Burning Heart

Photographer Marissa Roth says "I saw the Philippines in terms of light: luminous, reflective, hard, and deeply shadowed. Filtering that light was the constant heat and humidity, a deceptive sensual salve, masking a country scarred by violence and pain." Her unflinching photographs uncover the importance of religion in the Philippines, as well as the social inequality, dire poverty, overpopulation, and ingrained class system that are all part of daily life.

The poetry of Jessica Hagedorn reinforces these realities, but also shows that the simple pleasures we all experience as human beings - dancing, eating, rejoicing, laughing - are not absent from Philippine life. Together, these images and poetry are a deeply affecting vision of a country and its people.