OFW-turned-photographer Xyza Bacani to exhibit with NY-based foundation

Xyza Cruz Bacani, the Filipina maid-turned-photographer, will be the first Filipino to exhibit with international grant-making network Open Society Foundations in its New York galleries.

Bacani is one of 10 artists who will be featured in the 24th iteration of Open Society's Moving Walls exhibition series, Here We Are: Visual Resistance and Reclaiming Narratives.

In addition to having her work featured in the exhibition, she will be part of the inaugural class of Open Society Moving Walls grantees who will be awarded funding to continue or start new work that intersects art and social change.

Bacani's work will feature migrant workers in Hong Kong and New York "who have survived labor trafficking" while her grant will be used on a new project on "the role of education in promoting peaceful coexistence within the context of conflict in the southern Philippines."

The 30-year-old photographer came to Hong Kong to work as a domestic worker with her mother at age 18 and began her career by taking photographs while on trips with her employer and on her days off.

She made it to Forbes magazine's "30 Under 30 Asia List" in 2016 in the Arts category and won several photography awards for her work with domestic workers, including the Magnum Foundation Human Rights Fellows award.

Here We Are will be open to the public at Open Society's New York offices from October 4, 2017 to July 20, 2018. —Rie Takumi/KBK, GMA News