Kate Brooks
GRANTEE
Kate Brooks is an internationally acclaimed photographer and documentary filmmaker whose work has shaped global understanding for more than two decades.
She began her career in Russia, documenting child abuse in state orphanages—images later published worldwide and used by Human Rights Watch to advocate for orphans' rights.
Immediately after 9/11, she moved to Pakistan to chronicle the impact of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and the ripple effects of foreign policy across the Middle East, where she based herself for 15 years. Her images have earned numerous awards, exhibitions, and been extensively published in TIME, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Smithsonian.
In 2010 Brooks' passion for filmmaking was sparked while working as a cinematographer on the documentary The Boxing Girls of Kabul. Her introspective collection of essays and photographs, In the Light of Darkness: A Photographer’s Journey After 9/11, was selected by Photo District News as one of the best photography books of 2011.
In 2012-13, she was a Knight Wallace fellow at the University of Michigan. There, she researched the global wildlife trafficking crisis and directed her first feature-length film, The Last Animals.
