Qiana Mestrich is a prolific artist and writer who makes conceptual photographs, books and installations that employ archival and found photography, texts and ephemera. Working primarily within autobiography, Mestrich references themes of race, gender, motherhood and consumerism from the perspective as a first-generation American of mixed heritage.
About Speaker: Qiana Mestrich is a photography-focused, interdisciplinary artist based in New York. Born to parents from Panama and Croatia, Mestrich’s work often references Black, mixed-race experiences from her perspective as a first-generation American.
She has been exhibited worldwide including the London Art Fair’s Photo50 in 2018 and the BRIC Biennial Volume III in 2019. Mestrich’s work is held in the Peggy Cooper Cafritz collection of contemporary art and private collections in the United States.
Knowledge sharing and community building is a vital part of Mestrich’s practice. In 2007 she founded Dodge & Burn: Decolonizing Photography History (est. 2007), an arts initiative that aims to diversify the medium’s history by advocating for photographers of color. Dodge & Burn began as a blog and now functions as a monthly critique group that meets in person in New York City and virtually. Her forthcoming book based on the blog’s past interviews is to be published by Routledge/Taylor & Francis.Mestrich has written essays on photography for exhibition catalogs and published other critical writing in art journals such as Light Work’s Contact Sheet, En Foco’s Nueva Luz and SPE’s exposure. She is also co-editor of the book How We Do Both: Art and Motherhood (Secretary Press), a diverse collection of honest responses from contemporary artists who dare to engage in the creative endeavors of motherhood and making art.
A graduate of the ICP-Bard College MFA in Advanced Photographic Practice, Mestrich received her B.A. with a concentration in photography from Sarah Lawrence College. She is an adjunct faculty in photography and social media at the Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY) and is represented in New York by sepiaEYE gallery.
