Celine Murillo turns loss, curiosity and reciprocity into a practice that blurs storytelling, science and care for nature and the world in fragile balance
There are people who choose their work, and there are those whose work becomes the shape of their life.
For Celine Murillo, the distinction dissolved long ago. Long before she appeared on social media feeds with contemplative videos on biodiversity and belonging, she was a child tucking a torn page of Salvador Espinas’ poem Soothing as Night Winds Are into every wallet she owned. It was a talisman she carried through her school years, a reminder that stories could hold a person steady.
Years later, that instinct for story found its way into the mountains. Murillo had begun hiking with her spouse, Dennis, in the wake of her mother’s death in 2014. The landscapes they moved through offered space for grief and, unexpectedly, a path towards something larger: a deeper awareness of the fragility and generosity of the places they loved.
Travel followed. Photography followed. Writing followed. And slowly, something else emerged—an obligation to protect, or at least to bear witness.
“The exposure to so much beauty and generosity engendered a necessity to ‘protect’, a feeling of reciprocity—it was instinctive,” she says. “And so throughout the years, as we travelled farther and further, our work got deeper and more intersectional. Mine, in particular, has taken on several forms in a span of a decade, and I know it will continue to change as we go. But always, it is in service of the planet and the world that we hope to create.”
Today, she is an award-winning Filipino environmentalist and nature storyteller, reaching two million followers across Tiktok, Facebook and Instagram, turning bite-sized videos into a gateway for learning about Philippine biodiversity and natural heritage. Through her content, she encourages Filipinos to value native species, championing a kind of cultural and environmental “decolonisation” where the country’s flora and fauna are seen as treasures rather than curiosities to be compared with the foreign.
Her early years online were defined not by strategy but by necessity. She was travelling, living out of a van and growing increasingly frustrated by what she saw on the ground: damaged ecosystems, threatened communities and the steady, unremarked disappearance of the living world. Short-form video, almost by accident, became her medium. Not because she wanted a platform, but because she wanted more people to see what she and Dennis were seeing. “Inform, never fame,” she says of those years.
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The work—if it can be reduced to such a simple word—has never been static. Murillo’s practice is fluid, shifting between science communication, narrative nonfiction, photography, cooking, poetry and gentle provocations to pay attention. What remains constant is her commitment to reciprocity, care and the belief that another world is possible. These values, inspired in part by early influences like the Nineties science show Sineskwela and later by nature writers such as Robert Macfarlane, anchor every piece she creates.
Yet, there lies a clear-eyed awareness of structural limits. Funding, she says, remains the most persistent challenge. She and Dennis have been selective with partnerships, choosing autonomy over expansion, integrity over convenience. It has kept their work grounded, but it has also demanded difficult trade-offs. As they explore ways to take their practice beyond digital spaces, they continue to weigh potential collaborations against their nonnegotiables, aware that widening reach must not dilute the message.
