the

biyuti project



Queer and Trans Filipinx Youth in Catholic Education



the

biyuti
project





The Exhibition

Queer and Trans Filipinx Youth in
Catholic Education


January 18th - 31st, 2026
55 Centre Ave, Toronto, ON



In the summer of 2025, nine emerging artists gathered at York University and OCAD University to share their experiences of being Filipinx, LGBTQIA+, and Catholic. The Biyuti Project was born. This arts-based research project and exhibition explore the experiences of queer and trans Filipinx youth as former Ontario Catholic school students through art production and kuwentohan (storytelling). They responded to the questions: what are the issues and challenges that LGBTQIA+ Filipinx youth experience in publicly funded Ontario Catholic schools? And, how can artistic expression help make education in these spaces more equitable?

The issues and challenges faced by queer and trans Filipinx/o/a youth in publicly funded Ontario Catholic schools emerge from the tensions between the institutional right to uphold Catholic doctrine around gender identity and sexually expansive students. Compounded by institutionalized Eurocentrism, queer and trans Filipinx students are doubly marginalized in an education system that prioritizes conservative doctrinal interpretations in its equity policies and curriculum.

Through mixed media installations, performance, and textile works created from deconstructed Catholic school uniforms, Filipino materiality, and fabrics from the Textile Museum of Canada’s Reuse Program, the artists of The Biyuti Project generously share their experiences of faith, identity, and resistance through creative expression.

The project name, biyuti, comes from the swardspeak (Filipino gay slang) expression for “beautiful”. According to Filipino American scholar Martin Manalansan (2003), biyuti propels queer and creative practices that are “embedded not only in gendered phenomena but in the exigencies of everyday life, including those in kinship and family, religion, sexual desire, and economic survival. These idioms serve as a means of understanding the world.”

Biyuti, hence, stands as a powerful name for this project— a declaration of perseverance, strength, and beauty, as these artists confront and reimagine the boundaries of Catholic schooling through the lens of Filipinx heritage and queer and trans pride.



Virtual Gallery 
Click on the titles below to learn more:







Sayaw!: Itanaw Ang Aming Mga Galaw
(Dance!: Observe Our Moves)


Artists:  Janica Olpindo (Editor) and the Biyuti Project Participants



As part of the Biyuti Project’s workshop series, Janica Olpindo facilitated a performance art workshop that encouraged participants to reflect on how they can react to or move in/on/with/within/around their work in physical or digital space. Inspired by Nick Cave’s Soundsuits, participants were also asked to create wearable instruments by attaching/sewing noise-making items onto their uniforms. This video features several Biyuti Project participants performing with their own work-in-progress versions of the transformed Catholic school uniforms. Each performance shows how participants embody their transformed uniforms in ways that are meaningful to them. The assets used have all been chosen by the participants that relate to their experience in high school, Catholicism or spirituality, queerness, and connection to the Philippines.

Special thanks to Allan Peng and team at the Making and Media Creation Lab at the York University Markham Campus Library.





REB Approval #2025-159







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