PRESIDENTIAL & PARLIAMENTARIAN ELECTIONS 2007

Zésopol was a former activist for independence East Timor with The National Resistance of East Timorese Students. He is one of the founders and former editor in chief of TALITAKUM, an investigative magazine in Timor-Leste. He studied Business Administration in Jakarta and was first introduced to photography in Timor’s struggle for independence when he smuggled a camera into the jail cell of former President and now Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, Xanana Gusmão. Since then his photos have been published widely in Timor’s and international media. Zésopol has studied Postgraduate Certificate in Journalism at the University of Queensland and was a Human Rights Advocate in 2004 with the Center of the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. In the same year, he studied Black & White Photography at the Educational Alliance Art School in New York City. In April-June 2006, worked as teaching assistant at the International Center of Photography’s Black & White Darkroom class. In July 2005, he worked voluntarily with FilmAid International and provided journalism and photography training to young refugees in camps in Kibondo, on the border of Tanzania and Burundi. He is one of the founders and is current head of the Timor-Leste Photographers’ Association (TiLPA).