What is OBRA?
OBRA Incorporated is a non-profit cultural and research organization dedicated to community media, independent cinema, digital mutual aid, and open science.
What began in 2007 as a grassroots collective of artists has grown into a dynamic organization uniting artists, community organizers, and researchers. We believe that creative expression, community solidarity, and empirical research share a single purpose: serving communities with integrity, documenting lived experiences, and preserving Filipino cultural memory for the public good.
Our Vision
To build an enduring bridge between grassroots Filipino creativity and open public knowledge, ensuring that diaspora voices, independent arts, and community histories are permanently remembered and freely accessible across the world.
Our Mission
To empower artists, migrant communities, and independent scholars through managing digital commons, ethical documentation, and public research. We build platforms where marginalized voices can be heard, support independent cultural workers through times of crisis, and preserve community activities with open science access.
Our Story
Every meaningful initiative begins with a vision of service. Ours began in the summer of 2007.
Amidst the celebrations of a small-town Filipino fiesta, visual artists gathered to paint neglected public walls into vibrant murals of hope. Watching local performers and painters pour their energy into makeshift civic spaces revealed the true cultural wealth of the community: talent and resilience that were overlooked by commercial institutions.
In December 2007, we incorporated as Organisasyon ng Batikan at Respetadong Artista ng Bayan (OBRA) Incorporated and launched our foundational digital project: theOBRAwebsite at obra.ph. The platform provided an open directory for provincial artists excluded from commercial galleries, while serving as the communications center for the NCCA Artists for Crisis program to deliver creative psychosocial healing in disaster evacuation centers.
Over the next decade, OBRA expanded from visual arts into a wide spectrum of community initiatives. We built DancePinoy.com in 2009 to elevate street dancers onto nationwide and international stages. We produced award-winning independent films, including Seoul Mates (2014) to depict Filipino diaspora life, and Paraiso (2015) to honor the daily resilience of child survivors of Typhoon Yolanda without sensationalism.
Recognizing the needs of overseas Filipinos, we established PinoySeoul.com in South Korea in 2017, later recognized with the Migration Advocacy and Media Award for Best Website on Migration by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas in 2019. When the pandemic hit in 2020, our platforms pivoted into emergency mutual aid: Pinoy California at PinoyCalifornia.com to help Filipino-American businesses amidst social distancing measures, Work at Home on PinoyArtist.com to help displaced creators promote their craft, while CloudWorkers.ph connected daily wage earners with fair remote income, with findings later informing the Philippine Creative Industries Development Act.
OBRA has stepped into its next chapter through the OBRA Incorporated Research Lab. Guided by our Research Ethics Committee, our team preserves decades of institutional history as citable open research datasets in the Harvard Dataverse. What began with murals on public walls has grown into an independent research laboratory, preserving the history of Filipino creative labor, community mutual aid, and digital solidarity for generations to come.
Contact Us
Whether you are an artist, a researcher, community organizer, or partner, we welcome collaborations that advance community knowledge and cultural preservation.
Email: [email protected]
Ringgold ID: 857453
ISNI: 0000000531778816
Social Media Presence
Facebook: https://facebook.com/obraincorporated
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/obraincorporated
Harvard Dataverse: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/obra
