“Meet the Artist”
Lesly Deschler Canossi, Zoraida Lopez-Diago, and Qiana Mestrich
April 13, 2023
5:30 – 7:30 pm
474 Broadway, Kingston, NY
On Thursday, April 13, we welcome Lesly Deschler Canossi, Zoraida Lopez-Diago, and Qiana Mestrich for “Meet the Artist” night at CPW. Each artist will discuss the origins and production of Black Matrilineage, Photography, and Representation: Another Way of Knowing, which is co-edited by Canossi and Lopez-Diago. Mestrich will present her series, THRALL (2017-2020) which is featured in the book. Black Matrilineage, Photography, and Representation: Another Way of Knowing and Mestrich’s zine TOPSY TURVY (2022) will be available for purchase. This event will be live-streamed on CPW’s Youtube Page just before the start time.
Join us every Thursday evening at CPW, when we host illuminating talks with local and visiting artists. “Meet the Artist” allows the public to get to know new work, to hear about artistic processes, and to meet friends and other local artists. The evening takes place at CPW’s gallery at 474 Broadway in Kingston, NY. It is free and open to the public. Coffee, tea, and snacks are served. “Meet the Artist” is made possible by a generous grant from the Arnold and Augusta Newman Foundation.
Lesly Deschler Canossi is a photography educator, and facilatator. She holds an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her research aims to reframe the history of photography, better reflecting a story of innovation that includes women. She is interested in creating conversations in support of deep creativity and representational justice.
In 2016, she co-founded Women Picturing Revolution, an organization dedicated to women-identifying photographers who have documented conflicts and crises in private realms and public spaces. She co-edited Black Matrilineage, Photography, and Representation: Another Way of Knowing (Leuven University Press). Her personal and teaching practice centers on themes of care, mother(ing), and grief. Her course Into the Fold: Mother Artist Identity, which explores artist/parent identity through lens and performance-based works, was the first of its kind offered at a major photographic institution.
Lesly is a faculty member at the International Center of Photography and for over 14 years Lesly ran Fiber Ink Studio printing for some of the world’s greatest artists and institutions, from emerging to high profile. Her expertise includes silver gelatin, analog Type-C, and wide-format pigment printing. Lesly lives in Beacon, New York with her family on a mini homestead that includes honeybees.
Zoraida Lopez-Diago is a photographer, curator, and activist; she is committed to centering the voices and histories of people from the African Diaspora, with a particular focus on themes of gender, incarceration, migration, and climate change.
Zoraida has exhibited at institutions throughout the Americas and has lectured about her work at institutions including Harvard University, the Tate Modern, and La Universidad de Antioquia (Colombia), among others. In 2022, she co-curated “Picturing Black Girlhood,” an exhibition exploring Black girlhood that included more than 80 Black women, girls, and genderqueer artists working in photography and film; to date, this was the largest exhibition on Black girls in the world. In 2016, Zoraida co-founded Women Picturing Revolution and through this project, co-edited Black Matrilineage, Photography and Representation: Another Way of Knowing, published by Leuven University Press, distributed by Cornell University Press in North America.
Zoraida is an environmental activist and is the co-founder of Conservationists of Color, a national platform for people of color working in the land conservation movement; she serves as Vice President of Communications, Development, and Strategic Partnerships at The Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming. Zoraida lives in Beacon, NY, with her husband, and two sons; in her spare time, she enjoys long walks in the woods.
Qiana Mestrich is a photography-focused, interdisciplinary artist, writer and mother working in between Brooklyn and Saugerties, NY. Working primarily within (auto)biography, Mestrich’s research-led practice explores personal and public archives to investigate Black mixed-race identity from her perspective as a first-generation American.
Mestrich has been exhibited worldwide including the international Triennial RAY Fotografieprojekte Frankfurt/RheinMain and London Art Fair’s Photo50. Her work is held in the Peggy Cooper Cafritz collection of contemporary art among other private collections. In 2022, Mestrich was a recipient of the Magnum Foundation’s Counter Histories grant for her project on the history of women of color in the corporate workplace.
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 from 2014-2022 functioned as a monthly critique group meeting in-person and virtually. Her forthcoming book based on the blog’s past interviews will be published by Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
Left Image © image of the book Black Matrilineage, Photography, and Representation: Another Way of Knowing, co-edited by Lesly Deschler Canossi and Zoraida Lopez-Diago
Right Image © Qiana Mestrich, Strange Bush, 2018 from the series Thrall