Kisha Bari Photography Presents

How Sandy Hit Rockaway

Featuring Kisha Bari

Curated by Kisha Bari and Sam Barzilay

Almost a year after Hurricane Sandy hit the coastal areas of New York and New Jersey, the road to recovery is still long and hard. With so many images in the mass media depicting landscapes of devastation and disaster immediately after Hurricane Sandy, How Sandy Hit Rockaway focuses on the people affected by the disaster and the unique obstacles to recovery facing each individual. This powerful collection of emotive human faces aims to bring to light the ongoing humanitarian issues of recovering after such an event. From public housing residents stuck in mold ridden apartments to small business owners paralysed by their insurance and displaced families stuck in a hotel limbo for months on end, each of the residents have a unique issue or story that needs to be told. The people in this ongoing series are not just a picture on a wall or a fleeting news story. We need to identify with these individuals and think about our own human story and the relationship to the people of Rockaway recovering from an enormous natural disaster and the issues at hand.

Related Programming:

Panel: Superstorm Sandy: Photographers Perspectives

Kisha Bari is an internationally celebrated photographer. Born in Melbourne, Australia, her work has been published in an array of outlets, including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, Esquire and GQ. After gaining recognition as a music photographer, she is now shifting her photographic focus on to social issues with the aim of creating imagery that inspires emotional, social and political impact.

Kisha began her career by documenting skateboarding culture in Melbourne, Australia. At 19 she began publishing a weekly extreme sports and culture column in BEAT magazine and shooting for a variety of Australian sports publications. As her career developed, she turned her attention to behind-the-scenes portraits of the music industry in both Australia and New York. She has toured with multiple Australian and American bands, shot internationally acclaimed album covers and released two independent photography books.

Kisha earned a professional degree in commercial photography at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, in 2005. She has shown her work in several group and solo exhibitions and her photographs have won multiple awards globally. In 2010, Kisha moved to New York and began working as a project manager and photographer for the Impossible Project, whilst simultaneously capturing the city’s rich music industry.

Currently, Kisha is exploring photography as a method to inspire social change and civic engagement. She is a core contributor and educator for Sandy Storyline, a participatory documentary about Hurricane Sandy, and the creator of the website How Sandy Hit Rockaway.