Qiana Mestrich
(b.1977, NYC) is an interdisciplinary artist, photo historian, writer and digital marketing professional who lives and works between Brooklyn and New York’s Hudson Valley. Born to immigrant parents from Panama and Croatia, Mestrich's artwork and research interests engage issues around mixed-race identity, motherhood/mothering, women’s labor histories and fashion as self expression.Mestrich 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. In 2022, Mestrich was awarded the Magnum Foundation Counter Histories grant for her @WorkingWOC Instagram archive project on women of color in the corporate workplace.
Curriculum Vitae
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. In 2022, Mestrich was awarded the Magnum Foundation Counter Histories grant for her @WorkingWOC Instagram archive project on women of color in the corporate workplace.
Curriculum Vitae