Snap Judgments
Insight Myanmar31 Loka 2025

Snap Judgments

Episode #423: Ian Taylor is a Canadian photographer whose life shifted from the film industry to decades of work and travel across Southeast Asia. His first experience was with a government-sponsored Asian Studies program in the early 1990s. His early visits to Burma during the junta’s “Visit Myanmar Year” left a strong impression, and he became involved for a short time in advertising there.

By the late 1990s, Taylor had left advertising for photography, focusing on family portraits and NGO assignments across Asia. A formative volunteer trip to Bangladesh further deepened his commitment to humanitarian work, and led him back to Burma.

Taylor left the country in 2015, but reconnected in 2023 through the Thailand-based Border Consortium (TBC). He soon embarked on a volunteer photo project in five refugee camps, describing them as “an active, bustling town with everything.” His photography resists exploitative “poverty porn” and favors portraits that reflect dignity and agency. “Every portrait, in some way, it’s a collaboration.”

Critical of the tourism industry’s distortions, Taylor remains focused on authenticity, connection, and service. In his words: “If you could go to a holiday in the Maldives or something... well, I’d rather go [to a refugee camp]!”

Jaksot(506)

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Episode #413: “No one's liberated without everyone being liberated, right?” Those words belong to Nitchakarn “Memee” Rakwongrit, a Thai youth activist whose journey from a rural upbringing to the cent...

14 Loka 20251h 52min

At The Breaking Point

At The Breaking Point

Episode #412: “We are in Myanmar, and nothing is clear cut.”Anthony Davis offers a stark assessment of Myanmar’s war, drawing on decades of experience studying insurgencies. He begins with the United ...

13 Loka 20251h 10min

Stairway to Jhāna

Stairway to Jhāna

Episode #411: This is the second part of our interview with the meditation teacher, Tempel Smith, and it starts off with his decision “to commit to deep intensive Burmese-style meditation, break throu...

10 Loka 20251h 2min

Everything Will Be Okay

Everything Will Be Okay

Episode #410: “We’ve got to find a way from surviving to thriving again.” With this vision, Jue Jue, a social worker and founder of Jue Jue’s Safe Space, seeks to transform Myanmar’s mental health lan...

9 Loka 20251h 25min

Mined and Forgotten

Mined and Forgotten

Episode #409: His military experience enabled a rapport with Myanmar’s armed actors, says Rory McCann, who recently served almost two years as the country Weapons Contamination Specialist for the ICRC...

7 Loka 20251h 43min

A Narco State of Mind

A Narco State of Mind

Episode #408: “There is no way to tell the story of Myanmar and where it’s headed if you are leaving out the Wa,” says Patrick Winn, a veteran Southeast Asia reporter and author of Narcotopia. His boo...

6 Loka 20252h 15min

Delusions of Grandeur

Delusions of Grandeur

Episode #407: One month after the coup, Captain Kyaw Kyaw defected from his post as a military pediatrician. After years of seeing the military brutalize the civilians they were supposed to protect, c...

3 Loka 20251h 43min

A Moral Reckoning

A Moral Reckoning

Episode #406: “I didn’t come to study this subject deliberately with a focus on Buddhism,” says Justine Chambers, author of Pursuing Morality, a book that explores Buddhist moral life among the Plong ...

2 Loka 20252h 12min

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