Rewilding Patagonia for Sierra

Kiliii Yuyan Uncategorized 0 Comments

Last winter, Jason Mark of Sierra Magazine asked me to work on a story on conservation in Chile. This particular story would be on the largest land donation for conservation in history, by the former CEO of Patagonia Inc, Kris Tompkins. I immediately had concerns because I understood that the gauchos inhabiting the land had been removed it became a park. As history has shown, evicting local and Indigenous peoples from their land proves to be a terrible idea in the long run.

There were all these stories about this mysterious project that was going to take possession of the lands and waters of Chile.

-Dago Guzman, superintendent of Patagonia Parque Nacional

But by the time Jason and I had trekked over a hundred miles over the sweltering and mountainous terrain of the new Patagonia Parque Nacional, we had seen a puma, herds of guanacos, countless birds, and I had changed my mind. In that time, I had come to understand the unique dynamics of the situation, the people, and their history. Central Patagonia’s new national parks have become a huge win for conservation.

Before it came to be though, Chileans were suspicious of the Tompkins gringos. How did it come to be? Why was the establishment of these parks nothing like the genocidal establishment of the national parks in the United States and elsewhere? Find out in Sierra Magazine.

When it comes to the wildlife, this is the best that could have happened, the transformation into a park.

-Daniel Velasquez Romero, former sheepherder, known as Patagonia’s “deer whisperer”

The Arctic Petroleum Reserve for National Geographic

Kiliii Yuyan Uncategorized 2 Comments

No place in the Arctic is less famous yet more important than the wetlands of the politically named National Petroleum Reserve. At the junction of several migratory bird flyways, it’s the densest concentration of birds in the Arctic. I spent a month over two seasons photographing this epic and intensely living landscape, and I am forever changed by it.

For birds, it has been called “Heathrow at the top of the world.”

-Chris Solomon, Alaska’s last vast wild place is open for drilling, National Geographic

Unfortunately, the reserve also has sizable oil and gas deposits, in particular around the critical wetland areas of Teshekpuk Lake. And the special protections put into place previously are being dismantled by the Trump administration.

It is more important, there are more birds, of higher density, in the NPR-A than in the Arctic [National Wildlife] Refuge.

-Rebecca McGuire, the Arctic Beringia Avian Ecologist for WCS, Alaska’s last vast wild place is open for drilling, National Geographic

Many people know that I’m a staunch supporter of conservation by local Indigenous communities, and that foremost I believe in the importance of people on the land. In a world manipulated by powerful forces, the land and its local guardians can use a helping hand. Legal protections can make a huge difference for a landscape and its wildlife. At Teshekpuk, there is a caribou herd that thousands depend on for subsistence, plus that critical bird habitat for migratory birds.

Find out more about this little-known area that is the largest piece of public land in the US, the Arctic Flyway, aka the Arctic Petroleum Reserve, at National Geographic.

PDN & International Photo Awards

Kiliii Yuyan Uncategorized 1 Comment

This last contest season I had many stories that had not yet been completed or published, but I entered anyway, and my story and images for Vogue on Women of the Iditarod won awards through both PDN and IPA. Many thanks to the jurors!

I’ve also been working on more fine art, trying my best to tackle some of the issues about indigenous culture in a colonial world through photography. PDN and the Photographic Center Northwest separately awarded my image ‘Confluence’, from my new series, Myths of the Indigenous Arctic. It will also be shown in my upcoming exhibition People of the Whale at the Center for Fine Art Photography in October.

Environmental Justice for the Menominee Tribe

Kiliii Yuyan Uncategorized 0 Comments

On River’s Banks, Tribe Defends Its Heritage from Mining Threats

For those that imagine colonization ended once Lewis and Clark reached the West Coast, this is a reminder that it remains ongoing in the United States. For the Menominee of Wisconsin and Minnesota, treaties have been broken by the US government continuously for the last centuries. Now a zinc and copper mine has moved in to Menominee sacred grounds.

It’s often difficult to understand why sacred grounds are important to another culture, yet easy to see as a metaphor. Why is Arlington National Cemetery sacred ground? And indeed the bones of Menominee ancestors are buried in the same location as the Back Forty Mine site.

Rebecca Bowe at EarthJustice has written a great piece on the Menominee fight against the Back Forty mine. Earth Justice provides legal help for the Menominee, and I’m proud to wield artistic tools to support the people of fellow First Nations.

Talk at Glazer’s Photofest in Seattle

Kiliii Yuyan Uncategorized 2 Comments

A question I get all the time is “How do you deal with polar bears?” And my response, after talking about how it works with polar bears, is followed by an extra thought. Polar bears are not, by far, the biggest problem I face in the field. The biggest thing I face is failure, and often it takes everything I have to keep pushing through the things I dislike.

Come visit me and the other speakers, come play with cameras at the Glazer’s Photofest. It’s Seattle’s biggest photography event and there will be lots happening both Saturday and Sunday.

Date: Saturday, June 1, 2019
Time: 10:15am -11:15am

Where: Glazer's Camera
400 Dexter Ave N Seattle 98109 United States
Collective Room D - Alpenglow

Description: Great photographs transport us to the moment the shutter clicked. Yet truthfully, all the work happens in the hours and months before that moment. We rarely hear about the obstacles that stood in the path of great photographs.

