Taták: Constructing Portraits Through Pattern 

How do we construct a portrait from inherited symbols rather than drawn likenesses? What stories can patterns, colours, and repeated marks tell about identity, migration, and belonging?

In Filipino, taták means a stamp, a mark, or an imprint. It is both the physical impression left on a surface and the traces that shape identity over time. This workshop invites participants to explore portraiture through these layered meanings, constructing identities through the accumulation of patterns, symbols, materials, and shared acts of making.

Working with accessible materials such as foam, cardboard, and found objects, participants will create and assemble a collection of hand-made stamps before creating a portrait or self-portrait from repeated printed motifs. Inspired by Philippine textile traditions and natural dye practices, the workshop introduces pigments derived from plants, revealing how colour itself carries histories of ecology, trade, craftsmanship, and cultural exchange.

Rather than approaching printmaking as a technical exercise, this workshop positions stamping as a shared language. Each impression becomes both a visual mark and a point of departure for conversation, inviting participants to reflect on memory, migration, belonging, and the symbols through which identities are inherited, negotiated, and transformed. The workshop also opens space to consider the origins of the motifs we use, encouraging respectful dialogue around attribution, cultural stewardship, and the living traditions of Indigenous and ethnolinguistic communities across the Philippines.

The workshop welcomes participants of all backgrounds and no previous painting or printmaking experience is required. Whether drawing from Filipino heritage or from visual traditions rooted elsewhere, participants are invited to contribute to a collective exploration of how portraits can be constructed not only through likeness, but through the marks we inherit, the marks we make, and the marks we leave behind.