A STUDENT from the University of the East was named as the only Asian fellow of C/O Berlin and StrudelMediaLive on Creating Environmental Portraits That Tell Powerful Stories.

Anjella Gieneena Cruz, a fourth-year Bachelor of Fine Arts major in Visual Communication student, received the festival’s Heather B. Mattera Scholarship.

Cruz submitted her work titled “Narratives of Internally Displaced Women through Participatory Photography” in applying for the scholarship.

“As part of the scholarship, Miss Cruz was required to attend all the sessions online in Eastern time. She also created six photo sets for the whole program, centering on the Filipino queer experience,” UE said.

“Miss Cruz also presented this during the first week of the session and since different nationalities have diverse perceptions about queerness, she created a visual and observational narrative about the topic to further understand the culture of queer individuality in the Philippines,” it added.

The New York-based online educational program guided international students in telling stories about people by photographing them in their own environments and how to incorporate space to reveal intimate details.

The scholarship covers full tuition for a StrudelMediaLive class, which features a private mentoring session with Anja Hitzenberger, an Austrian visual artist working mainly with photography, video, and installation.

“Today, she continues to undergo mentorship and focus-group discussions with her fellow scholars, to provide counseling for her upcoming thesis on the anthropological narratives of internally displaced women,” UE said.