Oyunsuren Shagdarsuren (Anja Brown)

   Oyunsuren Shagdarsuren is a documentary photographer with a unique perspective.  As a native Mongolian, raised between rural areas and the city, Anja’s driving motivation and inspiration behind her photography is preserving her Mongolian heritage.  

With a desire to enhance the relationship between capturing traditional nomadic life and the photographic medium, she chose to embrace alternative photographic printing processes. These methods connect her to the origins of photography and mirror her passion for historic preservation. 

   She is the only Mongolian photographer to use the historic/alternative process, preserving important artifacts and the Mongol way of life. Her art brings an authentically unique perspective on the traditional ways of the nomadic peoples and the many ethnicities of her country. She continues to make frequent trips to her native country, travelling to some of the most remote regions in the world to record and further augment the subject matter on traditional nomadic life as it was, as it is, and how it is changing. Further highlighting the urgency to capture Mongolian traditions fading from the world.