Lisa Ross is a photographer and video artist whose work examines “manifestations of faith, intimate portrayals of the ephemeral and considers both real and imagined historical narratives,” as she has said. She spent 10 years traveling to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region in the northwestern part of China, where she explored the pilgrimage sites in and around the Taklamakan Desert. Her work culminated in an exhibition at The Rubin Museum of Art in 2013 and a book titled Living Shrines of Uyghur China. She has said that her photographs of the holy sites attempt to capture the significance of the peoples and emotions she came across on her visits to the region.