ARK honoree Veejay Floresca. Courtesy of ARK Solves
Art, fashion, food, and community converged in Manhattan’s Upper East Side for the fourth ARK Benefit Gala, an evening spotlighting sustainable solutions to hunger across the Philippines.
It was a night of collective purpose when the ARK Benefit Gala returned to Manhattan’s Upper East side for its fourth biennial. Hosted by the ARK social impact organization, the evening championed Filipino artistry in support of food security programs across the archipelago. Of its many highlights, the keynote program centered on the unveiling of Sagana, a lush, earth-tone photoseries up for auction by photographers Artu Nepomuceno and Archie Geotina.
The gala was held at the Bohemian Hall, where its main salon provided the chandelier-lit backdrop to an intimate celebration of art, culture, and community. For dinner, partners and friends of ARK indulged in a three-course exploration of Filipino classics rendered by leading Filipino-American chefs: James Beard Emerging Chef Semifinalist Paolo Dungca, private chef Francis Balbarin, and Eric Valdez of New York City’s Naks. Wine pairings were curated by Jhonel Faelnar, sommelier of two-star Michelin and #6 World’s Best restaurant, Atomix.
Taking inspiration from the harvest of its partnered communities, the theme “Something Farmed, Something Fabulous,” informed guests’ flora and fauna-flecked wardrobes and colorful vegetable tablescapes. ARK, which was founded by Ayesha Vera-Yu and Jerry Topitzer, facilitates efforts towards uplifting farming and fishing communities from hunger. ARK’s hallmark program is Feed Back, where families are invited to farm in their backyards and partake in a community vegetable exchange with their excess harvest. As a result, more than 220,000 Filipinos across 123 partner communities have become self-reliant in securing food.
It’s the local women of Feed Back who became muses to Nepomuceno and Geotina’s images. “We grew up in a country where we have to find poetry in the dirt between our nails,” the photographers and longtime Vogue Philippines collaborators reflected during the cocktail hour. The women, real mothers and farmers from Barangay Biga-a in Negros Oriental, are captured dressed in ornate composites of their harvest: gowns of leafy cabbage, tomatoes adorned like crowns, bundles of spring onion slipped on as sleeves. One image captures the women all together around a stream, their carrots and string bean skirts elegantly cascading down a bed of rocks.
A selection of Sagana portraits were only some of the sought-after prizes in the night’s live auction fundraiser, a charged spectacle of spirited bidding. Other notable prizes included a private chocolate-making class with chocolatier and Netflix’s School of Chocolate alum Daniel Corpuz as well as a private wine tour around Portugal led by Faelnar. The evening recognized three honorees whose leadership and partnership have shaped ARK’s impact: Mayor Malou Respicio of Reina Mercedes, Isabela; The Bawa N Mallick Foundation, which announced that they would match up to $100,000 of contributions; and Project Runway season 21 winner Veejay Floresca, who was in attendance and whose pieces were also up for auction. Broadway actress Ali Ewoldt took the stage for a performance, and the afterparty commenced with a delectable dessert room set up in the library with a never-ending array of sweets by Corpuz, Valdez, Arturo Daza, and Diana Manalang.
Early in the program, Vera-Yu took the stage to honor the millions of Filipinos affected by recent typhoons, a poignant moment that underscored the causes that unite us. Though we had gathered thousands of miles away in Manhattan, we continued to look to the archipelago for the true essence of sagana, or abundance. The portraits lining the room captured real families that had successfully overcome systemic adversity not through charity alone, but through resilience and collective effort. In these trying times for our fellow countrymen, we are reminded to view such communities with respect and dignity, and to uphold the spirit of the evening: that true abundance is measured not by what we receive, but by how we give back.
