Snap Judgments
Insight Myanmar31 Okt 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]!”

Episoder(507)

Attack on a Meditation Center

Attack on a Meditation Center

Episode #117: “The army believed democratic fighters were hiding in my center, so they moved very aggressively. They entered my meditation center! They shouted, ‘Hey, I will kill you. I will kill you!...

12 Aug 20222h 6min

Have Pity on the Working Man

Have Pity on the Working Man

Episode #116: On July 7th, the official account of the European Union in Myanmar posted a two-minute video urging factories in conflict-torn Myanmar to re-open, charging that the factory shutdowns had...

9 Aug 202232min

A Reign of Terror

A Reign of Terror

Episode #115: Matthew Wells is a member of Amnesty International’s Crisis Response team specializing in human rights violations, and has spent years investigating the ongoing atrocities by the Tatmada...

5 Aug 20221h 12min

Supporting Myanmar through Engaged Buddhism

Supporting Myanmar through Engaged Buddhism

Episode #114: Growing up in the Bay Area, raised by parents who followed the Vietnamese meditation master Thich Nhat Hanh, Derek Pyle was no stranger to Buddhist theory and practice. While some Wester...

29 Jul 20221h 56min

Spring is Coming

Spring is Coming

Episode #113: “I often asked myself how people can really have the presence of mind to sit down and write amidst such extraordinarily difficult circumstances, to be able to reflect on the kinds of tra...

22 Jul 20221h 5min

Journey into Chin State

Journey into Chin State

Episode #112: Simon traces the arc of his Chin homeland’s history and politics from the mists of history to the present-day conflict.Chin State is the poorest part of Myanmar, which suffers from an la...

14 Jul 20222h 5min

Visual Rebellion

Visual Rebellion

Episode #111: Emerging from under decades of harsh censorship, local journalism and investigative reporting made great strides in Myanmar during the democratic transition in the 2010s. But all that wa...

7 Jul 20221h 57min

Journey Into Renunciation

Journey Into Renunciation

Episode #110: Ariya Baumann’s spiritual journey began far away from the tropical surroundings of the Golden Land. She grew in a small town in Switzerland, among the snowy Alps. Raised in a Christian h...

30 Jun 20222h 2min

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