Connecting the Dots with Kiliii Yuyan

The National Geographic photographer discusses his unique body of work, which tells the stories of human communities connected to the land.

Watch the video interview above, or scroll down for the podcast version.

One of our current grantees is the Fundación Sobrevivencia Cofán, an Indigenous-led organization working to protect the Cofán-Bermejo Ecological Reserve. Shortly after awarding our grant, we asked the FSC to share some pictures of the Cofán-Bermejo Reserve. We were very happily surprised to learn that the stunning images they sent us were taken by photographer Kiliii Yuyan, whose work we've been following over the past few years. 

We're obviously not alone in this respect to Kiliii's work. As an award-winning contributor to National Geographic Magazine and other major publications, his stunning images have become powerful conveyors of the stories of human communities connected to the land. Kiliii's work offers an exploration of the human relationship with the natural world from different cultural perspectives. But this approach and Kiliii's biography are inextricably connected. Raised by refugee parents in the US, informed by ancestry that is both Nanai/Hèzhé (East Asian Indigenous) and Chinese-American, photography was, as he puts it, "one of the ways that would bring me home".

Jim Kambeitz, a member of Azimuth World Foundation's Advisory Committee, guides the conversation.