Born and raised in Los Angeles, Marissa
Roth is an internationally published freelance photojournalist and
documentary photographer. She works on assignment for various prestigious
publications including The New York Times, and has covered riots, earthquakes
and a coup attempt in the Philippines as well as the first post-communist
elections in Hungary. She is passionate about the news stories she
covers which include the Kosovar Albanian refugees in Albania, Afghan
refugee women in Pakistan, and the homeless in Japan. Roth was part
of The Los Angeles Times photography staff that won a Pulitzer Prize
for Best Spot News Coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Feature
stories are her hallmark and range from the Richard Serra installation
at MOCA, to the Cannes Film Festival.
Roth’s first 10-year solo book project was "Burning Heart, A Portrait
of the Philippines", published in 1999. Marissa teaches at various
academic institutions including her alma mater, UCLA. Her work has
been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions and a number of images
are in museum, corporate and private collections. In 2000, she completed
a documentary photography project commissioned by the Los Angeles Public
Library, entitled “Inside/Out: Downtown Los Angeles”, that illuminated
the cultural and ethnic diversity of downtown Los Angeles and culminated
in a book in 2001. Come the Morning, a children’s book, is illustrated
with 20 of Roth’s photographs of homelessness.
Currently, Roth's commissioned portrait project to photograph the Holocaust
survivors who volunteer at The Museum of Tolerance/Simon Wiesenthal
Center, “Witness to Truth,” is on permanent exhibition at the museum
and a book will be published next year. Concurrent long-term projects
include “One Person Crying: Women and War,” that addresses lingering
impact of war on women in different cultures around the world; an upcoming
book encompassing 25 years of photography in Hollywood, and another
book that is a photographic meditation on Tibet. Marissa Roth is based
in Los Angeles.

Marissa Roth's Places of The Heart
Exposures
Photo District News
October, 1999
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