Zana Briski,
past participant in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence
program, won an Academy Award on February 27, 2005
for Best Documentary Feature. Her documentary is
titled Born into Brothels. Briski first began photographing
sex workers in Sonagachi, Calcutta in 1997, and
quickly formed a relationship with many of the
children of the prostitutes. She decided to give
them cameras and photography lessons, encouraging
them to capture images of their lives in the red
light district. This documentary depicts the transformations
that Briski and co-director Ross Kaufmann observed
among the children as they learned this form of
expression.
Briski participated in the Artist-in-Residence
program at Light Work in August 1998. During her
month-long residency, she worked predominantly
on a series of images on infanticide in India.
Her work is published in issue 102 of Light Work’s award-winning
photography publication Contact
Sheet. Briski’s
work is also included in Light Work’s permanent
collection, which is available online at www.lightwork.org.
Light Work, a non-profit, artist-run organization,
hosts twelve Artists-in-Residence per year. |
