Pau Villanueva (he/they) is a Filipino photographer and visual storyteller whose works are an exploration of the human condition -- the discovery of self, of others, of the mountains of differences in between, and the empathy through which we cross them.
Pau is a 2020 National Geographic Explorer working on a documentary exploration that tells the stories of gender-expansive indigenous communities from Mindanao, exploring the intersectionality of queer and cultural identity in indigenous communities that have suffered from displacement, loss of ancestral land, and conflict. He is a National Geographic Society COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalist grantee in 2021 where he documented indigenous displacement and community coping during the pandemic and is co-leading a National Geographic Meridian Grant with a team of Explorers on cultural heritage through historical geo-inquiry.
Currently, Pau has been teaching photography to emerging storytellers, indigenous communities, and youth of color where he advocates for empowerment and inclusivity through the process of visual storytelling. He is a workshop facilitator and youth mentor for indigenous communities in North Cotabato, Mindanao, and a mentor at the Visual Storytelling Workshop at the 2023 Angkor Photo Festival 18th Edition. He is part of the National Geographic Photo Camp in Auckland, New Zealand as a Team Leader guiding Pasifika youth participants throughout the image-making process.
Pau is a mentee at the 2021 Women Photograph Mentorship Class, a participant at the PCP and PCIJ Capturing Human Rights Fellowship, and a participant at the 2019 Angkor Photo Festival 15th Edition in Siem Reap, Cambodia. He is a member of local and international organizations such as the National Geographic Society, Women Photograph, Diversify Photo, Authority Collective, and Photojournalists’ Center of the Philippines (PCP). He is an alumnus of the Visual Journalism program at the Asian Center for Journalism in Ateneo de Manila University (ACFJ) and a media fellow for the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) Media Programme Asia. Pau holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Visual Communication from the University of the Philippines - Diliman.