Photojournalist: Irina Werning

Title: "Sisa"

Irina Werning: "Sisa," San Isidro, Salta Province, Argentina, 2024

In 2014, Irina Werning photographed Sisa, a 7-year-old girl from the tiny, isolated town of San Isidro in Argentina. The town of 300 inhabitants is located in Salta province. Sisa, like many women from her Indigenous community, sees hair as a reflection of thoughts, mirroring Mother Earth's essence. Werning and the girl's mother taped Sisa's hair on a wall, and Werning called Sisa "the girl with the flying hair." The photographer revisited the town 10 years later and again captured Sisa and her long hair in the same pose.

Irina Werning

Irina Werning is a freelance photojournalist who focuses on personal long-term projects. Based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Werning has a bachelor's degree in economics, a master's degree in history and a master's in photojournalism. She won the Ian Parry Scholarship in 2006, an award from the Emerging Photographer Fund from the Magnum Foundation in 2012, and a first-place Sony World Photography Award for portraiture in 2012. In 2015, Werning was chosen by TIME magazine as one of nine Argentinian photographers you need to watch, and her book "Back to the Future" was chosen by TIME as one of the best photobooks of 2014. She was awarded the Emergency Covid Grant (National Geographic) in 2020 and a Pulitzer Reporting Grant in 2021. She won the Story Category of South America World Press Photo Contest 2022 and a Eugene Smith Grant in 2023.

Signed by photographer

Image size: 24 x 25 inches (portrait)

Framed size: 26.5 x 26 inches