Matilde Simas – Human rights, cybersex + trafficking

My name is Andrew Walmsley and your listening to episode 172 of photography insights. This is the show that interviews people from the photography world.

Today we get to talk about documentary photography and about subject that is worth you knowing about. When I first approached Matilde Simas about her work I was interested in her approach and how she worked given the difficult subject. So to better explain Matilde is a documentary photographer from Boston in the USA. Matilde is a graduate of psychology, a humanitarian (founded Capture Humuanity which we discuss) , parent and photographer. The work is all about human rights and has had her work across galleries around the world.

Matilde herself is a lovely person and the work is about careful thought of representing this subject matter, It’s been achieved with some class, dignity and respect of the survivors of trafficking. Trafficking is one of the subjects we have heard about but don’t always know much about. There maybe some sad parts to the interview as it’s pretty emotional stuff hearing about this, but I urge you to carry on.

You can see more of her work and the countries she has been to on her website and this will provide a better focus of the problems in that area. It’s not something that is happening in third world countries either, it happens everywhere as you will hear!

We also approach the topic of the Massai warriors and female genital modification too, which again is another human right issue in many countries. Having choice is not always clear or straight forward, despite the health concerns.

So in this one: