National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yüyan comes to Aspen

National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yüyan’s path has been anything but ordinary, and he has a message he wants to share.

It’s a message he will present through the Changemakers Speaker Series with “Indigenous Wisdom for a Modern World,” from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Oct. 20 at the Wheeler Opera House.

“Every time I do a talk, I am telling people something they didn’t know before — that’s the real joy of doing the work I do,” he said.

Yüyan is a National Geographic photojournalist and explorer. He won a National Geographic’s Eliza Scidmore Award for Outstanding Storytelling in 2023 based on a career of work. The award recognizes storytelling that connects immersive reporting with scientific understanding. 

Appropriately, he was out on assignment in Ecuador when he found out.

“There are all these ways specific regions do stuff, and that’s how conservation is accomplished, so it’s a really fun romp through all of these different places. Everyone has a really good time,” Yüyan said.

In Aspen, he is planning to share Indigenous approaches to caring for the planet and recite stories from his latest book, “Guardians of Life: Indigenous Knowledge, Indigenous Science, and Restoring the Planet,” published last February in Braided River. Bestselling author Charles Mann wrote the forward and Gleb Raygorodetsky is a contributing writer.

The book focuses on caring for the environment, with his own stories and previous works for National Geographic.

It shares narratives of “ecological knowledge, resilience and Indigenous stewardship.”

The presentation begins with a story of him singing to orcas to call them to his kayak, a technique his grandmother taught him. Yüyan is Chinese American with Nanai, also known as Hézhe — Indigenous ancestry.

“Indigenous knowledge is often in these forms that are very human, like singing to whales,” he said. “It brings people into that world, and from there, I go to all these different places and show how Indigenous knowledge works there, too.”

To create the book he envisioned, he needed money to travel to those places, and to pay for travel to the places the book required, Yuyan applied for a grant and received it. Research took about a year, and fieldwork took another two and a half years. 

“The argument that we are making in the book is that we should help these people do what they are doing since they are the best at it,” he explained.

He added that “Indigenous people continue to be the most effective conservationists on the planet.”

He said he also believes they are the most successful at it. 

Prior to becoming a National Geographic photographer, he spent 20 years building traditional kayaks and growing his relationships among Arctic communities.

“As a traditional layette builder, teaching people how to build a very complicated craft, you quickly learn how people learn. You have to translate this very difficult thing into someone who’s never held a drill before, so they can finish building a boat from wood,” he said. 

They would make a kayak in a week’s time. 

“So I learned a lot about how to teach people difficult concepts,” he said. 

His photographs have featured on National Geographic covers and in major publications, along with fine art collections like the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

His call to action is to promote conservation and ensure that the money going toward environmental causes actually goes to the Indigenous communities doing the work.

For more information and tickets, visit wheeleroperahouse.com/event/kiliii-yuyan-indigenous-wisdom-for-a-modern-world.