Susan Meiselas: Mediations

“For me, the essence of documentary photography has always been to do with evidence.” ―Susan Meiselas

A member of Magnum Photos since 1976, Susan Meiselas became known for her work in the conflict zones of Central America in the 1970s and '80s and for the strength of her color photography. Covering many subjects and countries, from war to human-rights issues and from cultural identity to the sex industry, Meiselas uses photography, film, video and sometimes archive material, as she relentlessly explores and develops narratives integrating the participation of her subjects in her works. Meiselas constantly questions the photographic process and her role as witness.

Presenting a selection of works from the 1970s through the present day, Susan Meiselas: Mediations retraces her trajectory from the 1970s to the present. Published to accompany a major traveling retrospective of the photographer’s work, it features an illustrious list of contributors that includes Ariella Azoulay, Eduardo Cadava and Kristin Lubben, among others.

Susan Meiselas (born 1948) studied at Sarah Lawrence College and Harvard University, taking up photography in the early 1970s. She is credited with being one of the first to work with color in documentary photography, a controversial decision when she was shooting the conflict in Nicaragua in the late 1970s. Meiselas joined Magnum Photos in 1976 and has worked as a freelance photographer since then.

Mediations brings together a selection of series from the 1970s to the present, calling attention to Meiselas’s photographic approach and her lifelong commitment to engage in a “cycle of return” with her subjects, going back to the communities she has photographed and sharing the work with them. (PDN's Notable Photo Books of 2018)

Mediations shows the range of Meiselas’s subjects, from carnival strippers, girls in her Little Italy neighborhood in New York (the “Prince Street Girls”), a refuge for women in England, and the aftermath of the Kurdistan genocide in 1991. (Emily Wilson Hyperallergic)

Exceptional, giving a taste of the breadth of her work. (Mark Murrmann Mother Jones)

a meditation on the threads that weave the complex tapestry of Meiselas’ career. (Sara Rosen Huck)

Meiselas remains an inspiration for any self-conscious photographer. At the centre of her work is a perpetual discussion around the purpose and relevance of photography, the use and distribution of images and their effects on history and memory. (Clara Hernanz Dazed)

if you can’t make it to see her genre-defining photographs in person, pick up the book and look behind the scenes of one of America’s photographic living legends.” (Morgan Sykes New York Magazine)

Using photography, film, video, and archive material, Meiselas presents a comprehensive narrative of the subjects in her work, constantly raising questions about the role of the photographer as a witness and the subject as a participant. (Juxtapoz)