Writer and photographer to present their work documenting sex workers

Publication Date

By: Maura Driscoll '15

On Tuesday, April 29 from 2 to 4 p.m., Tiana Markova-Gold and Sarah Dohrmann will present a reading and slideshow in Old Chapel based on their work, "Scenes et Types," documenting the lives of sex workers in Morocco, exploring the complex nature of choices Moroccan women are faced with. A dinner with the artists will follow at 6:30 p.m. in Beuth House.

Dohrmann is a former Fulbright fellow now based in Brooklyn, N.Y. where she is a Workspace writer-in-residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She and Markova-Gold were co-recipients of the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University for their project on prostitution in Morocco, which will be featured in Harper’s Magazine.

Additionally, Dohrmann has also been a New York Foundation for the Arts’ fellow of Nonfiction Literature and a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study grantee for Literature. Her work has been featured, or is forthcoming, in The Iowa Review, TIME LightBox and British Journal of Photography among others. Currently, she is working on a creative non-fiction book titled Point of Departure.

Markova-Gold is a freelance photographer and visual artist whose work, since 2007, has focused on the experiences of women in prostitution worldwide. She has traveled extensively and documented social issues faced by girls and women such as sexuality, empowerment, marginalization, representation and choice.

Her photography has been recognized in numerous contests, such as Pictures of the Year International and the New York Photo Awards, as well as included in exhibitions at the Sasha Wolf Gallery, New York Photo Festival and HOST Gallery in London, among others. Several fellowships and grants have been awarded to Markova-Gold for her work on prostitution in the United States, Morocco and Macedonia, including a Camera Club of New York Darkroom Residency and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Photography. Her first solo show, Scénes et Types opened in April 2013 at the Camera Club of New York.

This event is co-sponsored by the Africana Studies, Economics, English, History, Sociology, Visual Arts and Women and Gender Studies Departments, as well as the Minerva Program. For more information, contact Professor Ellen Foster at fostere@union.edu.