Opinion: Anna Boyiazis, Finding Freedom in the Water

By Madison Page

September 19, 2018 | Arts and Culture

On Wednesday, August 29th, World Press-featured photographer Anna Boyiazis paid Dawson a visit to talk about her photography and recent accomplishments. Boyiazis’ main focus was to share her experience travelling and shooting in the Tanzanian Island of Zanzibar, where some of her most profound work found its inspiration. There, she documented the journey of African women learning to swim.

This project, entitled Finding Freedom in the Water, tells the story of what is dubbed “Burkini Island”, the tip of the Tanzanian archipelago, and the young women who inhabit it. Here, local girls can learn to swim, despite the cultural implications of a strictly Muslim society, due to the implementation of full-length swimsuits.

To Boyiazis, and most inspiring of all, was that projects of this sort seemed almost to find their way to her, calling her attention, to which she feels she must comply. Through her eager and passionate responses in conversation with aspiring photography students and members of the college staff, she managed to draw the attention of all in attendance to the stories of people so far and so detached from the lives of young students in Montreal.