Melbourne VIC 3004, Australia
$1000 - $2000 / Day
Christina Simons is an award-winning international documentary photographer focused on humanitarian issues and cultural diversity. Her work has been exhibited throughout Australia, the United States, England, Europe, Russia and Mexico. Icelandic & American, Simons resides in Australia and is a true citizen of the world speaking multiple languages. She is a member of the Women Photograph collective and regularly mentors and teaches photography in Melbourne, Australia. Throughout her 25-year visual arts career, her work has been represented in publications such as The New York Times and The Guardian UK. Simons has also worked with several NGOs such as Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF), Marie Stopes and UNICEF. Her passion for human rights, civil liberties and subcultures has culminated in various bodies of work, to name but a few: Running to Nowhere – portraying the experience of Central American refugees, this multi-award-winning body of work garnered solo exhibitions and a book publication Lil Bullfighters – a multi-award winning series portraying the youngest participants of bullfighting in Mexico The Haiti Project – highlighting the plight of children in domestic servitude in Haiti Derby Girls – a multi-award winning series depicting the sport and culture of roller derby in Australia From Violence to Peace – focusing on a positive parenting program in Papua New Guinea Casa Xochiquetzal – depicting the people living in a home for retired sex workers in Mexico More recently, Simons has focused her attention on climate change and its environmental and social impacts. Her work on assignments commissioned by the New York Times on the impact of bushfires in south-eastern Australia in 2019 – 2020, titled Australian Apocalypse which earned various accolades. In 2022, Simons turned her attention to the impacts of extensive flooding brought about by climate change in South Sudan, and the plight of the South Sudanese community and the ongoing humanitarian disaster occurring in the newly formed country, titled Uncertain Land. Simons’ passion for social justice and compulsion to observe has resulted in the creation of striking bodies of work that offer unique visual commentary upon important social, environmental and cultural issues.
Produced for The New York Times
As Temperatures Rise, Melbourne’s Bats Get Their Own Sprinkler System On the hottest days, a refreshing mist will cool down flying foxes, which have suffered mass death in Australian heat waves.
Produced for BBC News
When the worst flooding in more than 50 years engulfed communities along the River Nile in South Sudan last year, thousands of people fled to higher ground, seeking refuge in an old army barracks.
Produced for The New York Times
There’s No Place Like Kangaroo Island. Can It Survive Australia’s Fires? It was a wildlife haven, a tourist magnet and an agricultural center — before half of it burned.
Produced for Médecins Sans Frontières
Violence by gangs in Central America is expelling thousands of people from the region. Among the patients treated by MSF in Mexico, 42 percent of Salvadorans and 32 percent of Hondurans exposed any reason related to violence as a determining factor in the decision to flee their countries.
Produced for The Guardian [UK]
There is only one prison in Honduras that holds only women. The Penitenciaria Nacional Femenina de Adaptación Social, based in Tamara, 40km from the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, holds 700 female prisoners and is the only facility in the country where infants can live with their mothers. The prison is home to 49 children, and six more babies on the way
Produced for UNICEF
The Highlands of Chimbu province, Papua New Guinea. The valley shows a remote town where UNICEF helps run a program on parenting to support parents to create safe communities for children by highlighting the consequences of violence and physical punishment. The use of violence for discipline has been endemic in highland Papua New Guinea parenting for generations however families are transforming their behaviours, benefiting surrounding communities and easing tribal tensions through a positive parenting training that UNICEF has implemented. This series looks at how the program has shifted behaviours at home and also in the broader community with the hope that the upcoming generation will no longer turn to violence as default parenting. It showcases the development of stronger relationships, not only between parent and child but throughout rival tribes that historically had major wars between them.
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