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the camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera

                           Dorothea Lange

About Marta Malaspina

At the age of 12, I started learning to see the world through a lens. I took pictures with old analogue cameras – the same devices that I use to take and develop photos today. During these early years, I discovered a love of the road, of the journey, and of capturing life through photography. I went on to study Middle Eastern and International Relations and Linguistics, attending classes at the Centro Sperimentale di Fotografia – CFS Adams in Rome. 

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During my studies, I was introduced to the human rights complexities facing the Middle East. I then moved to the region to pursue a career in the field.

My desire to report from the field has developed during my time in the region, where I have spent eight years as a humanitarian worker. At the same time, I have been contributing as a freelance photojournalist to several newspapers, including Al Jazeera, Al Monitor, La Repubblica, Ansa, Il Fatto Quotidiano, Dinamo Press, and Galileu Magazine. My photojournalistic work has so far focused on the refugee crisis, examining the obstacles facing individuals over their journeys to different host countries.

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As part of my role as a humanitarian worker for international NGOs and UN agencies, I have led several emergency and development programs in Jordan and Northern Iraq that seek to support women and refugees, with a special focus on the empowerment and social integration of war-wounded persons with disabilities and mental health challenges. My roles focused on project management, external relations and communications.

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In 2020, after several years away from the academic world, II went back to studying and I graduated with a MA in Global Media and Communications at SOAS University of London.

My work and research focused on human rights, digital activism, social justice, transnationalisms and idenities. 

 

Fluent in Italian, Arabic and English, I am currently serving as a Digital Marketing and Engagement Officer for a UN agency operating in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank. 
 

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“Our world, seemingly global, is in reality a planet of thousands of the most varied and never intersecting provinces. A trip around the world is a journey from backwater to backwater, each of which considers itself, in its isolation, a shining star. For most people, the real world ends on the threshold of their house, at the edge of their village, or, at the very most, on the border of their valley. That, which is beyond is unreal, unimportant, and even useless, whereas that which we have at our fingertips, in our field of vision, expands until it seems an entire universe, overshadowing all else. Often, the native and the newcomer have difficulty finding a common language, because each looks at the same place through a different lens. The newcomer has a wide-angle lens, which gives him a distant diminished view, although with a long horizon line, while the local always employs a telescopic lens that magnifies the slightest detail.” 


― Ryszard Kapuściński, The Shadow of the Sun

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