John Yayen is a Filipino nurse and visual artist who draws inspiration from lived experience to explore human journeys and connection. Through his drawing and multi-media practice, he explores what it means to belong, how people carry their identities when uprooted, and how they grow in the new soil wherein they are transplanted.
By using participatory and narrative-based approaches, he invites audiences to pause and listen to each other, with the hope of fostering understanding. Now based in the UK, he is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society of Arts, and advocates for cross-sector collaboration and creative health as a driver of social change.
During his residency with ASCP in 2026, Yayen worked with international colleagues across CCI to create Entanglement, a series of 40 portraits celebrating the stories and experiences of migrants working in the biodiversity and conservation sector.
