National Geographic Explorer Gab Mejia on Capturing Inner Landscapes, Indigenous Sacredness, and The Burden of Truly Loving Our Fragmentation
Photographer Gab Mejia on keeping each other sacred and truly loving our fragmentation.
Born and raised in the Philippine archipelago, Filipino photographer Gab Mejia is a National Geographic Explorer and a Board of Trustee for the World Wide Fund For Nature Philippines.
Mejia's work in visual storytelling and ecology through multidisciplinary art forms bridges ancient mystical wisdom to modern confusions and longings. His art unveils the intricate threads of the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and cultural interconnections, prompting us to confront our socio-political and ecological challenges.
The first half of this conversation covers Mejia's latest short film, BARADIYA, which examines the declining ecological rituals of Filipino Indigenous queer shamans. Mejia also shared his approach to photography as an extension to document the ever-shifting inner landscapes, the practice of opening to serendipity, nature's inherent queerness, and the Indigenous knowledge of keeping each other sacred in a time that he calls "an extinction of experiences."
Later, Mejia shared what it truly means to be an explorer and his journey in embracing the plurality of narratives and identities. At the very end of this conversation, Gab read a piece that he wrote–it's an ode to the natural world and a reckoning of the burden we hold to truly love the other earthlings.
Original portrait by Kay Lam.
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