Fruits of our Labor: Reclaiming a life beyond the clock
Antique, Philippines
May 2026

Facilitation and design
via tala storytelling collective
for the youth of Antique

For our Labor Day workshop, the invitation was to speculate once more: imagine a day where you don’t have to sell your body, your energy, your labor, your time, and your life to be able to survive. Imagine you can pursue any slight joy or any other calling to mastery. Imagine you can be as present as you can with your loved ones, free as a bird to take care of them when they are sick or longing for company. Imagine a life beyond the clock, beyond capitalist hours, beyond artificial notions of productivity and value cemented by false narratives of work and profit as king.

The response we got was an astounding reminder of what we all desire: we all wished for rest, responding to our body’s need for sustenance and ample sleep, only waking up with the sun, just in time for breakfast with our mothers. We all wished there was more time spent in nature, listening to birdsong and swimming in rivers. We still want to idle about, to go on long walks, to read big, chunky, physical books. We want to teach and read and sing and live with our best friends and get tea together.

We want a good life — in our own terms, in our own time.

In solidarity with mobilizations in the country, we led a workshop with @dulungan.youth and @ekopraxis.ph in Culasi, honoring the many hands and the labor of many that make life possible. To close, we asked participants to redesign their relationship with time, labor, care and collective nourishment. These clocks and calendars are reminders of the life we deserve, made new by the stories we will tell together, every single day from now on, until we reap what we sow.

The clock artifacts are in our Just Futures Library. To class solidarity and our collective liberation — the actual fruits of our labor.