Susan Meiselas

"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

The recognition of this world is not the invention of it. I wanted to present an account of the girl show that portrayed what I saw and revealed how the people involved felt about what they were doing.

… If the viewer is appalled by what follows, that reaction is not so different from the alienation of those who participate in the shows.

-Excerpts from the introduction by Susan Meiselas published in her first book, Carnival Strippers, July 1976

Carnival Strippers

Susan Meiselas1974USA. Barton, Vermont. 1974. Lena in the motel.

Susan Meiselas1975USA. Fryeburg, Maine. 1975. Between shows.

Susan Meiselas1975USA. Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 1975. Backstage.

Susan Meiselas1974USA. Tunbridge, Vermont. 1974. Afternoon tease.

Susan Meiselas1974USA. Tunbridge, Vermont. 1974. Gawker.

Susan Meiselas, 1973USA. Woodstock, Vermont. 1973. Teen Dream.

Susan Meiselas 1974USA. Barton, Vermont. 1974. Shortie on the Bally.

The Prince Street Girls

I was the stranger who didn't belong. Little Italy was mostly for Italians then. The girls were from small Italian-American families and they were almost all related.

Sometimes they would reluctantly introduce me to their parents if we met in the market or the pizza parlor, but I was never invited into any of their homes. I was their secret friend, and my loft became a kind of hideaway when they dared to cross the street which their parents had forbidden. I

started photographing them in the spring of 1975…

'The Prince Street Girls' began as a series of incidental encounters; I would photograph them when I could. At the beginning I was making

pictures for them. They'd see me coming and yell, 'Take a picture! Take a picture!' By 1978, they were changing, and I wanted to capture them

growing up.

-Susan Meiselas, excerpt from artist’s statement, Magnum Photos

Susan MeiselasUSA. New York CIty. 1978. Pebbles, JoJo and Carol on the A train.

Susan MeiselasUSA. New York CIty. 1978. Little Italy. Ro and Pina in front of their home on Mott Street.

Susan MeiselasUSA. New York City. 1976. Little Italy. Carol, JoJo and Lisa hanging out on Mott Street.

Susan MeiselasUSA. NYC. 1976. Little Italy. Dee and Lisa fight on Prince Street.

Susan MeiselasUSA. New York City. 1976. Little Italy. Dee and Lisa on Mott Street.

Susan MeiselasUSA. NYC. 1976. Little Italy. Ro, JoJo, Dee and Lisa leaving St. Patrick's School.

Susan MeiselasUSA. New York City. 1976. Little Italy. Carol, Pina and Lisa.

Susan MeiselasUSA. NYC. 1975. Little Italy. "The Prince St. Girls".

Susan MeiselasUSA. New York CIty. 1978. Little Italy. Tina with Julia on Mott Street.

“I think photography has a huge potential to expand a circle of knowledge. There’s a reality that we are all the more linked globally and we have to know about each other. Photography gives us that opportunity.”

-Susan Meiselas

Overseas Documentary Work

Nicaragua

Car of a Somoza informer burning in Managua, 1978. © Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos

A funeral procession for assassinated student leaders. Demonstrators carry a photograph of Arlen Siu, an FSLN guerrilla fighter killed in the mountains three years earlier, Jinotepe. © Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos

Wall graffiti on Somoza supporters house burned in Monimbo, asking "Where is Norma Gonzales? The dictatorship must answer," Monimbo, 1978. © Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos

Children rescued from a house destroyed by 1,000-pound bomb dropped in Managua.They died shortly after, 1979. © Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos

Kurdistan

Families return to the ruins of their homes after the Iraqi army forced them to leave in 1989, Qala Diza, Liberated Kurdistan, 1991. © Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos

Dr. Clyde Snow, internationally known forensic anthropologist, holds the blindfolded skull of an executed male teenager estimated to be between 15-18 years old. The skull was found with two bullet holes in his head, Kurdistan, December 1991. © Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos

Widow studying mass gravesite found in Koreme, Kurdistan, June 1992. © Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos

Photographs of 20-year-old Kamaran Abdullah Saber are held by his family at Saiwan Hill cemetery. He was killed in July 1991 during a student demonstration against Saddam Hussein, Kurdistan, 1991. © Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos

All images © Susan Meiselas/ Magnum Photos