Xyza Cruz-Bacani seemed almost destined to follow in her mother's footsteps to become an overseas domestic worker. While working in Hong Kong for an Australian family, however, she discovered a talent for street and documentary photography. While photographing under-reported stories in Hong Kong that highlighted labor and migration issues, her own life was transformed. Her work, with its distinct and unrelenting black-and-white visual language, was soon recognized, and she became a Magnum Foundation Fellow at New York University Tisch.
The Hong Kong-based young photographer has exhibited around the world, and won many awards. Most recently she was named one of Asia Society's Asia 21 Young Leaders (Class of 2018). In 2018, her work We Are Like Air was published to critical acclaim.
Presented together with FTW Foundation and Harvard Club of the Philippines