sustaining local Knowledge Systems and Practices (KSPs). For this category, the target audience shall be young people in Basic Education. See https://philippineculturaleducation.com.ph/sagisag-kultura/

f. Biodiversity Conservation Advocacy 

The creative content will serve as an advocacy product for popularizing discourses on the importance of the Las Pinas-Paranaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area, urban forests, biological-cultural heritage, urban rewilding, parks, and marine corridors.

The work can also integrate two or more of the aforementioned areas of inquiry. 

3. Videos and animation must run for a minimum of three (3) minutes to a maximum of thirty (30) minutes. There is no time-limit for content that incorporates interactive applications and games. 

B. Proponents

  1. The call is open to all Filipinos based in the Philippines. Priority shall be given to freelancers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
  2. A proposal may have one up to a maximum of five proponents. We encourage co-creation and collaboration among artists, cultural workers, culture-bearers, creative practitioners, scientists, healthcare professionals, scholars and educators across disciplines, farmers, fisherfolk, heritage industry stakeholders, people’s organizations, and cultural communities.
  3. The lead proponent should be of legal age although there is no limit to the age of co-creators.
  4. Proposals must demonstrate that the digital content can be utilized immediately and over a long term.
  5. Proposals must combine creative vision and practicality.
  6. Proposals must demonstrate how the resulting digital content can be disseminated by the Nayong Pilipino Foundation in an open-source digital platform that can be realized without massive corporate investment.
  7. Proposals must demonstrate the potential to welcome hybrid funding to sustain the creators and/or their advocacies. For example, the proponent has the option to pursue counter-part funding through a Private-Public Partnership between NPF and the target funders. For amounts provided by the target funder that proponent(s) intend to pursue, the proceeds will go to sectoral beneficiaries or medical front-liners.

C. Dates to Remember

  1. June 10, 2020 – submit a proposal with a clear and concise description of what kind of digital content you intend to produce, how long it will take, what kinds of creative collaborations it can encourage, and your target beneficiaries. Download the template at https://bit.ly/RhizomaticInterventions then fill up the form and submit to angatingnayon@gmail.com.
  2. The NPF will announce the accepted proposals two weeks after the deadline of the call.
  3. The proponents of selected proposals can begin production as soon as they receive an email informing them of their successful application. The NPF will coordinate with them for their contract.
  4. Upon receiving an official notification of acceptance, please submit the digital content within thirty (30) days to angatingnayon@gmail.com
  5. A sum of Php 10,000 will be awarded for each proponent of a proposal, to be collected upon submission of the digital content. A proposal can have up to a maximum of five (5) proponents depending on the complexity of the content to be produced. The NPF will coordinate with the proponent(s) for their payment.

D. Modes of Dissemination

The digital content is primarily for the use of NPF for its Heritage Space Program. However, it will be launched in a web-based platform and may also be shared by NPF with public-school libraries and partner cultural hubs of the NPF upon request.

E. Format of Submission of Approved Proposals

  1. For videos, the edited form of the digital content must be submitted in mp4 format, complete with the NPF logo, title, and full credits to the names of proponents on the introductory and concluding frames. 
  2. Animated content must be playable in an open-source software.

For concerns and further inquiries, get in touch with us through angatingnayon@gmail.com.

Download complete guidelines and proposal template at https://bit.ly/RhizomaticInterventions