Quote: "The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don't belong. It gives me both a point of connection and a point of separation."
Susan Meiselas joined Magnum Photos in 1976 and became a full Member in 1980.

Susan Meiselas
American, b. 1948

Susan Meiselas' first major photographic essay focused on the lives of women doing striptease at New England country fairs. She photographed the carnivals during three consecutive summers while teaching photography in the New York public schools. Carnival Strippers was published in 1976, and a selection of the images was installed at the Whitney Museum of Art in June 2000.

Meiselas received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College, New York, and her MA in visual education from Harvard University. She joined Magnum Photos in 1976. Best known for her coverage of the insurrection in Nicaragua and for her documentation of human rights issues in Latin America, her second monograph, Nicaragua, June 1978-July 1979, appeared in 1981.

Meiselas edited and contributed to El Salvador: The Work of 30 Photographers and edited Chile from Within, which features work by photographers living under the regime of Augusto Pinochet. She has co-directed two films: Living at Risk: The Story of a Nicaraguan Family (1986) and Pictures from a Revolution (1991) with Richard P. Rogers and Alfred Guzzetti. In 1997 she completed a six-year project curating a 100-year visual history of Kurdistan. Her 2001 monograph, Pandora's Box, which explores a New York S&M club, was followed by Encounters with the Dani, an account of an indigenous people living in Indonesia's Papua highlands.

Meiselas received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for 'outstanding courage and reporting' from the Overseas Press Club for her work in Nicaragua; the Maria Moors Cabot Prize from Columbia University for her coverage of Latin America; and, in 2005, the Cornell Capa Infinity Award. In 1992 she was named a MacArthur Fellow.

Education

1970 Bachelor of Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, USA
1971 Master of Arts (Visual Education,) Harvard University, USA
1986 Honorary Doctor in Fine Arts, Parsons School of Art, New York, USA
1996 Honorary Doctor in Fine Arts, The Art Institute of Boston, USA

Awards

2005 Cornell Capa Infinity Award, ICP, New York, USA
1995 Rockefeller Foundation, Multi-Media Fellowship
1994 Hasselblad Foundation Photography Prize, Goteborg, Sweden
1994 Maria Moors Cabot Prize, Columbia Journalism School, NY, USA
1992 MacArthur Fellow, USA
1987 Lyndhurst Foundation
1985 Engelhard Award, Institute of Contemporary Art
1984 Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, USA
1982 Photojournalist of the Year Award from the American Society of Media Photographers
1982 Leica Award for Excellence
1979 Robert Capa Gold Medal, Overseas Press Club

Exhibitions

2006 Open Eye, Liverpool, UK
2004 Scout Gallery, London, UK
2004 Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago, USA
2004 Rose Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2003 FOAM, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2002 Canal de Isabel II, Madrid, Spain
2000 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA
1998 Leica Gallery, New York, USA
1994 Hasselblad Center, Goteborg, Sweden
1990 Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
1984 Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
1982 Camerawork, London, UK
1982 Side Gallery, Newcastle-on-Tyne, UK
1981 FNAC Gallery, Paris, France
1977 AM Sachs Gallery, New York, New York, USA

Collections

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA
Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA
Hasselblad Center, Sweden
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
Birmingham Museum of Art, Al, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, USA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SF, USA
The Art Institute of Chicago, USA
St. Louis Museum of Art, USA
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, USA
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, USA
Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Ma., USA
University of California, Riverside, USA
Baltimore Museum of Art, USA
Haverford College, Pennsylvania, USA
International Center of Photography, NYC, USA

Books

2003 Encounters with the Dani, ICP/Steidl Verlag, USA/Germany
2001 Pandora’s Box, Magnum Editions/Trebruk, Denmark
1997 Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History, Random House, USA
1990 Chile From Within, W.W. Norton, USA
1983 El Salvador: The Work of 30 Photographers, Pantheon, USA
1981 Nicaragua, June 1978 - July 1979, Pantheon, USA
1976/03 Carnival Strippers, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, USA; Steidl, Germany
1975 Learn to See (a collaboration with the Polaroid Corporation), Polaroid Foundation, USA

Films

1991 Pictures from a Revolution, co-directed & co-produced with A.Guzzetti & R.P. Rogers,
distributed by Kino International
1985 Living at Risk, co-directed & co-produced with A.Guzzetti & R. P. Rogers,
distributed by New Yorker Films
Voyages, directed by M. Karlin, writing & photography by Meiselas, produced for
Channel 4, England