RIDING THE WAVES OF ACTIVISM

From Hawaiians battling for their sovereignty to long-haired hippies safeguarding the planet, surfers have been politically active for centuries. Now, young surfers in Asia are fighting for a better future

- Salomé Grouard

Tatler speaks to surfers from across the region about how an interest in surfing is leading the charge on issues as diverse as body positivity and challenging postcolonial legacies.

PHILIPPINES

ARCHIE GEOTINA

Anticolonialism 

During the Covid-19 pandemic, with the borders closed and the beach emptied of tourists, the surfing community on the island of Siargao suffered. Siargao-based surfer and artist Archie Geotina’s friends, professional surfers and sisters Ikit and Aping Agudo, shared with him their worries about their income. “I told them, I’m not a businessman, I can’t help you make money,” he tells Tatler. “But I can try to create something.”

It was the perfect opportunity for Geotina to shift the focus onto the local surfing community, a group of people who are usually underrepresented on Siargao’s beaches, he says. “People think that our waves are only surfed by foreigners and that locals just stay on the beach taking care of businesses to serve tourists. That’s a really imperialist vision that continues to negatively impact our people.

“Surfing has a deep history of white-washing and racism. I really wanted to take the opportunity to show our pride: I wanted to empower the brownness in us, as well as the femininity of our culture.”

To challenge the postcolonial narratives of what it means to be Filipino, Geotina dubbed his project Pearls, a reference to a line from the national anthem, “Perlas ng silangan”, that translates to “pearl of the east”.