I'm Marielle Racoma, founder of an award-winning animal rights organization “Our Endangered PH”, singer-songwriter, conservation photographer, and plus-size model.

 

I’ve always been very creative and had a knack for documenting everything-manifested in my professional work and pursuits.

 

I come from a musical family, learning to play the piano from a toy keyboard my father gifted me as a child. It became such a thrill to me that I took multi-instrumental training for piano, guitar, drums, and voice. And even though I didn’t continue those lessons leading into adulthood, I like to think that it’s just a matter of muscle-memory and playing by ear to me.

 

I used to write lots of poetry growing up, and it was only until quarantine in 2020 that I was compelled to explore different talents I never even knew I had; one being songwriting. I have officially released five songs on Spotify, Apple Music, and Soundcloud (which you may find on the Music page). I currently have over twenty lyrics and thirty-somewhat more poems that I will someday (maybe) release.

 

I grew up being very fond of animals as well; having pet ducks, chickens, and a dog I named Harlow, who I rescued from the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) in 2019. Given the opportunity to conceptualize a project, in this case, my senior thesis for Ateneo de Manila University, I knew I wanted to do something about photography. But I didn’t know what to focus on. My mother stumbled on an Animal Scene magazine while she was getting her hair done at the salon; she handed it to me and I came across a page about the Philippine Pangolin-how it is one of the most trafficked species in the world and is critically endangered. It hit me right then and there that I could integrate my love for documentation and passion for animal rights, and that became “Our Endangered PH.” The universe works in funny ways because today, I am now featured in the same magazine that started it all.

 

Fashion has also been such a huge part of my identity and I used to dream of somehow working in the industry. In 2022, photographer “Calla Studios” and I connected on Instagram and ended up shooting a month after! I loved the photos and her work so much that I reached out to her again to take my digitals a year after. It was a pivotal moment for me as I realized I could actually be in the fashion industry on my own terms: through modeling.

 

The term “plus-size” has such a negative connotation to it, and it’s something I actively try to combat with my work. A few months after shooting my digitals, I joined an Open Call by the ModelRev, just for fun. I ended up being shortlisted as Top 50 out of thousands of applicants around the country.

 

If you asked me five years ago where I’d see myself or what I’d see myself doing, I would have looked at you with a blank stare. But slowly, I’ve been making it a point to try different things and put myself out there.

 

I’m not so sure how to conclude this, but I will leave you with an excerpt from a poem I wrote: 

 

“And I’d be proud to say that I have lived both the mundane and the exciting and these two are not opposites but partners. For if life shall be a wonder, we must also know dullness. And in the absence of youth, we learn to live long enough to accept that growing old is the only path to growing up.”