Hosted by Silverlens Galleries founder Isa Lorenzo, the podcast series is about exploring how artists, entrepreneurs, writers, and visionaries make sense of the world—and how the rest of us can see it differently through their eyes.
Isa Lorenzo and I first met at the turn of the millennium inside a small house in Quezon City that served as the office of The Probe Team. We were both hired as production assistants on Cheche Lazaro’s travel show.
I had every reason to be a PA. I was fresh out of college, with no connections and very little experience. Isa, meanwhile, had graduated from the country’s most prestigious medical school: The UP College of Medicine. She was a licensed doctor and was even the president of her class.
Yet there she was beside us, transcribing cassette tapes, figuring out betacam edit machines, and eating lunch at the neighborhood carinderia. Isa never had any airs or carried herself with a sense of entitlement. She was just one of us: eager to learn and always ready to listen.
The television stint didn’t last very long for Isa. She moved to New York to pursue photography and eventually found her true calling in the art world. Today, she is known as the co-director of Silverlens, a gallery that has helped bring Filipino contemporary art to the international stage.
Isa and I managed to keep in touch through the years. I always cherish our chats because Isa often asks questions that make you reconsider what you thought you knew.
Once during our Probe days, Isa invited our group of PAs to their house in Baguio, where most of us spent hours just agonizing about our future. Isa patiently listened, no doubt amused by all our drama. At one point, she turned to me and asked very casually, “Don’t you want to be more rebellious?”
It wasn’t the kind of question that demanded an answer. It demanded reflection. I remember writing it down in my journal, and over the years found myself returning to it during different seasons of my life.
That’s Isa. She has a gift for asking the kinds of questions that stay with you long after your chat ends. When she asked me early this year to help produce Creative Encounters, it felt less like starting something new and more like picking up a conversation we had simply paused years ago.
To me, this podcast isn’t simply about creativity. It’s about curiosity. It’s about exploring how artists, entrepreneurs, writers, and visionaries make sense of the world—and how the rest of us can learn to see it differently through their eyes.
In the pilot episode, Cheche Lazaro shares with Isa how her former grade school principal encouraged children to paint the sun in whatever color they imagined, planting the seeds for the journalist’s lifelong belief that creativity has no single correct answer.
In another episode, designer Bea Valdes reveals how their renowned design company may actually trace its roots to a childhood cookie business.
These aren’t just charming anecdotes. They’re reminders that creative lives are often shaped by the smallest moments—moments that become visible when someone knows how to ask the right questions.
Watching Isa host the podcast also reminded me of something I had already known for years. She is thoughtful without being intimidating, insightful without being self-important, and genuinely interested in the person sitting across from her.
As a result, the conversations feel less like interviews and more like invitations—to wonder, to imagine, and to rethink. Some people make art. Others help us understand why art—and creativity itself—matters. Isa has always done both.
And after knowing her for almost three decades, I have a feeling the rest of the world is about to discover what many of us have known all along.
Creative Encounters with Isa Lorenzo, a new video podcast series produced by Manila Media, brings together a curated roster of artists, designers, architects, writers, and leaders whose work defines contemporary Filipino culture. Catch it on Spotify, Apple, and Youtube.
