Posted September 26, 2019 by MENTAL IDEAS! Entertainment

Ricky Sadiosa Travels World in Footsteps of Philippine National Hero Dr. Jose Rizal

Mental Ideas’ globetrotting Resident Photographer Enrique (‘Ricky’) Sadiosa has spent 5 years traveling the world in the footsteps of Philippine national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal. He’s produced a documentary film and taken thousands of photographs for publication in his latest 500-page ~~door stop~~ coffee table book.

Originally from the Philippines, Ricky accidentally ran to be President of the Philippines in 2010 after he showed up to take photos of the presidential selection process and accidentally got ushered into the wrong room. Instead of being surrounded by journalists, he found himself surrounded by presidential hopefuls. Despite being woefully unprepared, Ricky couldn’t resist the opportunity to have a crack at running for president himself. He improvised a campaign speech on national television and duly progressed to the next three stages of the contest. He was eventually disqualified. But ONLY for having spent just 3 days in the Philippines that year. (MENTAL NOTE: If you want to run for President of the Philippines, you have to have been resident there for at least a week.) Bummer.

In fact, Ricky has an uncanny talent for showing up in a place just as history is about to get made. (The conspiracy theorists among you have every reason to be suspicious.) While tracing Dr. Jose Rizal’s footsteps to Paris, no sooner had he landed and made his way to Notre Dame, it burned down. But it did give him an opportunity to take this sad picture…

Having documented the Umbrella Revolution in 2014, Ricky coincidentally returned to Hong Kong the day the 2019 Extradition Protests started. He’s been out on the streets night and day since then, mingling with protesters and police, trying to capture the complexity and energy of the protests on camera in an unbiassed way. Mental Ideas has been out and about documenting Ricky documenting the protests. (What could possibly go wrong!)

Mental Ideas is working with Ricky as our newest recruit and Resident Photographer on two new art projects, ExperiMENTAL and Healing Hong Kong. Both projects will culminate in art and photography exhibitions at our new premises in Hong Kong early next year and we want you to get involved! Ricky will also be taking part as a guest on our Mental Ideas Podcast after he came out with this off-the-cuff corker: “I’ve often wondered if passion isn’t a form of mental illness?” Ummm? And just like magic, a new episode of the Mental Ideas Podcast was conceived!

In 2017, Ricky was shortlisted for the Hong Kong Justice Centre‘s Human Rights Art Prize for his contribution to photo journalism. You can view Ricky’s photographs of the protests on Mental Ideas here: https://mentalideas.org/2019/09/25/hong-kong-protests-in-pictures/

Ricky’s documentary about the international travels of Dr. Jose Rizal will be screened for the first time in Hong Kong early 2020. His 500-page coffee-table book goes to printing Oct 2019. He’s just made this 7-min preview: