New York Baye Falls
Photographer: Arisa Haboshi
Exhibit Title: New York Baye Falls
Location: United States
The Baye Fall is a subgroup of the Senegalese Sufi Islamic Mouride brotherhood, known for discipline and mutual support. In New York, they are often seen only as street vendors or food-delivery workers. While they had already overcome significant hardship as immigrants and asylum seekers, the establishment of the second Trump administration and intensified immigration enforcement have placed them under psychological and financial pressure. Even as they say, “I’m afraid of ICE” or “I am financially struggling,” they continue to repeat, “Yallah Baxna (God is good),” praying together and sustaining one another through faith.
Arisa Haboshi is a Japanese human rights researcher and photographer based in New York city, documenting migration, labor, and faith within Senegalese communities. Her work examines how post-colonial structural violence shapes daily life - economically, politically, and socially - while highlighting the quiet resilience that sustains the community.
In 2017, she graduated from Osaka University, with a Bachelor of Arts in Language and Culture, majoring in Swahili Language and African culture. During her time at the university, she spent one year in Tanzania, where she studied Swahili culture and literature.
She began her career as a marketer for Sony’s camera products, where she started photographing nature in Sendai and her community in Nara and Tokyo, Japan. After approximately four years at Sony, she earned a Master’s degree in Sociology, Human Rights and Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her thesis focused on measures to prevent and address adverse human rights impacts on a community in Tanzania caused by a gold mining company. During her studies, she contributed to two NGOs in Japan as a researcher and writer, focusing on the responsibility of business enterprises.
After graduation, she worked for the International Labour Organization (ILO) as a co-researcher. She traveled and conducted interview research at dozens of factories, labor unions and government agencies located in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Viet Nam. The report, ‘Responsible Business Conduct and Human Rights Due Diligence: Good Practices of Japanese Companies (2024)’ was published. She has continued taking street photography in Tokyo and London after she left Sony.
In 2024, she started to study documentary practice and visual journalism at the International Center of Photography in New York. She developed a reporting style that blends ethnographic research with visual storytelling to illuminate underreported communities.
+1 (917) 334-0481
https://www.arisahaboshi.photography/
808 Columbus Ave, APT 19B, New York, NY, USA, 10025
Make Comment/View Comments
