Qiana Mestrich (b. 1977, NYC) is an interdisciplinary artist and photo historian whose work critically engages with themes of Black and mixed-race identity, motherhood, women’s labor, and the empowering role of fashion. Informed by her upbringing as the daughter of immigrants from Panama and Croatia, Mestrich’s artistic practice is complemented by significant contributions to the field of photography history. Her artwork has garnered international attention, with exhibitions at the RAY Fotografieprojekte Frankfurt/RheinMain and London Art Fair’s Photo50, and inclusion in collections such as the Peggy Cooper Cafritz collection. A graduate of the ICP-Bard College MFA program, her insightful perspectives have been recognized through awards like the 2025 Saltzman Prize and CPW Vision Award, as well as the 2022 Magnum Foundation’s Counter Histories grant for her research on women of color in the corporate workplace. Mestrich’s dedication to expanding the discourse around photography is evident in her 2007 founding of Dodge & Burn: Decolonizing Photography History. This groundbreaking initiative, which evolved from a blog into a vital critique group, actively championed photographers of color. Her newly released book (Routledge, March 2025), features 35 updated interviews from the blog along with 7 critical essays on photography. Mestrich lives and works between Brooklyn and New York’s Hudson Valley.