At the Thomson Reuters Anti-Slavery Summit last month, visitors were captivated by the images of Lisa Kristine. In this article, Reuters‘ reporter Sarah Lazarus talked to the humanitarian photographer about her work.
The photographer has the remarkable skill to make people who are living in some of the ugliest of circumstances appear beautiful.
“We meet at the Asia Society, the venue for August’s Thomson Reuters 2017 Anti-Slavery Summit. The first question I ask is, what’s her secret – how does she do it?”
“I feel like I arrive to people with an open heart, and that creates a sense of comfort that allows people to show their true, authentic selves to me,” she says. “My aim, always, is to show their dignity. My work is born of trust and intimacy.”
There was a time when Kristine knew little of modern slavery, but while she was exhibiting her work at the 2016 Vancouver Peace Summit, her eyes were opened to the magnitude of the horrific issue. The Global Slavery Index at the time estimated that there were about 45.8 million victims living in some form of slavery, and 168 million of them were children. Today, more people are enslaved than at any other time in world history.
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