National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yuyan takes us behind the process of his favorite images, as he works through circling polar bears, sickness from botulism, and the initial distrust of an Alaska Native community. Kiliii speaks about the invisible things that give a photographer true grit— optimism, focus, and perserverance.

Masks of Grief and Joy for Pacific Standard

Kiliii Yuyan Uncategorized 7 Comments

Usually when one hears the news of a community in the 21st century living in rough conditions, it’s far outside of one of the wealthy nations. Yet for, this story on youth suicide, I embarked on a project for Pacific Standard that took me to… the United States. Alaska, to be more precise, where Native Alaskan youth suffer from a rate of suicide 18 times what it is in the lower 48 states.

With indigenous communities, it’s been common practice for outside journalists to parachute in, find a story, and then depart a few days later. Yet for indigenous communities, the understanding of stories and who they belong to is completely different. Indigenous protocol dictates that stories are collaborative- belonging to the community as much as to the journalist.

In planning a story on indigenous suicide in the Arctic, it was my mission to begin by giving something to the community rather than taking something away from it. So I collaborated with the Bering School District to provide a suicide-prevention art therapy program for the community of Gambell, Alaska. This took place within high school as a voluntary program. In art class we provided a safe space for each youth to construct two paper-mache masks– one for their grief and one for their joys. Afterwards, I made environmental portraits of the students with their masks in the places they took me where they felt those emotions.

As indigenous people we want more than portrayal as victims. In Alaska, grief was not the overriding emotion I observed—it was the vitality of youth. Thus this project’s presentation is diptych portraiture—one portrait showing a young person with their grief mask, next to one with their joy mask. It is my hope that together they are moving and humanizing.

See the entire story and photographs at Pacific Standard.

Women of the Iditarod for Vogue

Kiliii Yuyan Uncategorized 5 Comments

If you had asked me what publication most likely to do a story for next, it would not have been Vogue. But sure enough, in December, Vogue got in touch about a story involving dogsledding, Alaska, and the most incredible group of women mushers. Although it did take a bit of convincing that I was the appropriate photographer given that I’m not a woman, conceptually I was onboard right away.

It turned out to be a good fit– I relied a great deal upon my experience shooting in the Arctic. I hung off of sleds sideways, rode snow machines while piloting drones, and battled the sleet and snow constantly obscuring my lenses and viewfinders.

The first woman to win the Iditarod was Libby Riddles, in 1985. While other teams waited out bad weather, she left the safety of the checkpoint at Shaktoolik to mush into a blizzard on the frozen Norton Sound. By the time the weather cleared, she had the advantage.

Blair Braverman for Vogue

It was a terrific experience thanks to the art direction and production from Emily Rosser and Nikki Krecciki, as well the hospitality of these talented mushers who invited me into their lives. Thank you Alison, Kristy, Blair, Alison, Magda and Jessica! Additional thanks to double threat Blair Braverman, who is not only a musher, but also an incredible writer.

Chosen as one of PDN’s 30

Kiliii Yuyan Uncategorized 12 Comments

I’m again honored to be chosen as one of PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers. It’s one of our industry’s most notable achievements for early-career photographers, and I’m amazed to be a part of a group of heavyweight photographers that have been named over the decades.  They include: Lynsey Addario, Alec Soth, Taryn Simon, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Norman Jean Roy, Ami Vitale, Aaron Huey, Olivia Bee, Jonas Bendicksen, Wayne Lawrence and Daniella Zalcman.

We published our first PDN’s 30 issue 20 years ago. Despite significant changes in the markets for editorial, commercial and fine-art photography, a lot of things have stayed the same. As we look through hundreds of portfolios of photographers recommended to us by editors, creatives, curators and some of the leading voices in professional photography, we are still drawn to striking images, unique stories, original perspectives and a consistent vision.

Conor Risch, PDN

Living in my Grandmother’s Stories: Lenscratch

Kiliii Yuyan Uncategorized 1 Comment

One of the favorite people I met in 2018 was Aline Smithson, of Lenscratch. We spoke at the conference PhotoNOLA, about searching for one’s home everywhere you go– and that’s certainly true for me in my artmaking.

Many thanks to Aline for being so curious and lifting the lid on the driving forces in my life.

Aline interviewed me for Lenscratch and we spoke at length about what it means to be a person driven by stories– not stories in the contemporary journalistic sense, but mythology from the culture of my ancestors.

Interview with Hamidah Glasgow of Strange Fire Collective

Kiliii Yuyan Uncategorized 3 Comments

One thing I have begun to explore lately within photography is going beyond changing the narrative we tell of indigenous peoples. I’m trying to show the dominant culture what it is like to see the world from a Native point of view, yet even that’s not quite right. In this interview for the Strange Fire Collective, I speak about making photographs as looking at the contemporary world, strange as it is, though indigenous lenses. That’s what Hamidah Glasgow has pulled out of me in my many conversations I’ve had with her over the last several months. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I’ve enjoyed talking to Hamidah.

A great way to illustrate this is the reaction to an image of a butchered seal. From an indigenous viewpoint, that seal meat is a gift from the seal, and it’s nourishing food. From the colonial gaze, it’s either seen as quaint and exotic or as a repulsive tradition.

Excerpt from Strange Fire Interview