Xyza Cruz Bacani

Filipina documentary photographer Xyza Cruz Bacani’s striking images depict domestic workers caught in the depths of migrant labor and trafficking. Bacani’s black-and-white photographs—which capture her subjects at their most vulnerable—are inspired by her early experiences as a second-generation domestic worker in Hong Kong. Bacani received a Magnum Foundation Photography and Human Rights Fellowship in 2015, which she used to document Filipinx human trafficking survivors in New York City. Her award-winning photographs have been internationally exhibited and featured on the New York Times Lens Blog. Bacani was included in Forbes Asia’s “30 under 30” list in 2016; she has also earned grants from the Pulitzer Center and the WMA Commission. In 2018 Bacani published We Are Like Air, a compilation of her photographs documenting migrant workers and their families that is framed around her relationship with her mother, who escaped trafficking after two years of abuse.