The Sony World Photography Awards 2025 has announced Susan Meiselas as the recipient of the prestigious Outstanding Contribution to Photography award. This honor recognizes her profound impact on the medium over the past five decades, celebrated for her deeply engaged approach to documentary photography.
Meiselas has expanded the boundaries of the genre with her sensitive portrayals of individuals within their communities, focusing particularly on the lives and struggles of women. From girls growing up in New York’s Little Italy to survivors of domestic violence in the UK, Meiselas’ work highlights often unseen lives through powerful storytelling.
Meiselas’ body of work spans numerous significant projects. Notable among these are Carnival Strippers (1972-75), which captured the experiences of women performing at New England carnivals, Prince Street Girls (1975-1990), documenting a group of young girls in Little Italy as they grew into adulthood, and A Room of Their Own (2015-2017), which portrays the lives of women in a refuge in the Black Country, UK, offering an intimate look at their stories through photographs, testimonies, and original artwork. Other seminal works include Pandora’s Box (1995), which focuses on a New York City S&M club, and 44 Irving Street (1971), where Meiselas invited her boarding house neighbors to write about their perceptions of themselves in relation to the portraits she created of them.
In recognition of her immense contribution to photography, an exhibition of Meiselas’ work will be held at London’s Somerset House from 17 April to 5 May 2025. This retrospective will feature five of her projects, including Prince Street Girls and Carnival Strippers, with some pieces never before exhibited in the UK. These projects are united by recurring thematic elements, shedding light on the intimate and often hidden dynamics of everyday lives, as Meiselas’ long-term, participatory approach provides an unparalleled look at the people and places she documents.
Reflecting on receiving the award, Meiselas expressed her gratitude, “I am honoured to receive this Award for my contribution to the ever-expanding world of photography. Over the past 50 years, I have had the privilege of witnessing history being made, sharing the often unseen lives of those engaged in its making. The work on display invites reflection not only on the photographs themselves but also on the relationships that shaped and inspired them.”
Meiselas, born in Baltimore in 1948, is renowned not only for her photographic essays but also for her work documenting the revolution in Nicaragua in the late 1970s, which remains deeply etched in the public’s imagination. She joined Magnum Photos in 1976 and has since produced a body of work that has reshaped how we think about documentary photography.
As the 18th recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award, Meiselas joins a distinguished list of previous honorees, including Mary Ellen Mark (2014), Martin Parr (2017), Graciela Iturbide (2021), Edward Burtynsky (2022), and Sebastião Salgado (2024). Meiselas will be presented with the award at the annual gala ceremony in London on 16 April 2025, during the celebration of the overall winners of the Sony World Photography Awards 2025.
For more information on the event and upcoming announcements, visit www.worldphoto.org
