“More than 150,000 Filipino women work now as domestic helpers in HongKong. They have emigrated to work as domestic helpers because the salaries they receive are three times highter than a qualified worker’s salary in the Philippines.[...] In most cases, they are more qualified than their Chinese employees.”

Currently exhibited at TINAG festival in London, Marisa González documents in her work Ellas Filipinas the invasion of public space in downtown HongKong on Sundays, by all these women who enjoy gathering together underneath the HSBC bank open-air lobby. They turn this financial area into a domestic room to meet, rest, eat, dance, and remember their remote homes and relatives.

“These women change the meaning of the commercial public space, where they transport their habits and traditions through leisure, rest, religion and culture.”

[source&images> Ellas Filipinas by Marisa González]

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