Wawi Navarroza (b.1979) is an Istanbul-based Filipina multidisciplinary artist known for her works in photography. Her images navigate self and surrounding in constructed tableaus and self-portraits, as well as landscape and installation. She is informed by tropicality within the dynamics of post-colonial dialogue, globalization, and the artist as a transnational agent. As a female artist, Southeast Asian and Filipino, her works transmute lived experience to the symbolic while probing materials and studio practice; exploring the hybridity of identity, photography and place. 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 has been based in Spain where she finished her Masters in Contemporary Photography (Master Europeo de Fotografía de Autor), a scholarship awarded by Instituto Europeo di Design in Madrid.
Solo exhibitions include (Upcoming) Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, West Palm Beach, USA (2024); (Upcoming) As Wild As We Come, Silverlens Galleries, New York, USA (2024); As Wild As We Come, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, England (2022); Self-Portraits & The Tropical Gothic, Silverlens Galleries, Manila (2019); Medusa, Silverlens Galleries, Manila (2017); On Landscape & Some Dislocations, Galería Patrick Domken, Cadaqués, Spain (2012); When All Is Said And Done, Artesan Gallery, Singapore (2008); Saturnine: A Collection of Portraits, Creatures, Glass & Shadow, Silverlens Galleries, Manila / McDermott Gallery, Siem Reap, Cambodia / ArtReflex Gallery, Saint-Petersburg, Russia (2007); Polysaccharide: The Dollhouse Drama, Blacksoup Project Artspace, Manila / Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila / La Trobe University, Bendigo, Australia (2005).
Selected group exhibitions include Are You Free?, XXIII Bienal Internacional de Arte de Cerveira, Portugal (2024); Archipelago, curated by Gwen Lee, Three Shadows, Beijing / Shanghai (2024); Cairns Art Gallery, Australia (2024); Archipelago, curated by Gwen Lee, Jimei x Arles Photo Festival, Jimei, China (2023); Portraits, MoSpace Gallery, Manila, the Philippines (2023); REGENERATE, Noorderlicht Photography Festival, Groningen, Netherlands (2023); Living Pictures, National Gallery of Singapore, Singapore (2022); Hat of the Matter, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Philippines (2022); Untitled Miami Beach, with Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Miami, USA (2022); Run with Wolves, Lawrie Shabibi gallery, Dubai (2021); Tonight The Air Is Warm, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London (2021); SF Camerawork, San Francisco (2021); Viva La Frida!, Drents Museum, Netherlands (2021); Anticipating the Day, Silverlens Galleries, Manila (2020); Taboo, Vinyl on Vinyl, Makati (2019); Not Visual Noise: Philippine Photography, Ateneo Art Gallery at Areté, Quezon City (2019); ART|JOG|11 Enlightenment, Yogyakarta National Museum, Jogjakarta, Indonesia (2018); Artists' Books for Everything, Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, Bremen, Germany (2017); Roundabout: Wawi Navarroza, Mark Valenzuela, Riel Hilario, Adelaide Central Gallery, Australia (2016); Surface Tension: Perspective on the Changing Landscape, Alliance Française de Manille for COP:21 Paris (2015); Still Moving: After Image, South-East Asian contemporary photography survey show, Singapore Art Museum 8Q, Singapore (2014), and The Hope & The Dream in Filipino: Contemporary Photography from the Philippines, The Month of Photography Tokyo 2012, presented by The Photographic Society of Japan and Tokyo Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan (2012).
Highlights and collections
Wawi Navarozza has exhibited widely in the Philippines and internationally, including the National Museum of the Philippines, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, National Gallery of Singapore (2022-23), Singapore Art Museum 8Q, Hangaram Museum, Korea, National Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan, Yogyakarta National Museum, Indonesia, Fries Museum of Contemporary Art & Museum Belvedere, Netherlands, and Danubiana Museum, Slovakia. Her art has been surveyed in books such as "Photography Today" (Phaidon), "Contemporary Photography in Asia" (Prestel) and "Photography in South East Asia" by Zuang Wubin (NUS Press).
Navarroza has received several awards such as the Lucas Artists Fellowship Award for Visual Arts San Francisco (2019-2022), Asian Cultural Council Fellowship Grant New York, Cultural Center of the Philippines' Thirteen Artists Awards, Ateneo Art Awards, Lumi Photographic Art Awards Helsinki, and finalist for Singapore Museum Signature Art Prize, WMA Commission Hong Kong and Sovereign Asian Art Prize. Her works are in the collection of Bangko Central ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines), Metropolitan Museum of the Philippines, Menarco Tower/The Vertical Museum at Bonifacio Global City, and Stora Enso Photography Museum in Oulu, Finland.
