In 2014, Gordon was commissioned by The New York Times to take photographs for an article on ISIS hostages by Rukmini Callimachi. The article "The Horror Before the Beheadings" focused on the experiences of people held hostage by ISIS.[5] The photographs were also featured in Callimachi's articles "Paying Ransoms, Europe Bankrolls Qaeda Terror".[6] In this series, Gordon photographed objects the freed hostages held onto during and after their captivity. The objects reveal pieces of individual hostage's stories unknown to the public.[7]
In 2014, the jihadist terrorist organization, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from their boarding school in Chibokinnortheast Nigeria. Although there was media coverage about the incident, little mentioned the kidnapped girls themselves. Gordon photographed some of their belongings sent to her by family members. The photographs were published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time.[8] The work was given the 2015 World Press Award.[9]
Gordon's Diagram of the Heart captures female novelists living in Kano, a city in Northern Nigeria. The novelists write in the genre of Littattafan Soyayya, which roughly translates to love literature.[10] Published in 2016 Diagram of the Heart was awarded photo book of the year by The New York Times Magazine, Pictures of the Year International and PDN (Photo District News). The book was also featured in Moving Walls 23: Journeys and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts.
American Women of the Far Right is an investigative photo essay wherein Gordon explores the views of women who participate in extremist politics and hate groups. She had found that white supremacy was largely portrayed in the media through a male dominated lens. Gordon captured portraits of women who also hold these politic views. Some of these women identified as white supremacists, conservative extremists, racists, Klansmen, and Nazis.[11][12]
In 2019, Gordon won the Aftermath Grant[13] for her proposed project American Women. This project is an expansion of American Women of the Far Right. The project will cover women who live in the same areas but who instead work for social justice.[14]
Liberia: Traces of America's Ghosts is an ongoing project to documenting the after effects of Liberia's civil war. Gordon has been working in Liberia as a photojournalist since 2009.[15]
Published in 2012, Nigeria Ever After is a collection of photographs from Nigerian weddings. The collection explores the style and cost of marriage in the country.[16][17]
Gordon's photographic series Indonesia: The End is the Beginning depicts the different kinds of funeral rites and burial practices in Indonesia. Gordon captures the celebration of death and transition to the afterlife on the island of Bali. Another photo follows a long funeral procession and slow mourning process on the island of Sumba.[18]
^Gordon, Glenna (December 1, 2018). "American Women of the Far Right". The New York Review of Books. Archived from the original on January 8, 2021. Retrieved April 9, 2020.
