“Beauty Culture,” director Lauren Greenfield comes to BYOD to discuss the inspirations behind her examination of beauty and society, and how the project synthesized a wide breadth of her work.
From it’s inception as a project for the Annenberg foundation, to it’s potential as a tool for educating people on the complex issues surrounding perception of ourselves, Lauren shares the motivation behind a work that was tailor-made for her.

Lauren Greenfield is an American artist, documentary photographer, and documentary filmmaker. She has published three monographs of her photographic work, directed four documentary films, exhibited photographic prints in museums throughout the world, and had work published in a variety of leading magazines and other publications around the world. Her photographic work and films generally deals with issues relating to the influence of popular culture on how we live (youth culture, gender identity, body image, eating disorders, media, wealth, fashion, beauty, and consumerism).
In January 2012, Greenfield was awarded the Sundance Film Festival Directing Award, US Documentary 2012 for her feature documentary film, The Queen of Versailles. In 2003, American PHOTO Magazine named her one of the “The 25 Most Important Photographers Now”. In April 2005, she shared the third spot of the “100 Most Important People in Photography”, again in American Photo Magazine. She has received many photography awards and grants, including the Art Directors Club Gold Cube for Photography, National Geographic Grant, the ICP Infinity Award for Young Photographer (1996), a Hasselblad Foundation Grant, the NPPA Community Awareness Award, and the People’s Choice Award at the Moscow Biennial.