Qiana Mestrich is a visual artist, writer, educator, digital marketer and mother of two from New York. Mestrich makes conceptual photographs, books and installations by working primarily within autobiography while also employing archival and found photography, texts and ephemera.
Mestrich is the founder of Dodge & Burn: Decolonizing Photography History (est. 2007), an arts initiative that aims to diversify the medium’s history by supporting photographers of color. Dodge & Burn began as a blog and now functions as a monthly critique group in NYC. Mestrich is writing a book based on the Dodge & Burn blog interviews to be published by Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
Her critical writing on photography has been published in art journals like Light Work’s Contact Sheet, En Foco’s Nueva Luz, ARC Magazine and exposure, a journal published by the Society for Photographic Education. She is the co-editor of How We Do Both: Art and Motherhood(Secretary Press), a diverse collection of honest responses from contemporary artists on raising children and making art.
She is a faculty member at the Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY) and ICP-Bard College.