Marion is a Filipino community organizer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Queens, New York.
He cut his teeth in the streets, documenting and organizing with the Filipino National Democratic movement and the W.O.W. Project. In 2017, he started a portrait project of queer Asian-Americans, which inevitably led him into the QTBIPOC nightlife and drag scenes in New York. Informed by his own experience as a trans person of color, Marion uses his camera to immortalize queer joy as a form of liberation.
He has shown work internationally at The Wing Luke Museum, Red Hook Labs, The San Diego Filipino Film Festival, and at MSU Meranaw Cultural Center in Mindanao, Philippines.
In 2025, he was in the inaugural cohort for the “Be Like Water” fellowship at Baxter Street Camera Club for Asian-Americans photographers. In addition to taking photos, he has also taught photography workshops in New York and the Philippines.
He now works for the NYC Commission on Racial Equity as the Senior Community Organizing & Engagement Associate and serves as the commission’s LGBTQ+ Coordinator.
Catch him at the club.
He’ll dance with you and take your picture too. 💋
hitmeup@marionaguas.com
Marion Aguas
hitmeup@marionaguas.com
OCCUPATION:
NYC Commission on Racial Equity
Senior Community Organizing & Engagement Associate,
LGBTQ+ Coordinator
EDUCATION:
M.P.S. in Fashion Photography, June 2017 –
School of Visual Arts, New York
B.S. in Physiological Sciences,
Minor in Music History, June 2012 –
University of California, Los Angeles
EXHIBITIONS, SCREENINGS, & PANELS:
2026 Wild Schools, Visions/Panawin Focus on Philippine Cinema @ NYU Sulo, NY
2025 Worn Worlds: Acts of Repair and Threads of Peace in the Wake of Discard @ MSU Meranaw Cultural Center, Mindanao Philippines
2024 Chinatown is a Site for Resistance: Borough Based Liberation Project Co-hosted by CAB + WOW Project @ Chinatown, NY
2023 Chrysalis: Curated by Kiera Johnson + Mischelle Moy @ Persona NYC, Brooklyn, NY
2023 Archive as Memorial: Documenting A/P/A Voices During COVID-19 @ Storefront for Ideas, Chinatown, NY
2022 WE ARE ONE, Celebrating the 1982 International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union Strike @ Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Race & Ethnicity, NY
2022 Filipinx Excellence @ TROPA TROPA TROPA!, MoodRing, Brooklyn, NY
2022 Female Gaze @ Praxis Gallery Minnesota, MN
2021 Queens Solidarity Festival @ Rainey Park, Queens, NY
2021 Margarita Island @ Queering Film Film Festival Brooklyn, NY
2021 Margarita Island @ San Diego Filipino Film Festival San Diego, CA
2020 Photography & Mental Health Panel @ Photo Café / Seeing Collective, Brooklyn, NY
2020 Asian Pacific American Feminisms, Wing Luke Museum, Seattle, WA
2018 Authority Collective Showcase, Brooklyn, NY
2018 SVA MPS Photography Graduate Show, Red Hook Labs, Brooklyn, NY
2017 Exploration of the Elements: Water, Theory Flagship Store, New York, NY
2017 Water Portraits, Fast Retailing Gallery, New York NY
AWARDS:
2022 Honorable Mention for “In My Good Light” @ Praxis Gallery: Female Gaze
2017 Paula Rhodes Memorial Award for Distinguished Alumni SVA
SELECT PUBLICATIONS:
TIME, Vogue, PAPER, Vanity Fair, Philippine Daily Mirror, Asian American Arts Alliance, galdem, VICE, Womanly
SELECT CLIENT LIST:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Lincoln Center, NEW Museum, Abrons Art Center, Mellon Foundation, Henry Street Settlement, National Queer Theater, Eataly, Eventbrite, Planned Parenthood Greater New York, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Wing on Wo and Co., W.O.W. Project, Asian American Feminist Collective, Bubble_T, Whorechata, Luna Park Coney Island, Brooklyn Navy Yards, OurPlace