“I’m not saying old ideas are sh*t, they’re just boring,” shrugs Wawi Navarroza, an enigma wrapped in a 5-foot frame. The culprit responsible for the bold, instinctive photographs that have been exhibited in galleries all over the world, and for the haunting vocals of the Late Isabel, a band that bewitches the music locale to this day with the promise of a resurrection. You would have never guessed it was the pixie who did it. With a camera and a filtered cigarette. In a rented apartment in Brooklyn, New York. New York because that’s where she was for four months prior to her last exhibit, while on a fellowship grant from the Asian Cultural Council-Silverlens Foundation.

“The place really felt intense. The gravity is undeniable,” exclaims Wawi. From her own words it’s easy to see that this little toaster had found her way home: “You really do get a sense that something great is always unfolding. I mean it's not everyday I pass by CBGB’s or Allen Ginsberg's house, see Kim Gordon strum that bass, watch Merce Cunningham’s opus (apparently his last), or stand just a few inches away from my favorite Kippenberger painting, a Man Ray photogram, or a full-blown exhibition of Sophie Calle at Paula Cooper, you know. Then there's the subway, the great beast of New York, the abandoned warehouses in Brooklyn, the skyline, the minutiae of city stories and what goes unnoticed.  Imagine the madness of being offered a generous plate of possibilities!  And it all depends how much of the Apple you wanna bite.” And bite she did, channeling that energy into something she could take home with her when the crazy, rollercoaster ride ended. “Basically, I was there to engage, have fun, get lost, soak it all in—being mindless and mindful at the same time. I think you go there to scrape the insides of your skull, you know,” shares Wawi. “Since 2008 I was feeling [that] something was at work, a passage. A cycle was over and it was time to shed skin. Being there in New York has, of course, underlined this. It's the perfect place to seek and destroy,” she finishes, wearing her cool and quiet flair like a perfect pair of worn-out jeans.
 
Needless to say, she had the inevitable breakthrough. The resulting exhibit, Perhaps It Was Possibly Because, was a series of non-photographs: off-center, subject-less images that challenge the medium itself. Wawi messes with the focus, bringing it back to the problem of the four-sided frame. Because we were never really looking at the photo, were we? We were looking at the details, “the who was that? The where was it taken?” supplies Wawi. “This is fine, initially, but we shouldn’t stop at that because it limits our enjoyment/appreciation of pictures. My work disturbs this usual expectation for a clear-cut ‘subject’ or ‘theme,’ or the spectacle of exhibition or an emotional kick, or to be wowed with skill and craft often expected of a ‘professional photographer.’But you don’t get to flip off the rules of photography and hang out with Yoko Ono for nothing. (Oh wait, did I forget to mention Yoko gave her some art with the words,  “I. Love. You. You have to give this back to me after ten years”? Silly me.) Wawi’s clocked in her hours in the dark room, first by necessity for Comm class in DLSU, and later by talent and damn good stars when she apprenticed for the great magnum lens-man, Antoine d’Agata. “I remember, from the start, I was deeply fascinated with the whole photography process, ‘specially the darkroom.  I would skip meals and spend days on end in the lab, mixing chemicals, making the prints, dodging, burning, dancing in the dark, watching images emerge on the photographic paper. It was a romantic affair. I was obsessed.” And this is no tale of unrequited love. Test shots with friends, became cover shoots with artistas, became solo shows raved about by the artistes and critics. It must be the way she moves—or shoots, rather. “I shoot drunk; I edit sober,” states Wawi, in attempt to paraphrase her own unpunctuated style. And it turns out it’s all for a greater cause. “I want us to pay attention to The Photograph as integral to contemporary art.  Since images surround us and is very much a part of our lives, I think it’s a good thing to learn how to be literate with looking at pictures.” But don’t think she’s forgotten her first love. “Music’s such an ecstatic release and what’s unique about it is this high can be shared to the audience in real time, with an urgency that is hard to explain,” says Wawi. “What did Jim Morrison say? An “electric marriage”?  When both musicians and a quivering throng of listeners can feed off the same energy at the same time, you know, as if you were given a piece of Sky…” So whatever happened to the Late Isabel? “The Late Isabel is up to some dirty lil’ tricks,” she divulges with a little smile. “We never really disbanded, packed up, and called it a night. TLI’s back again in the gig circuit and busy in the studio finishing our new album Imperial to be released this year. Watch out for the reckoning!”

If you’ve started to think you’ve answered this particular question mark: “There isn’t one method to the madness,” is Wawi’s reply. And the fast-approaching horizon is as varied as a return of the (very) Late Isabel with a fully evolved, sophomore album (“Isabel has stepped out of her cocoon and into the streets—she went out and put her shades on. This one has more kick to it; it’s rough on the edges and in your face”), a show in Italy, a couple collabs with artists like Costantino Zicarelli, and a teaching gig at a local university. Whatever the stratagem for navigating the terrain, one thing’s for sure: if madness spells “Wawi,” then the Philippine art scene is happily headed to the crazy house.

Q&A with Wawi Navarroza:

1. My first camera was: Canon EOS100 35mm SLR film camera which I nicked from my dad

2. The first picture I took was: a still life for a school assignment (Death, H.P. Lovecraft, Cthulu goblet, a handpainted bottle, and a bunch of roses…oh so Goth, momma I know)

3. My favorite song to sing in the bathroom is: Tori Amos’ Professional Widow
The best music to listen to while shooting or working is:

- Darkroom: “Bohemian Rhapsody” really loud
- Studio Shoot:  Sonic Youth, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Peaches, The Dead Weather
- In front of the Mac, editing: Radiohead, Devendra Banhart, Nine Inch Nails “Ghosts”

4. Unforgettable moment in NYC: It felt monumental to be there when Michael Jackson died.  The world stopped.  And New York heaved.  And, somewhere in Brooklyn, there I was cooking my tofu adobo.

5. Favorite place to shoot:  behind glass
Photographers that inspire me: John Baldessari, William Eggleston, Jeff Wall, Wolfgang Tillmans, Andy Warhol, Sophie Calle, Araki, Stephen Gill, Idris Khan, all the “Pictures Generation” artists/photographers who emerged from the 70s along with conceptual art

6. Pet peeves:  “nice” “interesting”, mga inggitera at maaarte at mga bastos, mga k*pal at mga buwaya, salbaje, cretino

7. One thing most people don’t know about me:  I’m a fake Jew

8. My secret dream is to one day: make books, build a multi-media library and laboratory, launch my spaceship, and be a good astronaut

9. My alter ego is:  mushroom or Russel Brand’s tralala