Curious about Filipinx ancestral plants, animism and spiritual practices ? Want to learn how to make medicinal coconut oil using traditional methods? Join us at Magenta House on Saturday 28 March 2026 for an autumnal hands-on Lana making workshop facilitated by Nawa Sybico and Argo Theoharis from Bangka Healing Arts.
Explore the precolonial world of herbal medicine, plant allies, animism and Filipinx healing modalities as we gather together to create the sacred Filipinx oil, known in the Philippines as ‘Lana’. Sourced from coconuts and containing a variety of tanom/halaman/plant ingredients, Lana is a powerful oil used for rituals, medicine and cooking practices across the archipelago.
For this interactive half-day session, Nawa and Argo will teach you about the ancestral frameworks of herbal medicine, plant allies, animism and Hilot, also known as traditional Filipinx medicine. They will guide you to prepare, cook, and store Lana using methods passed down from Filipinx ancestors. Together, we'll imbue this mixture with our intentions and spirit and choose a selection of tanom/halaman/plant allies: ginger (luy-a), lemongrass (tanglad), guava (bayabas), & moringa (kamunggay/malunggay). We’ll then move through the elements of pressing and pounding herbs (yuta/Earth), milking and extracting coconut milk, and cooking herbs and coconuts together using fire (kalayo), before finally setting the medicinal oil.
Enjoy home-made meals, snacks, and refreshments prepared by Mariam Ella Arcilla from Magenta House, featuring ancestral recipes and key ingredients inspired by the workshop. The session will conclude with a Tawas & Hilot demo. All participants will receive resource handouts and a jar of Lana to assist with practicing ancestral methods at home.
No prior experience in herbal medicine or cooking is required.
Due to the nature of this session, placements are very limited to keep interactions intimate and invested.
What to expect:
🥥Teachings about herbal medicines with a focus on Filipinx Medicinal Systems (Hilot).
🥥 Retelling of the creation story of the coconut and why it is the Filipinx Tree of Life.
🥥 Lessons from the diwatas (deities) from the archipelago known as the Philippines
🥥 Stories about how our ancestors were guided by the moon, and other rhythms in nature when engaging in healing and ritual.
🥥 Making Lana oil and experiencing a live demonstration of Tawas & Hilot.
🥥 Filipino meal, merienda/snacks, and refreshments
🥥 Medicinal vessel to take your Lana oil home
🥥 Illustrated Workshop Handout PDF of ancestral methods and ingredients
Costs: Solidarity: $150 / General: $120 / Unwaged $100 (by request) / First Nations: Free
Solidarity tickets enable us to offset costs so we can provide Unwaged tix for low-income and financial hardship individuals. General tix access are for waged individuals or those who have financial capacity.
Team
Workshop Facilitators/researchers: Nawa Sybico and Argo Theoharis
Event Organiser/Cook/Comms: Mariam Ella Arcilla
Event day assistant: Louise Villar
Bios 🐣
Nawa Sybico or Gat Neya Kilaw Sa Kalasangan (Hilot Binabaylan of Diwatang Kilawneya) is a first generation Bisaya immigrant settler living on Mumirimina and Muwinina country in Nipaluna, Lutruwita (Hobart, Tasmania). Their practice revolves around ancestral technologies such as herbalism, somatics, astrology, and death care. Through these healing arts they weave together a decolonial and liberatory practice, by embodying holistic and non-linear ways of problem-solving for inhabiting neo-colonial space. Their anti-oppressive practice centres marginalised communities as an organising strategy for confronting inter-generational burnout and trauma inside of social movements. Nawa acknowledges and honours the mentors and lineages they carry.
Argo Theoharis or Gat Tisedel Sa Yuta (Hilot Binabaylan of the Diwatang Deltise) is a first generation immigrant settler on Jagera & Turrbal country in Magandjin (Brisbane, Queensland). Their ancestral lineages hail from Greece on the Paternal side and on the Maternal side Sibuyan Island, Romblon in the Visayas of the Archipelago known as the Philippines. Their Lola (Maternal Grandmother) was a practicing Arbularyo on our island, and people from across Romblon would travel to her for ritual and healing. It’s this lineage that inspires Argo to explore how our Indigenous ancestral medicines and philosophy can be used to address ongoing histories of colonial violence & oppression.
Mariam Ella Arcilla is a Filipina-Singaporean organiser, creative producer, writer, and collaborator. Her metabolic practice uses edible archiving, social design, and spiral learning as containers for civic joy and equitable art ecologies. Mariam has managed grassroots initiatives, publications, galleries, and arts government projects since 2006–working elastically across communications, curatorial management, audience engagement, and strategic development. For Mariam, the meaning of tahanan (home) is a reworlding and co-nurturing exercise. She was raised by her Lola (grandmother) in a household of artists and cooks in Quezon City, where she inherited life disciplines that moored her through a period of family separation and domestic turbulence, before she immigrated to Australia at 16. Mariam remained hopeful that she'd one day find her way back to her Lola’s kitchen–the place she felt most safe. Mariam eventually reunited with her Lola as an adult, savouring her final years on this Earth. This experience inspired Mariam to grow a multimodal arts practice that translates knowledge-circulation, communal feeding and domestic hospitality into creative acts of service. She strives to carry her Lola's legacy by running Magenta House - artistic safehouse for kindreds to congregate, learn, rest, nurture and seed together.
10am – 3pm
