Best Of 2018 – An Autobiography of Miss Wish by Nina Berman

An Autobiography of Miss Wish is a story told in photographs, drawings, videos, texts and documents which explores the life of a survivor of sex trafficking and child pornography whom photographer Nina Berman met randomly on the streets in London in 1990. Three years later, she landed on her doorstep in New York City, having fled London on the advice of Scotland Yard. Once in the United States, she changed her name from Cathy Wish to Kim Stevens, became a ward of New York State, and never returned to England. The work, created from 1990 – 2016, documents her escape, her struggle to survive and assert herself despite enormous fear, to craft a life while living in a state of flashbacks, trauma and addiction and to navigate the contemporary world of American psychiatric and criminal institutions as a black woman. The story is told through photographs and her extraordinary drawings, which depict her memories of crime scenes and abuse, as well as her diary entries, medical reports, and the letters and later text messages we exchanged. The Eye of Photography talked to Nina Berman about her book.