I Want the Viewer to Ask Himself – What Am I Not Seeing?

Abstract

An interview with renowned photographer Susan Meiselas, President of the Magnum Foundation and a member of the Magnum Agency, reveals the breadth of her 50-year career, which has seen her document social, ethnic, religious and wartime conflicts, expose the stigmatized work of strippers before that, and later focus on documenting domestic violence against women. In doing so, she has always sought to continuously expand the field of photography, to remind us of its context and of what remains left out. She keeps coming back to her subjects, incorporating their narratives into her projects, establishing long-term relationships and pointing to what is happening beyond the moment captured in the photographs. Her exhibitions combine photography, video, sound and installation, and she publishes updated editions of her sold-out books to broaden the view. She became known for her work in Latin America in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when she followed, among other things, the unrest and revolution in Nicaragua. We spoke on the occasion of the opening of her exhibition Mediations at the Jakopič Gallery.