Susan Meiselas

Susan Meiselas is a documentary photographer who lives and works in New York. She is the author of Carnival Strippers (1976), Nicaragua (1981), Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History (1997), Pandora’s Box (2001), Encounters with the Dani (2003), Prince Street Girls (2016), A Room Of Their Own (2017), and Tar Beach (2020).

She has also co-edited two published collections: El Salvador: Work of 30 Photographers (1983) and Chile from Within (1990), which was rereleased as an e-book in 2013. In addition, she co-directed two films — Living at Risk (1985) and Pictures from a Revolution (1991) — together with Richard P. Rogers and Alfred Guzzetti.

Meiselas is well known for her documentation of human rights issues in Latin America. Her photographs are included in both North American and international collections. Among her many honors, she was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1992, received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2015, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize in 2019, and the first Women in Motion Award from Kering and the Rencontres d’Arles.

Her survey exhibition Mediations, which spans her work from the 1970s to the present, has been shown at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Jeu de Paume, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Instituto Moreira Salles in São Paulo.

Since 2007, Meiselas has served as President of the Magnum Foundation, which supports, trains, and mentors the next generation of in-depth documentary photographers and promotes innovative photographic practices.