Micah Wong

Micah Wong

Systems & Society

Bio

BFA AWARD: Ancestral Craft Designer of the Year

Hiiiiiiii, my name is Micah! I am a mixed Filipina and Chinese American trans diva. I am deeply inspired by Indigenous Filipinx craft and spirituality: the root of everything I make. As a deep lover of ancestral handcraft, I weave all my own textile on a loom, thoughtfully forage, and create beaded adornments. Ugat presents a series of regalia intentioned for ceremony, dance, community, and spiritual channeling. If you are here, you are meant to be. I open my soul to you. ᜂᜄᜆ᜔ <3

Video: dp: Meagan Watchel, Xiaolong You, Rio Hamilton
edit: Xiaolong You
music: LUOB by REIA ft. Alex Abalos

Thesis Statement:

Ugat is a deep rooting and remembrance of ancestral and spiritual Filipinx practices lost to us as a result of colonization- especially felt as a member of the diaspora born in the United States. Deeply inspired by Indigenous Filipinx craft, Ugat presents a series of regalia birthed from rectangular hand woven textiles, swathed and wrapped around the body, and never cut. These intricately patterned textiles are paired with foraged and natural materials: beaded, woven, and bound together into ceremonial adornments. Feathers, shells, nuts, sticks, yarns, fibers, shards, and beads become multi-sensorial portals of ancestral channeling and vessels for intention and manifestation.
Through community centered ceremony, Ugat encourages us to remember where we come from, reconnect with the Land, and root ourselves deeply in love. Whether or not you know where you come from, Ugat encourages us to trust our intuition. Our bodies remember so much more than we could ever imagine. Our ancestral practices are woven into our DNA, and when you finally find them, you can feel it. Ugat asks, “what type of ancestor do you want to be?” Now do it. Become. Remember. We are in this together.
Image: TALA: embodied by Yoshi Maysonet (they/them)
photo: Vivian Chan, Heirloom Studios
make up: Isabella M. Diana
Image: Tala's weavings are made completely of cotton grown in the Philippines. All of my weaving patterns are derivatives from the diamond eye structure known as Mata-Mata in the Ilocos region where my Lolo is from.
Image:

Ahmama (my Lola) and her capiz shell lamp from the Philippines. She has quite a few of these around her house. They are around 50 years old, they saw my mother and her two sisters grow up. Ahmama was so deeply generous and told me to take as many shells as I needed.

Image: A close up of my capiz shell headdress (right) and one of the wings (left). I removed the shells from their strands on the lamp, cleaned them, and beaded them back together with chalk and glass seed beads from the Philippines, with the occasional chunky glass bead that my friend Lana gifted to me from a market in LA.

The beads are attached to hand woven bands.
Image: DIWATA: embodied by Selene Irehi (she/her)
photo: Vivian Chan, Heirloom Studios
make up: Isabella M. Diana
nails: Thao Vy
Image: The Diwata's red weavings are made of Filipino cotton, with a hanspun alpaca yarn inlay. Mata-Mata patterns run invisible throughout the entirety of all my textiles. In these weavings, they are made visible through intentionally hand-placed stripes.

The Diwata's hairlike arms are made of Brazilian cotton and hand-spun Icelandic Sheep's wool with madder root dyed stripes. Each arm is adorned with 5 chicken feathers and 2 pigeon feathers.
Image: This is Sombra, she is a chicken who belonged to two of my friends Daisy and Sarah, who are sisters. Sombra passed away when an egg got stuck, it was very sad. Daisy saved her feathers for me, and shipped them to me from California, I treasure them deeply.
Image: I forage for pigeon feathers all over the city, but most frequently I visit the pigeons at Union Square. I love to feed and interact with them, they are birds of peace. I learn many lessons of gentleness from them, and they are very sweet once they know they can trust you.
Image: MANDIRIGMA MGA BABAE: embodied by Camille Steele (she/her)
photo: Vivian Chan, Heirloom Studios
make up: Isabella M. Diana
nails: Thao Vy
Image: The Mandirigma Mga Babae's weavings are made completely of Filipino cotton. On the right is a scan of one of the rings, they are bound with a hand-spun linen dyed with black walnut, then beaded together with chalk and glass beads from the Philippines. The glass shards depicted I foraged from Dead Horse Bay, where I drilled holes in them and turned them into chimes.
Image: I foraged many types of sticks and roots from Prospect Park, as well as a few from Washington Square Park. I often brought friends with me, depicted on the right is my friend Mateo. We always say thank you to the trees when we collect.
Image: I foraged Hickory Nuts from the Bronx Botanical Garden as well as from Rhinebeck, NY when I went to the Sheep and Wool Festival there. These nuts are Native to the area, they feel deeply sacred to me.
Image: HANAN: embodied by Halima Dodo (she/her)
photo: Vivian Chan, Heirloom Studios
make up: Isabella M. Diana
nails: Thao Vy
Image: Hanan's weaving are made completely of Filipino cotton.
Image: This is Abaca fiber, it is a strong natural fiber that comes from a species of banana, musa textilis. This particular abaca fiber comes from Bicol, where my Lola is from and grew up.
Image: Process pictures while weaving the abaca into a band for Hanan's wings. They are woven with a hand-spun wool blend from my friend Rachel Dana. She is a very talented fiber artist whom I look up to. She spins with so much joy and passion!
Image: LAKAPATI: embodied by Micah Wong (she/her they/them)
photo: Vivian Chan, Heirloom Studios
make up: Isabella M. Diana
nails: @evil__nail
Image: Lakapati's weavings are made from Filipino cotton that I over-dyed with foraged onion skins from the grocery store. The center stripe sports a hand-spun Alpaca inlay.

To get the headpiece to fit properly and comfortably on my head, I had to shave some of the bone down first. Then I felted together some wool that one of my previous teachers Kip gifted to me. The fleece was from her daughter's Navajo Churro-Sheep.
Image: I bought these Carabao horns in the Philippines at a market in Baguio. A woman from Kalinga sold them to me, she was also a farmer. The horns were already cleaned and attached with a handle. A sizable portion of the skull was still intact. They are usually meant to be hung outside as a good luck charm. She was very kind to me, she also gave me a few free things as well. :) The second picture is me right after trying them on my head for the first time. I asked her if it was culturally sensitive and okay if I turned them into a headpiece, she said that it was fine because they didn't have anything like that in their area.
Image: Here are some little acorn/nuts that I found around my neighborhood, I see them all around New York in different boroughs. I drilled holes in them and turned them into beads! I of course said thank you to the trees and told them they were doing such a beautiful job growing. One of the trees had a very motherly and caring vibe to her, I foraged most of the acorns from her.
Image: The Kelp Bed
Image: The Wind
Image: The Crocodile
Image: The Snake
Image: The Carabao
Image: Here presented are the 5 cards from JL Umpig's Kapwa Tarot Deck. They have been a beautiful conduit for me to explore my culture in a way that brings these lessons and archetypes to me as they are needed. Here are the 5 cards that spoke to me for this body of work. Each card was intuitively chosen after deeply conversing with each dancer and showing them my foraged materials and conversing about what they meant and how they resonated with each of us. The lessons and imagery of each card deeply influenced the final designs and their activation.

I placed these cards at the bottom because they are sacred to me and I wanted to protect them. If you are reading this, I encourage you to look into the imagery. There is a message for you here.
In traditional tarot, they represent The Star, Temperance, Strength, The Sun, and The Empress.