The Postcards are Coming!
As the year draws to a close, and before I do more reminiscing about all the things that happened in 2025, I thought I’d take a moment to talk about something that’s quietly been unfurling for 2026: the second edition of our If Trees Could Talk International Art Biennale.
You might remember I wrote about how we hoped our Biennale could expand beyond the land that birthed it. That it could stretch its limbs outward, unconstrained by the confines of our Tumba-Tumba space. Because the theme deserves it.
If Trees Could Talk.
We deliberately named it not after a place (it’s not the Venice Biennale or a Batangas Biennale), but after a possibility, a way of listening. It’s our way of opening a door for the Biennale to become more than a single site. It can become a network. A platform. A global conversation.
And one of the simplest ways we’re democratizing participation is through our global call for postcards. We’re asking, simply, that people send us a postcard: an artwork or a visual note from wherever they are in the world, in response to the question: If trees could talk, what would they say?
And now, slowly but surely, they’ve started arriving.
They’re coming from Iran, the Kingdom of Bahrain, Palestine, Finland, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Greece, and Bulgaria.
And also from Hong Kong, Russia, Malaysia, Estonia, Mongolia, Turkey, and Korea, among others that are trickling in even as I write this.
And of course, there are submissions from Filipino artists, and islands from across the Philippines. :)
Each one is a small, hand-sized portal. Some are meticulously crafted. Some feel more like a spontaneous sketch, a flash of thought caught in transit.
All of them feel alive.
We’re collecting them, cataloguing them, listening.
I feel like this is the beginning of something quietly meaningful. As we slowly accumulate these creative expressions and voices, and even before the 2026 Biennale opens in February, there’s an important conversation already underway.
And it’s only getting started, so feel free to pick up a pen or a brush, and a piece of paper or board, and join us. And please, do share the call.
Details for joining can be found here: iftreescouldtalk.art/postcard
Sali na! :)