Documentary photographer Susan Meiselas, whose work features in Conflict, Time, Photography discusses her illustrious career in photojournalism with curator Simon Baker. An associate of Magnum Photos for over 30 years, Meiselas has been published and exhibited internationally, receiving the Robert Capa Gold Medal for her work in Nicaragua, The Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship and most recently was awarded the Harvard Arts Medal in 2011.
Biography
Susan Meiselas joined Magnum Photos in 1976 and has worked as a freelance photographer since then. She is best known for her coverage of the insurrection in Nicaragua and her documentation of human rights issues in Latin America both in photography and film. Her first major photographic essay focused on the lives of women doing striptease at New England country fairs and features in the Exposed exhibition. She was editor and contributor to the book El Salvador: The Work of Thirty Photographers (Writers & Readers, 1983) and edited Chile From Within (W.W. Norton, 1991). In 1997, she completed a six year project curating a 100 year photographic history of Kurdistan, resulting in the book Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History (Random House, 1997; reprinted by the University of Chicago Press, 2008). Honorary awards of recognition include the Robert Capa Gold Medal for “outstanding courage and reporting” by the Overseas Press Club for her work in Nicaragua (1979) and most recently the Cornell Capa Infinity Award (2005). In 2009 she won the LUMA book award at Rencontres de Arles for Susan Meiselas, In History (ICP/Steidl, 2008). She was named a MacArthur fellow in 1992.