Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist Statement

As a trauma journalist, I write intimately about the lives of the dead, the disappeared, and the families left behind, using immersive reporting and literary narrative as a means to imagine the human cost of armed conflict, natural disasters, and various other forms of violence. 

While at Headlands

In 2016, the newly elected Philippine government launched a war against drugs, with the promise to “kill them all.” The toll continues to rise. Many of the dead are suspected addicts and drug dealers. More than five thousand were killed by police, allegedly in self-defense. I was an investigative journalist working for an online news agency named Rappler. My editors, in spite of a concerted effort to shut the company down, actively supported the publication of more than two dozen narrative dispatches from the field in a series called Impunity. 

I began writing a book on the drug war in mid-2019. I plan to begin editing the manuscript while at Headlands, where I look forward to exploring the possibilities of storytelling and language in a community of artists.

Selected Works

Execution at Cessna, in Rappler, September 2016
Text by Patricia Evangelista
Photos by Carlo Gabuco
Design by Dominic Gabriel Go
Edited by Chay Hofileña

In the Name of the Father, in Rappler, December 2016
Text by Patricia Evangelista
Photos by Carlo Gabuco
Design by Dominic Gabriel Go
Edited by Glenda Gloria
With research by Rambo Talabong

Where the Drug War Began, in Rappler, April 2017
Text by Patricia Evangelista
Photos by Carlo Gabuco
Design by J.Y., Jenny Ma, and Bryan Young
Engineering by Dominic Gabriel Go and Kris Karras
With reporting by Kimberly dela Cruz, Rambo Talabong, and Jodesz Gavilan

This is Where They Do Not Die, in Rappler, November 2017
Text by Patricia Evangelista
Photos by Carlo Gabuco
Mapping by David Garcia
Data Analysis by Katerina Francisco and Sofia Tomacruz
Design by Dominic Gabriel Go
Edited by Chay Hofileña
With research by Kimberly dela Cruz, Alex Evangelista and Jodesz Gavilan

The Fifth Man, in Rappler, November 2017
Data Analysis by Katerina Francisco and Sofia Tomacruz
Design by Dominic Gabriel Go
Edited by Chay Hofileña
With research by Kimberly dela Cruz, Lian Buan and Alex Evangelista

Land of the Mourning, in Esquire Philippines, December 2013
Text by Patricia Evangelista
Photographs by Rick Rocomora and Carlo Gabuco
Edited by Erwin Romulo

Photo by Carlo Gabuco.