Lola Abrera

Michaela Lola Abrera is a visual and media anthropologist, a writer, a producer, an editor, and a photographer. She has also worked as a presenter and scriptwriter for the Living Asia Channel, as well as managing editor for BBC Top Gear Philippines and GH Magazine Philippines.

Caught in the chaos of a volcanic eruption, Lola realized at the tender age of eight that life was meant to be an adventure. Covering everything from subversive rap battles to social issues, Lola’s writings have appeared in numerous print and online publications such as The Manila Bulletin, FHM Philippines and Women’s Health Magazine. Her film ‘Unseen Objects‘ was exhibited at the Humboldt-Lab Dahlem, as part of FU MA in Visual and Media Anthropology and Humboldt-Lab Dahlem’s “Re-Imagining the Museum Workshop” developed by artist and filmmaker Lidia Rossner.

A self-declared “punk for life”, Lola once managed a folk-punk band and produced an underground comic book. Lola is currently pursuing an MA in Visual and Media Anthropology at the Freie Universität, Berlin. She is passionate about issues related to migration, transnationalism, visual storytelling, the anthropology of stigma, transcultural cinema, memory, post-colonialism, emerging digital and filmmaking technologies, anthropology of media, and participatory action research (PAR). She is also the founder and organizer of The First Reel: Philippine Film Festival Berlin and a member of Polology, a collective made up of artists, writers, filmmakers, and anthropologists.

Michaela Lola Abrera has lived in the Philippines, Hawaii, San Francisco and Berlin.

Her adventures have taken her to the U.S.A., the UK, the Netherlands, the Philippines, the Czech Republic, Greece, Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), China, Morocco, Singapore, and South Africa.

Website: http://lookingforlola.flavors.me/
Portfolio of selected work: http://lolaabrera-portfolio.tumb