SUSAN MEISELAS
American
One of the leading women photojournalists of the
late twentieth century, Susan Meiselas is known for
her uncompromising, often disturbing, but sympa-
thetic documentations of subcultures considered
tawdry and people suffering the atrocities of war.
Her work has been hailed as offering a new type of
photojournalism, where the subject speaks for him-
self or herself through the inclusion of his or her
voice in interviews or extended titles.
Born in Maryland in 1948, Susan Meiselas grad-
uated with a degree in Anthropology from Sarah
Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York in 1970,
before completing a Master’s Degree in Visual Edu-
cation at Harvard University in New Haven, Con-
necticut. While at Harvard, she took her first
photography class. She also worked as an assistant
editor to renowned documentary filmmaker, Freder-
ick Wiseman. Between 1972–1974, Meiselas used
photography as an educational tool, organizing
workshops for teachers and young children from
the South Bronx, New York. During this same per-
iod, Meiselas spent her summers documenting strip-
tease acts at carnivals in New England, Pennsylvania,
andSouthCarolina.Interestedinwhatmotivatedthe
women performers, most of whom hailed from small
towns in America, Meiselas photographed them
behind the scenes, and recorded their stories. By
virtue of her sex, she was automatically excluded
from attending the male-only shows. To photograph
the women on stage, she disguised herself as a man.
As carnival strip shows have now largely vanished,
the resulting body of photographs forms a valuable
sociology document.
WhenCarnival Stripperswas first exhibited in 1975
it was accompanied by a sound track derived from the
recordings that Meiselas had made. When it was pub-
lished in book form in 1976, 75 black-and-white
photographs were reproduced and juxtaposed with
transcribed extracts from those recordings. Signifi-
cantly, the selected quotations were not intended as
captions, but as parallel or complementary narratives
to the photographs. In 2003, a revised edition ofCar-
nival Strippers, including an audio CD, was published.
Carnival Strippers was considered an important
body of work not only for its sympathetic portrayal
of women considered part of the underbelly of
society, but also because it marked Meiselas’s entry
into Magnum Photos and signaled the start of her
career as a freelance photographer. She was nomi-
nated to join the agency in 1976; she became a Mag-
num Associate in 1977 and a Full Member in 1980.
The project is also crucial to understanding the way
in which Meiselas works. Characteristic of Meiselas’s
documentary method is the manner in which she
encourages people to speak for, and about, them-
selves—a skill that derives, perhaps, from her training
in anthropology and her work in education. Her
experimental use of image and text differs from the
convention of photograph-plus-caption, which she
explored to great effect in subsequent projects, such
asNicaragua: From June 1978–July 1979(1981),Kur-
distan: In the Shadow of History(1997), andEncoun-
ters with the Dani: Stories from the Baliem Valley
(2003). Her purpose is to expand the experience of
the photographs, and so engage more fully with the
viewer and the people whose lives she documents.
Meiselas’s book,Nicaragua, is now regarded as a
watershed in photojournalism. She traveled inde-
pendently to Nicaragua in the late 1970s, before the
popular insurrection was launched. When political
upheavals reached a crisis point and the media
began to take notice, Meiselas’s pictures were pub-
lished internationally. Interested in producing a
longer-term, more reflective response to the situa-
tion, she continued to make photographs in the
area. As the book title makes explicit, the images
inNicaraguadate from June 1978 and July 1979.
They chronicle the overthrow of General Anastasio
Somoza Garcia by the Sandinistas. As examples of
war photography or photojournalism, these images
are unusual, both in terms of format, and in the
way in which they are organized as a publication.
One way this project differs from other examples of
the genre is that Meiselas shot in color. Although
not the first time images of war were made in color,
the saturated, seductive hues sit edgily with the
often tightly framed images of conflict, fear, and
death. But more significant is the manner in which
the book is organized. Divided into two sections,
the first part sequences photographs with no cap-
tions, obliging the reader to experience the chaos
and confusion of the insurrection and its originsMEISELAS, SUSAN