Xyza Cruz BACANI

Xyza Cruz BACANI (b. 1987) is a Hong Kong and New York-based Filipina street photographer and documentary photographer. She is known for her black-and- white photographs of Hong Kong and documentary projects about migration and the intersections of labor and human rights. Bacani grew up in Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya, and studied nursing before leaving the Philippines at age 19to join her mother in Hong Kong, working as a nanny to help support her siblings. Bacani started taking casual photographs after purchasing her first digital single-lens reflex camera with a loan from her employer. She has covered the 2014 and 2019 Hong Kong protests in Central and documented the livesof other domestic helpers at Bethune House Migrant Women’s Refuge in Hong Kong. She is one of the Magnum Foundation’s Human Rights Fellows and is the recipient of a resolution passed by the Philippines House of Representatives in her honor, HR No. 1969. Xyza is one of the BBC’s 100 Women of the World 2015, 30 Under 30 Women Photographers 2016, Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2016, and a Fujifilm Ambassador. She is the recipient of grants from Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting 2016, WMA Commission 2017, and part of Open Society Foundations Moving Walls 24.

Xyza Cruz Bacani Artist’s Statement:
What does it mean to be a Hong Konger? In the past six months, this has been a glaring question. Does it mean being pro-government or anti-government? In a city divided by scenes of violence and Infowars, whose side are we on? In between these two sides are the bystanders, the people who are caught in between. Photographing the protest for months, I turn my lens to these bystanders watching the protests unfold.  It has been a challenging year for everyone, but these people have played a very important role. They have become citizen journalists, recording with their phones and continuing to live and hold on in Hong Kong, even when the world says that the city is burning. They often end up as casualties as well, with the teargas not choosing its victims. I will never know which side they are on, as I never asked them, but do we need to choose sides? Or do we all need to take a stand, together, for the city we call home?