"Filipino Market" (an ongoing project), my very first series of the project "Markets Worldwide" entangles unresolved problems left over by history and the uncertain future of the people.
I stumbled upon the Filipino Market during the week of my leisure trip to Sabah, Malaysia in Oct 2018. This is one of the markets that tourists would visit and enjoy food, which was also the reason why it first brought me to the market.
However, while I was roaming around the market, I started to question why quite a number of children were hanging around in the market on a regular school day, some work as child laborers in the market. My curiosity led me to the second and third visits to the market within my travel week to photograph (I was shooting with an old film camera from my father as I was traveling light in that leisure trip and it was an unplanned photoshoot.)
I also started to do some research and realized that the children were the second and third generations of Filipino refugees that escaped to Sabah in the early 1970s due to the government forces and Muslim secessionist rebels in the southern Philippines.
Up to date, many still lack an identity and therefore do not attend schools.
