When Cages Fly
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Softcover
127 photographs printed in full-color and tritone
225 x 175 mm
246 pages + 24 pages
Photographer/Author: Kiana Hayeri
Design: Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo / Raya Editorial
ISBN 978-1-7380935-0-2
1st edition - March 2024
Kiana Hayeri
60,00 €
When Cages Fly is an unconventional photobook born out of an unconventional story captured inside Herat Women's Prison, Afghanistan. The underlying story, "Where Prison is a Kind of Freedom", originally featured in The New York Times Magazine, sheds light on the lives of women incarcerated for liberating themselves from abusive and violent marriages through drastic measures. Awarded the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal in 2020, this magazine feature served as the inspirational cornerstone for this book, which navigates the delicate balance between freedom and captivity, both physical and metaphorical.
Divided into three compelling chapters with minimal textual intervention and accompanied with a supplementary booklet, When Cages Fly encourages viewers to engage actively in crafting their own interpretations of the depicted reality. Central to the book's thematic exploration is an enclosed middle chapter, a metaphorical prison. Guarded yet paradoxically liberating, the prison becomes a sanctuary for those seeking refuge from the shackles of domestic oppression. We invite the viewers to rip through the encasement of the middle chapter in order to “gain access” to the prison.
"When Cages Fly" has been shortlisted for Rencontres d’Arles Author Book Award, IPA Photobook Awards and is a finalist for Lucie Photobook Award as well as APhF Pick:24 Book Award.
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Kiana Hayeri (b.1988) grew up in Tehran, Iran and moved to Toronto while she was still a teenager. Faced with the challenges of adapting to a new environment, she took up photography as a way of bridging the gap in language and culture. In 2014, a short month before NATO forces pulled out, Kiana moved to Kabul and stayed on for 8 years. Her work often explores complex topics such as migration, adolescence, identity and sexuality in conflict-ridden societies.
In 2020, Kiana received the Tim Hetherington Visionary award for her proposed project to reveal the dangers of dilettante “hit & run” journalism. Later that year, she was named as the 6th recipient of the James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting. In 2021, Kiana received the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal for her photographic series “Where Prison is Kind of a Freedom,” documenting the lives of Afghan women in Herat Prison. In 2022, Kiana was part of The New York Times reporting team that won The Hal Boyle Award for “The Collapse of Afghanistan” and was shortlisted under International Reporting for the Pulitzer Prize. In the same year, she was also named as the winner of Leica Oskar Barnack Award for her portfolio, “Promises Written On the Ice, Left In the Sun”, an intimate look into the lives of Afghan from all walks of life.
Kiana is a Senior TED fellow, a National Geographic Explorer grantee and a regular contributor to The New York Times and National Geographic. She is currently based out of Sarajevo, telling stories from Afghanistan, Balkans and beyond.
