Nine years after she left the Philippines and stepped foot in Hong Kong as a domestic helper, Xyza Bacani’s life has taken a new turn.
Bacani was recently named one of the recipients of the Magnum Foundation Fellowship for Human Rights with her latest, unpublished, images of the abuse suffered by domestic helpers in Hong Kong, and will be jetting off to New York in just a few months time to study at the prestigious foundation.
“Oh it changed my life 180 degrees. As of now I’m not working as a full-time domestic helper anymore, but I still do part-time with them because the kids are attached to me and I’m attached to them. So it’s more like a family thing, and I still need the money, yeah? So I still work for them as a domestic helper, but most of the time I’m doing some assignments and projects here and there. So it changed my life big time. And it’s my first formal education in photography so I’m very excited – finally getting an education. Yay!” she said.
The 28-year-old left her home village in Nueva Vizcaya, north of Manila, in 2006 to join her mother and help look after her employer’s six grandchildren. She soon began shooting photos with a camera bought with money loaned to her by her employer.
“There are lots of stories that are never heard or never known by people. So my goal is to plant more seeds of awareness through photography, by using photography. Because for me, awareness brings change the people. Somehow when they see a photo or a series of photos and they realize the context of these social issues, their perspective changes. And for me I think that this is my goal with this documentary I’ve been doing – to tell our stories,” she said.
Bacani said that she, together with Bethune House, a shelter for abused domestic workers in Hong Kong, had won a grant for an exhibition and book showing the plight of some of the 330,000 foreign domestic workers in the city.
Bacani’s images captured the attention of international media last year and her street photography work was featured on the New York Times Lens blog, drawing praises from acclaimed photographers around the globe.
A Hong Kong mother of two who punched her maids, beat them with mops and threatened to kill their relatives was jailed for six years last month in a case that triggered outrage and exposed the plight of millions of domestic helpers across Asia.
The brutality meted out to the maids has sparked calls for Hong Kong to revise its policies on migrant workers, who earn a small fraction of the minimum wage and are forced to live with their employers, often in tiny apartments. Human rights groups say they often suffer physical and emotional abuse, including sexual assault.
Bacani’s work has since been showcased at a number of exhibitions, and as of Sunday (March 22) is on display in Macau as part of the city’s Literary Festival.
The Macau Literary Festival’s vice-director, Helder Beja, said he heard about Bacani’s scholarship and thought she would be a perfect fit for the festival which brings literature, art and photography together.
“And then we decided to bring Xyza, but not only bring her but also invite her to be here and photograph the city, photograph the Filipino community, and we’ll be able to see the city through her lens, through her eyes. And she does have a very special way of looking to reality,” he said adding he hopes to hold an exhibition of the work she completes during her stay in the former Portuguese colony.
The exhibition is Bacani’s fifth exhibition, but first in Macau, and showcases Hong Kong’s solitude and intimacy, moments she describes as intrinsic to the city’s life.
The up and coming photographer also stressed how she did not want to only focus on the negatives, but also on hope and how people are in charge of their own destiny.
After five days in the Chinese gambling hub, she will have another exhibition in Hong Kong before heading to Abu Dhabi for a project sponsored by the University of New York.
She starts her scholarship with the Magnum Foundation in New York in May and says she has already received offers for projects during her three month stay there.
(Reuters)
