Qiana Mestrich


Born in NYC
Based in Brooklyn + Saugerties, NY

Founder/Blogger, Dodge & Burn: Decolonizing Photography History, est. 2007

EDUCATION
2013    M.F.A. ICP-Bard College (New York, NY)
1999    B.A. Sarah Lawrence College (Bronxville, NY)

AWARDS 
2024   Baxter St Camera Club of NY Artist Residency
2022   Magnum Foundation Counter Histories Grant

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 
2016    Hard To Place, Booklyn Art Space (Brooklyn, NY)
2015    Inherited Patterns, New York Public Library (New York, NY)
2014    Trust Your Struggle, Sweet Lorraine Gallery (Brooklyn, NY)

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023    Self Adjacent, Visual Arts Center (Richmond, VA)
2023    Entwined, Sundaram Tagore Gallery at Cromwell Place (London, UK)
2023    Here Now, Byrdcliffe Guild (Woodstock, NY)
2023    The Rose, Lumber Room (Portland, OR)
2023   Mother Nature/Human Nurture, Old Stone House (Brooklyn, NY)
2022   Picturing Black Girlhood, Rutgers University (Newark, NJ)
2021    I belong to this, Huxley Parlour (London, UK)
2021    IDEOLOGIES, RAY Triennial Fotografieprojekte (Frankfurt, Germany)
2020   Migration(s) and Meaning in Art, Meyerhoff Gallery at MICA (Baltimore, MD)
2019    Closets: Reimagining Identities While Embracing Memories, NYU Tisch (New York, NY)
2019    BRIC Biennial Volume III: South Brooklyn Edition, BRIC (Brooklyn, NY)
2018    Resolution is not the point., Photo50, London Art Fair (UK)
2015     On Being Black, Arnika Dawkins Gallery (Atlanta, GA)

CURATED EXHIBITIONS
2022    Of Objects and Shadows/De Objetos y Sombras, CPW (Kingston, NY)
2021    You are not wonderful just because you are a Mother., Artist/Mother (virtual)
2015    Women as Witness, co-curated with Zoraida Lopez-Diago, TI Art Studios, (Brooklyn, NY)

LECTURES & SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
2022   THRALL and Other Works, Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (Germany)
2022    SECAC Conference (Baltimore, MD)
2021    Converation with Charlotte Cotton, Tasweer Photo Festival Qatar (virtual)
2021    Conversation with Jon Henry, CCCADI (Virtual)
2020    Women and Migrations: Redefining Resistance, NYU (virtual)
2019    i3: Images, Ideas, Inspiration Lecture Series, SVA (New York, NY)
2018    Reproducing Autonomy: Mothers and Daughters on Film, Another Gaze, (New York, NY)
2018    Photographing the Times: Identity, Migration and Displacement, London Art Fair (UK)
2017    Fast Forward 2: Women in Photography, Dillon+Lee Gallery, (New York, NY)
2016    Women in Photography and Filmmaking, ICP (New York, NY)
2015    Fast Forward: Women in Photography Conference, Tate Modern (London, UK)
2015    Qiana Mestrich, Susan Bright | An Artist Dialogue Series Event, NYPL (New York, NY)
2014    Curating Culture: Encouraging and Sharing Diverse Voices in Photography, Film Forum (NYC)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
2023    ReFraming: REFLECTIONS IN BLACK by Deborah Willis, Liveright/W.W. Norton & Co.
2022    Black Matrilineage, Photography and Representation (Leuven University Press)
2022    Viewfinder profile by Lovia Gyarkwe, APERTURE magazine 249, Winter 2022 issue
2022    “TOPSY TURVY”, Lensculture interview  
2021     Portfolio with interview, European Photography, No. 109, vol. 42, issue 1
2021    Review: “You are not wonderful just because you are a Mother.”, Brooklyn Rail
2019    “At BRIC Biennial, Diversity is Not a Trend”, AfroPunk 
2018    Ideas Series Interview, Photoworks
2016    “Gaining Identity Through The Archive”, Afterimage, Vol. 44, no 1 & 2
2016     Qiana Mestrich: Hard To Place, Lenscratch
2016    Mixed Roots Stories February Commons
2015     “How Do Artists Juggle Motherhood & Art?”, Mater Mea
2014    Qiana Mestrich’s “Inherited Patterns” at Mid-Manhattan Library, Library as Incubator

COMMISSIONED WRITING
2020    “A Photographic Frame Switching Between Cultures”, En Foco Dos Mundos exhibition catalog
2020    Essay on Cian Oba-Smith’s Syracuse Series, Light Work Annual 2020
2018    “Envisioning A Black Maternal Authority”, catalog essay for Mae Preta Exhibition Catalog (Brazil)
2018    “An Impossible Fecundity”, essay for Hernease Davis’ Solo Show at Visual Studies Workshop
2017    Guest Blogger, Baxter St/Camera Club of New York
2017    A Correspondence Between Marcia Michael and Qiana Mestrich, Contact Sheet 192, Light Work
2016    Rhizomes issue 29: Black Holes: Afro-Pessimism, blackness and the discourses of Modernity
2015    Commentary for Nueva Luz, Vol 19, No. 2, photo journal of En Foco
2013    Profile on Artist Alana Clarke, ARC Magazine, Issue 8
2012    Commentary for Nueva Luz, Vol. 16 No. 3, photo journal of En Foco
2012    Ayana V. Jackson interview, ZAM magazine (Amsterdam, NL)
2012    Interview with Lorna Simpson, Aliem magazine
2012    Profile on Marcia Michael, exposure journal, Society for Photographic Education (SPE)
2010    "Chester Higgins Jr. and Laylah Amatullah Barrayn in Conversation", exposure journal (SPE)

PHOTOBOOKS & ZINES
2022    Mind Over Matter (FemxPhotographers.org), Hatje Cantz, Berlin
2022    TOPSY TURVY, Stellazine
2020    THE BODY ISSUE (FemxPhotographersorg), Hatje Cantz, Berlin
2017    MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora
2016    Hard To Place, Self Published, Printed by Conveyor Arts
2015    How We Do Both: Art and Motherhood, 2nd Edition, Secretary Press
2012    How We Do Both: Art and Motherhood, 1st Edition, Secretary Press

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2022-Present   Faculty, PhotoPhlo
2021      Practices, Strategies, and Techniques, (Virtual Workshop co-taught with Justine Kurland)
2019-2020    Guest Faculty, ICP-Bard Program in Advanced Photographic Studies (New York, NY)
2017-2020    Adjunct Faculty, Fashion Institute of Technology/SUNY (New York, NY),
2016-2019    Artist Professional Development Consultant, Joan Mitchell Foundation (New York, NY)
2014-2022    Host/Founder, Dodge & Burn Monthly Photography Critique (Virtual + Brooklyn, NY)

PRIZES JURIED
2023     Women Photograph Grants
2022     Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) AIR Program
2020     American Photography Open for AI AP
2018     #HundredHeroines for the The Royal Photographic Society, UK
2018     Light Work Grants in Photography

COLLECTIONS
Peggy Cooper Cafritz, Washington, DC