Inmates dressed as Santa Claus prepare to participate in an event ahead of Christmas celebrations at Santa Monica female prison in Lima December 19, 2014. (Photo by Enrique Castro-Mendivil/Reuters)
Child beauty pageants are a billion-dollar industry in the U.S. While some critics see the pageants as an exploitation of innocents, others—particularly pageant parents—view the competitions as a way for a young talent to enter the entertainment industry. Shows such as Toddler & Tiaras have examined the behind-the-scenes drama of these tightly orchestrated contests, but now a show of Susan Anderson’s photographs at L.A.’s Kopeikin Gallery (through December 24), puts the glamour and excess of child beauty pageants on a pedestal for our contemplation.
A female army recruit attends a base training at the armored battalion in Setermoen, northern Norway on August 11, 2016. Norway has become the first NATO member to have compulsory conscription for women as well as men in the army. Recently, the first batch of army recruits joined the ranks in The Armored Battalion in the Norwegian Army located in Setermoen in northern Norway. (Photo by Kyrre Lien/AFP Photo)
Convicts showcase creations during a fashion show at female penal colony No 10 in the village of Gornoye, Primorye Territory, Russia on June 7, 2017. Prisoners of the colony sew clothes at a garment factory and every year they celebrate Day of Light Industry by presenting the clothes they made. (Photo by Yuri Smityuk/TASS)
Iranian-Kurdish female fighters hold their weapons during a battle with Islamic State militants in Bashiqa, near Mosul, Iraq on November 3, 2016. (Photo by Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters)
A member of Kyrgyzstan's first female hockey team arrives for a training session in the village of Otradnoye, Kyrgyzstan on February 4, 2020. Based in the remote village of Otradnoe, 249 miles (400 kilometres) east of the country's capital Bishkek, the team comprises of around 15 girls from a local school and uses a flooded allotment to train on during the winter months. (Photo by Vladimir Pirogov/Reuters)
Burmese children attend classes at a government run school December 14, 2011 in Waw township, Myanmar. The education system is based on the United Kingdom's system, after nearly a century of British and Christian presences in Burma. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)