The Forest Listens, Their Spirits Cry

Featuring works by Gab Mejia (Philippines)
Recipient of the 7th Objectifs Documentary Award, Open Category
Curated by Goh Sze Ying

4 Apr to 18 May 2025
Chapel Gallery, Objectifs
Free admission

Opening | 4 Apr 2025, 12pm – 7pm

Nature and Spirit: An Artist Talk with Gab Mejia
Sat 5 Apr 2025, 2.30pm – 3.30pm | Objectifs Workshop Space (Register here)

Revered as healers, warriors, and teachers, the Baylans of the Talaandig-Manobo have long been guardians of the sacred forests of Mount Kaluntungan in the southern Philippine province of Bukidnon, threatened by an encroaching industrial pace since the Spanish and American colonial period. For the Baylans, the forest is a sacred site—a portal, a threshold. Nature and spirit abide in the Talaandig-Manobo narrative.
Gab Mejia pays homage to this verdant landscape and its people by directing our attention to the queer kinship of two central figures: a head spiritual leader Datu Arayan, and a Baylan initiate and youth leader Krystahl Guina. A new generation of Baylans, they are also members of the Kulahi Pangantucan Performing Arts Group—storytellers, performers, protectors of indigenous heritage. Mejia’s dreamlike portraits animate Datu and Krystal’s deep, unspoken spiritual connection with their land, home, and family amidst the quiet domesticity of their daily rhythms.

The Forest Listens, Their Spirits Cry speaks of a desire to pollinate a dream of a future belonging otherwise.

Presented by Objectifs and supported by the Truthseeker Foundation.

About the Artist

Gab Mejia (he/they) is a queer Filipino photographer, multidisciplinary artist, and environmental engineer. Born and raised in the Philippine archipelago, his work unveils the threads of the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, ancestral knowledge, cosmologies, and cultural interconnections to confront our socio-political and ecological crises.

Mejia is a National Geographic Explorer, Climate Pledge Global Storyteller, Fellow in the International League of Conservation Photographers and 2019 Jackson Wild Media Lab Fellow. His work has appeared in National Geographic, BBC, CNN, ArtPartner, Vogue, United Nations, Manila Times, Fotografiska Shanghai, Photo London and TEDx talks amongst other publications and platforms. He is a Board of Trustee for the World Wide Fund for Nature Philippines.

About the Curator

Goh Sze Ying is Curator at National Gallery Singapore. At the Gallery, she contributes to the UOB Southeast Asia Gallery long-term display, Between Declarations and Dreams: Art of Southeast Asia since the 19th century. More recently, she worked on exhibitions including Living Pictures: Photography in Southeast Asia (2022), Ever Present: First Peoples Art of Australia (2022), and Something New Must Turn Up (2020). In 2019, she co-curated the sixth edition of the Singapore Biennale, Every Step in the Right Direction.

About the Objectifs Documentary Award

The Objectifs Documentary Award champions Objectifs’ mission to broaden perspectives through image making, by supporting original voices in visual storytelling in Singapore and the wider region. The Award enables photographers to work on new or existing projects, encouraging them to tell stories about their native communities. It welcomes different creative approaches to non-fiction storytelling, from conventional documentary photography to visual experiments.

About the Truthseeker Foundation

The Truth Seeker Foundation believes that education and enlightenment are the best ways to address many of the social issues we face today. Amongst the many causes the Foundation supports, it advocates for raising awareness of social and environmental issues through photography.