A young woman learns to float in the Indian Ocean off of Nungwi, Zanzibar.
Swim instructor Kazija, 22, teaches Kijini Primary School students how to float in the Indian Ocean off of Muyuni, Zanzibar.
Kazija teaches girls how to kick their legs in the water in Muyuni, Zanzibar.
Students rest on shore after their lesson in Kendwa, Zanzibar.
Full-length swimsuit tops hang on a clothesline outside the home of Kazija’s mother in Nungwi, Zanzibar.
Swim instructor Chema, 17, snaps her fingers as she disappears underwater in Nungwi, Zanzibar.
Students line up on shore after learning to swim and perform rescues in Muyuni, Zanzibar.
Anna Boyiazis is an American documentary photographer based between Southern California — where she was born and raised by her family of Aegean Islanders — and East Africa. Her areas of focus include human rights, public health, and women and girls’ issues. Through her work, she aims to elicit compassion and bring our shared humanity to the fore. Her series “Finding Freedom in the Water,” featured by National Geographic (Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain, USA), received a 2018 World Press Photo Award. Anna is a contributing photographer for ESPN, GEO, Marie Claire, Médecins Sans Frontières, National Geographic, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Politiken, Stern, and UNICEF. Her exhibitions include the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery, London; DYSTURB #WomenMatter campaign against violence toward women, Preus Museum, Norway; and the Havana Biennial, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam, Cuba. Her work has been recognized by the Aaron Siskind Foundation, the Contemporary African Photography Prize, Médecins Sans Frontières, Pictures of the Year International, Prix Pictet, UNICEF, Vienna Peace Foundation (Alfred Fried Peace Image of the Year), Women Photograph + Nikon, and World Press Photo. Anna earned an MFA from the Yale University School of Art and a BA from the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.
Anna’s involvement with photography deepened in 2006, inspiring a mid-career transition into photography. She spent the early years of her career designing a variety of publications — predominantly books — in close collaboration with international art and architecture organizations. Projects included the design of Morphosis, architecture monograph by Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne (Phaidon Press), and Paradise Cage: Kiki Smith and Coop Himmelblau (The Museum of Contemporary Art [MOCA], Los Angeles). Anna taught at both Art Center College of Design and the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, and served a teaching fellowship at the Yale University School of Art, as Head Designer at MOCA and as Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome. Her design work was recognized by The American Center for Design, the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), and Communication Arts, among others. Her work is in the permanent collections of the AIGA Archives at the Denver Art Museum, the Art Collection of the Austrian Parliament, the UCLA Arts Library Artists’ Book Collection, the Yale University Art + Architecture Library, and the Yale University Sterling Memorial Library Arts of the Book Collection.
Comments