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]!”

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Access Denied

Access Denied

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Flavors of Freedom

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Episode #164: Yunanda Wilson has warm memories not only of the scrumptious fish noodle dish—known as mohinga—that her grandmother was famous for, but also its place in her family history. Her grandmot...

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The Inconvenient Truth about the Military Coup

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Episode #163: Jack Jenkins Hill, a PhD student at the University College London, joins the show to discuss the state of capitalism and the deteriorating environment in Myanmar. Hill has spent the last...

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Contrasting Iran and Myanmar

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Episode #162: Pardis Mahdavi, Provost and Executive Vice-President as well as professor of anthropology at the University of Montana, joins the conversation to talk about the growing discontent and pr...

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The Rohingya Refugee Crisis

The Rohingya Refugee Crisis

Episode #161: Dan Sullivan, the Director of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East at Refugees International, joins this episode to discuss the challenges facing the Rohingya community. Most of the world b...

25 Apr 202352min

U Gambira

U Gambira

Episode #160: U Gambira was a 29-year old monk in 2007 when he helped foment the initial protests that grew into what came to be known as the Saffron Revolution. After running away from home because o...

21 Apr 20231h 59min

The Harmony of David Lai

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Episode #159: “As soon as the coup started, the first thing in my mind was how we, the people of Myanmar, had lost our future, and are going back to old times, which weren't good.”This was David Lai’s...

14 Apr 20231h 21min

Ayya Yeshe

Ayya Yeshe

Episode #158: Following a family tragedy when she was just a teenager, Ayya Yeshe set off on a spiritual journey, becoming a nun in a Tibetan lineage at just 23. However, she soon learned that female ...

7 Apr 20232h 11min

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