Journal of a Queer Journey: Living Through Art and Justice | By Santy Asperin Layno

I write this with the weight of travel still in my bones — the kind of travel that is not only about crossing borders, but about carrying stories across them.

When I arrived in Quezon City after a six-hour bus ride from Baguio for the Southeast Asia Queer Arts and Justice Summit (SEAQAJS), organized by the ASEAN SOGIE Caucus under the leadership of Ryan Silverio and Sol De Castro, the air felt charged. It was National Arts Month, but what stirred the city was something quieter and more urgent: more than seventy queer artists, activists, and dreamers gathering to imagine what survival — and justice — could look like together.

During the pre-conference, I listened to delegates from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Myanmar speak of creating in climates of repression. I realized again that art, for many of us, is more than beauty. It is survival. In the dim corners of censorship, art becomes a lantern. In enforced silence, it becomes a scream. And in isolation, it becomes a hand reaching out, saying: you are not alone.

SEAQAJS felt like that hand multiplied many times over. Each workshop and dialogue carried both testimony and strategy. The word “artivism” was not abstract; it was lived. A poem could cut through injustice. A collaborative painting could hold collective longing. Creativity here was both weapon and balm — confronting power while tending to wounds.

Traveling through Southeast Asia as a queer person often feels like walking a tightrope. On one side: joy, resilience, chosen family. On the other: precarity, fear, the constant negotiation of safety. At SEAQAJS, these truths were neither hidden nor romanticized. Stories of censorship and erasure were met with courage — and with refusal. Living queer, I was reminded, is itself an act of defiance, demanding both tenderness and fire.

The Queer Community Quilt stood as a map of our shared dreams. Each patch stitched a declaration: we exist, we resist, we imagine. Standing before it, I felt the presence of those who stitched resistance before us — and the responsibility to continue.

When the summit ended, I packed more than clothes. I carried voices, colors, and conviction. Art is not only reflection. It is revolution.

SEAQAJS was not just a summit. It was a pilgrimage — and a reminder that across Southeast Asia, queer art is lifeblood.

“My experience is my treasure. My story is my power.”