Sai Versailles


Multimedia Journalist

Manila Community Radio volunteers Sai Versailles and Sean Bautista explore artistic influence, individual agency, and community by immersing themselves in the world of budots, a Filipino grassroots dance music genre.

A controversial drug raid leads to the closure of a dance club in Manila, leaving a music subculture lost and scrambling.

Filipino food is gaining worldwide popularity. But as the diaspora grapples with the country's multicultural history, the cuisine's identity is yet to be established.

With the demolishing of Capitol Theatre, one of Manila’s last remaining art-deco theaters, the city’s cultural landmarks face a precarious future as it finds its footing in a transforming urban landscape.








Photographer
01 — Editorial
Click image to view full project




02 — Portraits



Dub and ambient techno
Featured on RA’s Mix Of The Day

Dance film scores and soundtracks  

R’n’B, hip-hop, soul, afrobeat




Biography

Sai Versailles’ work traverses the fields of art and journalism.

As an indepenent multimedia journalist, her reporting is rooted in a decade-long archival practice spanning text, image, video, and sound, investigating the sociopolitical dynamics of people’s everyday lives and communities.

As a multi-genre selector under the name Versailles, her chameleonic approach takes reference from literature and cinema. Versailles’ clubsets shuffle through densely layered repetitions of a tough and swinging sound informed by her cross-generational understanding of dance music.

Versailles is a resident of Refuge Worldwide, and a volunteer of Manila Community Radio.

She holds an MPhil from the University of Oxford, and has participated in public discussions on issues of art, culture, and creativity throughout Europe and Asia.


Press

Feature
Resident Advisor, 2023.


Feature
Vogue Korea, 2023.


Feature
Vogue Philippines, 2023.


Feature
Mixmag Asia, 2023.


Podcast interview
Dead Air Podcast, 2022


Interview
Mixmag Asia, 2021.


Feature
Out Of Print, 2021.


Podcast interview
Monday Off Radio, 2020


Feature
nolisoli.ph, 2019.


Vogue Philipines, May 2023
Shot by Sharif Hamza