In conversation... with Marissa Roth

'In conversation...' is an on-going series from the Royal Photographic Society in which leading individuals talk about how they use photography as photographers, artists, scientists, educators, publishers and curators.

Marissa Roth is an internationally published freelance photojournalist, documentary, and fine art photographer. Her assignments for prestigious publications including The New York Times, have taken her around the world. Roth was part of The Los Angeles Times photography staff that won a Pulitzer Prize for Best Spot News, for its coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.

Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions and a number of images are in museum, corporate and private collections. One Person Crying: Women and War, Roth’s 35-year personal photo essay that addresses the immediate and lingering impact of war on women in different countries and cultures around the world, is currently an international travelling exhibition, with a forthcoming book. Infinite Light: A Photographic Meditation on Tibet is also a current project, and a traveling exhibition. The book, with a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, was released in April 2014. The Crossing, a poetic photographic study of the north Atlantic Ocean, taken with color transparency film, was published in November 2019, and will be a forthcoming exhibition.

A commissioned portrait project by The Museum of Tolerance/ Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, to photograph the Holocaust survivors who volunteer there, Witness to Truth, is on permanent exhibition at the museum. As curator, she created an exhibition comprised of photographs taken by Vietnam Veterans during the war, entitled, My War: Wartime Photographs by Vietnam Veterans, which debuted at The Highground Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park in Neillsville, WI, in August 2016. Roth is currently curating a retrospective exhibition about Frank Hurley, the esteemed Australian photographer whose legacy is anchored by his iconic photographs of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 Endurance expedition to Antarctica. The exhibition will debut in 2023.

Roth has three additional books to her credit, Burning Heart: A Portrait of The Philippines, Real City: Downtown Los Angeles Inside/Out, and Come the Morning, a children’s book about homelessness.

The 'in conversation' will be followed by a public Q+A. Questions will be taken by Zoom chat or can be emailed in advance.   Register using the booking button, right. Your confirmation email will be accompanied by a PDF attachment giving the Zoom link and further details. 

Main image: © Marissa Roth / Afghan Refugee Women and Children
Thal, Pakistan, 1988. From the book ONE PERSON CRYING: WOMEN AND WAR, 1984-2019, forthcoming.