Destructive fishing techniques are common practice amongst the coastal populations of the Coral Triangle. The favoured methods are homemade fertiliser bombs and potassium cyanide, which have not only decimated reefs in the largest and most diverse marine bio-region in the world but have destroyed countless human lives as well.

Of all these communities, the Bajau Laut have perhaps suffered the most. The Bajau Laut are some of the last true marine nomads. An ethnic group of Malay origin, they have for centuries lived out their lives almost entirely at sea, plying a tract of ocean between Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. In the last few decades, many have been forced to settle permanently on land, but a dwindling number still call the ocean home, living on long boats known as lepa lepa. Traditionally, they fish with nets and lines and are expert free divers, going to improbable depths in search of pearls and sea cucumbers or to hunt with handmade spear guns.

But these traditional techniques have been largely replaced by cyanide and dynamite fishing, practices that are being driven predominantly by the live fish trade – an industry whose global worth is estimated at US $1 billion. The trade’s epicentre is Hong Kong, while Indonesia supplies most of the fish, accounting for nearly 50% of all imports. Target species are grouper and Napoleon wrasse, reef species that are a key to the preservation of coral ecosystems.

Traditional Bajau cosmology – a syncretism of animism and Islam – reveals a complex relationship with the ocean, which for them is a multifarious and living entity. There are spirits in currents and tides, in coral reefs and mangroves. My point of interest is the potential for dovetailing the Bajau’s uniquely intimate understanding of the ocean with wider marine conservation strategies in order to facilitate them in conserving rather than destroying their culture and the spectacular marine environments they have called home for centuries.

A three part series exploring the absorption of western youth culture into Asian Cities. From the mechanics of fashion and dance music to the mass transferral of morality and ideologies. These short films look at the way in which young adults create and navigate their own culture, tentatively piecing together a patchwork of western influences amidst the crumbling restraints that barred preceding generations from the same opportunities. On the one hand there’s creativity, healthy cultural dialogue and a genuine feeling of increased social liberty and optimism, but on the other hand, you have a twisted, retransfigured, but essentially adopted western culture eating away at cultural values and artistic practices. How does acid house and ecstasy merge with the one child policy? And what are the consequences of that?

A three part series exploring the absorption of western youth culture into Asian Cities. From the mechanics of fashion and dance music to the mass transferral of morality and ideologies. These short films look at the way in which young adults create and navigate their own culture, tentatively piecing together a patchwork of western influences amidst the crumbling restraints that barred preceding generations from the same opportunities. On the one hand there’s creativity, healthy cultural dialogue and a genuine feeling of increased social liberty and optimism, but on the other hand, you have a twisted, retransfigured, but essentially adopted western culture eating away at cultural values and artistic practices. How does acid house and ecstasy merge with the one child policy? And what are the consequences of that?

Two hundred years ago the advance of the Russian empire into Kazakhstan sent many Kazakhs across the border into western Mongolia where they settled in the region of Bayan Ulgii. As the Russians continued to occupy Kazakhstan, traditional Kazakh culture continued to be diluted to the point where, when the soviet union collapsed in 1991…, new prime minister Nursultan Nazirbyaev began offering financial and domestic incentives for diaspora Kazakhs in Bayan Ulgii to relocate back to Kazakhstan. The idea being that they would bring with them traditional practices such as eagle hunting and dombra playing and that this would inspire a revival in the dwindling Kazakh culture and population.

I stayed with two families five hours south of Olgii who decided against moving back to Kazakhstan in favour of staying in the mountain range that has now become their home, and as much a part of Kazakhstan as their ancestral land itself.

The heads of the two families were brothers and eagle hunting partners. They would saddle up together with golden eagles on their arms and spend afternoons on horseback riding through the Altai mountains looking to hunt rabbits, foxes, mammots, wolves and other game. Eagle hunting only really takes place in winter when animals have the thick winter fur that Kazakhs turn into their infamous fur hats. One of the brother’s grandsons would join us on the hunting trips, he had reached twelve and was now ready to learn the art of eagle hunting. He followed the hunt on foot with seemingly endless energy, ready to rush in at the first sight of a kill. The hunting provides very little in the way of food for human consumption, but it is a tradition dating back 6,000 years and the fur hats and the eagles themselves are a matter of great pride amongst Kazakhs.