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Item Description

I am a New York based event photographer, and am donating one evening of my time (up to 4 hours!) to document your next event (NYC area only). I have experience with everything from arts and cultural events, panels and political events to private parties and family portraits. I will give you a DVD with over 100 photos from the evening, as well as edit images for your website or blog!

http://suzannafinley.com

Item Special Note

Suzanna Finley is a Brooklyn-based artist, currently freelancing as an event photographer with non-profits in the New York metro area. Her work has included events with the Asia Society, Urban Glass, and NYC Fair Trade Coalition. She also does non-traditional family portraits and contract projects for non-profit organizations.

Her most recent photographic adventure was a trip to Guatemala in April 2010, where she traveled widely and became fascinated with the myriad of traditional textiles woven by different indigenous groups. With  the help of 'Eco-Quetzal' a non-profit based in Coban, the artist arranged a home stay with an indigenous Guatemalan family in the tiny village of Chicacnab, a two hour hike from the nearest road. The Guatemalan civil war of the 1990's has left much of the indigenous population isolated and impoverished, living in a paradox stuck somewhere between the modern and the traditional, their crafts and culture world renowned, but their own communities remain fragmented, subjugated, and often impoverished. Suggeseted reading on the topic: I Rigoberta Menchu.

Suzanna graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in December 2008, and departed in January 2009 for a three month long project in South Asia. The artist spent six weeks in Bangladesh, volunteering with Grameen Bank, a Nobel Prize winning micro-finance organization and UBINIG a grassroots development organization well known for its work in the organic farming movement Nayakrishi Andolon.

During her travels she documented alternative movements in the textile industry, Bangladesh's largest export industry, from Grameen's knitwear factory in the Export Processing Zone to UBINIG-supported handloom-weaving studios. Much of the artists focus for her work with Grameen & UBINIG was based on a research project she completed at Sarah Lawrence entitled “Textile Production in Bangladesh: Viable Development Strategy or Further Subjugation of the Poor?” The primary focus of her work addresses questions of representation, particularly how the developing world is represented in Western media and art. The artist hopes her work can serve as a bridge, helping people connect across boundaries of race, religion, economic circumstance and nationality. This body of work serves as an introduction between American consumers and Bangladeshi workers.