MARISSA ROTH
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Marissa Roth is an internationally published freelance photojournalist and documentary photographer. Her assignments for prestigious publications including The New York Times, have taken her around the world. Roth was part of The Los Angeles Times staff that won a Pulitzer Prize for Best Spot News, for its coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Roth’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, and a number of her images are in museum, corporate, and private collections. One Person Crying: Women and War, her 34-year personal photo essay that addresses the immediate and lingering impact of war on women in different countries and cultures around the world, is currently an international traveling exhibition, with a forthcoming book. Infinite Light: A Photographic Meditation on Tibet, is also a traveling exhibition. The book, with a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, was released in April 2014. The Crossing, a poetic photographic study of the North Atlantic Ocean, with prose by Roth, is a current project, with a forthcoming book.
A commissioned portrait project by The Museum of Tolerance/ Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, to photograph the Holocaust survivors who volunteer there, Witness to Truth, is on permanent exhibition at the museum.
As curator, Roth created an exhibition comprised of personal photographs taken in Vietnam by American servicemen during the war, entitled, My War: Wartime Photographs by Vietnam Veterans. The exhibition debuted at The Highground Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park in Neillsville, WI, in August 2016. She is currently curating a retrospective exhibition about Frank Hurley, the Australian photographer most notably known for his epic photographs of Antarctica taken during the 1914 Endurance expedition. This exhibition will debut in 2021.
Roth has three additional books to her credit; Burning Heart: A Portrait of The Philippines, Real City: Downtown Los Angeles Inside/Out, and Come the Morning, a children's book about homelessness. In addition, she is a Fellow at the Royal Geographic Society in London.
“Marissa Roth’s images of women who’ve survived war are alternately disturbing, inspiring and illuminating of the staggering burdens borne by those fighting with their hearts and minds to protect home and family. The battle to restore normalcy drags on for years after the shooting stops, and women’s forced roles as provider and protector forever transforms their relationships and family status when the men, whether victorious or vanquished, stagger back home.” —Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times senior international affairs writer