“Unbroken Spirit — Muslim Filipinos in Time of War” taken during several trips to Maguindanao and Cotobato before September 2001. Depicted here are scenes from the battlefields of then Moro Islamic Liberation Front-controlled territories in Maguindanao, including rebel strongholds Camps Abubakar and Raja Muda, and the altered lives of ordinary Muslim Filipinos forced to stay at refugee camps in North Cotabato.
These scenes,are “repeated again and again every time conflict ensues between the MILF and the government.”
Indeed, then, as now, the decades-old war has seen no just end. Then, as now, peace has remained elusive for our Muslim brothers and sisters in Mindanao.
As a Filipino who faces racial discrimination in America,I can easily understand why Muslim Filipinos continue to struggle for justice and equality in their own land.They deserve better and they need a lasting peace.
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RICK ROCAMORA has won awards for his images and picture stories from Asian American Journalist Association, SF Bay Area Press Photographers Association, New California Media, Media Alliance; he was awarded a California Arts Council Art Fellowship and a Local Bay Area Heroes Award from KQED and Union Bank of California for his work about Filipino WW II Veterans. His work is widely exhibited in national and international museums and galleries. His work is part of a collection of American arts most recently exhibited at the Court of Saint James in the United Kingdom and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. His work is included in the traveling exhibition “Points of Entry-A Nation of Strangers,” which was exhibited at the Smithsonian, Center for Photographic Arts, Museum of Photographic Arts, and other venues. His images are part of “Pork and Perks - Corruption and Governance in the Philippines” a National Book Award winner in the Philippines in 1994. “Second-Class Veterans” a film produced by Don Young that profiled Rocamora’s undying efforts to document the day-to-day lives of Filipino veterans was broadcast on PBS stations in 2003 and 2004. His book about Filipino WWII veterans, "America's Second-Class Veterans" is scheduled for publication before the end of 2008. He is also working on a project about Muslim-Americans after 9/11.
Solo and Group Exhibition
Smithsonian, Museum of Photographic Arts, Center for Photographic Arts, Jewish Museum, Gorman Museum,
San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco Airport
Commission Gallery, Oakland Museum, University of California Berkeley, University of California Los Angeles, University of California Santa Barbara, SF State University, Manila Town Heritage Gallery, US Embassy - London and Tokyo etc.
San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco Airport
Commission Gallery, Oakland Museum, University of California Berkeley, University of California Los Angeles, University of California Santa Barbara, SF State University, Manila Town Heritage Gallery, US Embassy - London and Tokyo etc.