Wawi Navarroza

Philippines / Silverlens

Wawi Navarroza is a Filipino contemporary artist known for her works in photography, actively exhibiting in galleries and museums in the Philippines and internationally. Her images explore Self and Surrounding as seen in her works in contemporary landscape, constructed tableaus and self-portraits. Informed by tropicality within the dynamics of post-colonial dialogue, globalization, and the artist as transnational, her works transmute personal experience to the symbolic while probing materials and studio practice; all perhaps to mirror a path to understanding a deeper sense of place & identity.

Navarroza has been a strong proponent of the printed format as an extension of artistic work and with this, has published two books “DOMINION” and “Hunt & Gather, Terraria”, launched respectively at Offprint Paris and PS1MoMA. In 2015, she founded Thousandfold, a contemporary photography platform and the first photobook library in Manila, with Thousandfold Small Press as its publishing arm. As an educator, she gives periodic workshops and is a recognized speaker to photography talks, reviews, and conferences in the Philippines and abroad.

Navarroza is a graduate of Communications Arts at De La Salle University, Manila. Shortly after, she received continuing education at the International Center of Photography in New York City with a Fellowship Grant from the Asian Cultural Council. For a few years, she was based in Spain where she finished her Masters in Contemporary Photography (Master Europeo de Fotografía de Autor) awarded by Instituto Europeo di Design in Madrid.

She currently lives and works in İstanbul, Turkey.