Valentina Sinis is a documentary photographer, based in China and the Middle East. She is the co-founder of LOTS (Life On The Street) Magazine and contributor to the EyesOnChina project.

Valentina's projects gravitate toward the quirky and unusual, and portray offbeat realities and people on the margins, they show a deep bond with the subjects. Her photos are a thorough but delicate insight into idiosyncrasies, hidden meanings, and all those little gestures that are either taken for granted or sensationalized — but rarely investigated.

Broken Princess is Valentina's latest documentary photography project. It is the story of women in Iraqi Kurdistan setting themselves on fire as a radical and deeply troubling way of escaping violence and abuse.

In Kurdistan, fire is a symbol. It represents light, goodness and purification and is also an expression of love, dedication and loyalty.

In this story, women aim to set themselves free through immolation from a sometimes very traditional and fruitless society.

Those who survive are left with traumatic physical scars and psychological scars.