Curated by Amanda Zanco
Featuring artists;
Dagne Cobo Buschbeck, Daniela Riveira Antara, Fabiola Ferrero,
Freisy González Portales, Maryam Wahid and Rania Matar
This exhibition, organized as part of a University of Calgary doctoral research, combines the photographic works of six artists, each offering a deeply personal exploration of migration through themes of return, homecoming, community, identity, agency, and womanhood. Their works present counter-narratives that challenge, transform, and nuance the intimate realities of migration, pushing back against the often sensationalized and oversimplified portrayals of migration in news media. By focusing on the complexities of the migration experience, this exhibition invites viewers to engage with the diverse and multifaceted nature of migration beyond conventional and institutional narratives.
Amanda Zanco is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Communication, Media and Film at the University of Calgary, where she holds the 2024/2025 Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship and 2021 Eyes High Doctoral Recruitment Scholarship. She received a Master's degree in Social Communication with Honours (Summa cum laude) from Universidade Metodista de São Paulo, funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), and a bachelor's degree in Advertising and Publicity from UMESP. Her research centers on the intersection of photography, art, migration, critical media and research-creation. Her work has been published and presented at national and international conferences and journals.
Dagne Cobo Buschbeck is a journalist, photographer, and visual storyteller focusing on gender, environmental, food, and health issues. As a black woman and migrant mother, migration and racism are also topics that interest her. More than ten years of experience in photojournalistic coverage, development of documentary works, research, and photographic curation. Based in Chile, she was part of the Matraz laboratory, an independent research space on art, territory, and society, with a focus on gender and society. In this instance, she developed the first chapter of Caribeños, a multimedia documentary work that proposes the vindication of the dignity of the bodies and stories of people from the Caribbean who are migrants in Chile, through the story of Makanaky, Wiki, Martina, Mimy and the author. Caribeños was exhibited in the Matraz collective exhibition at the Departamento J gallery, in Santiago de Chile.
Daniela Rivera Antara (b. 1996, Lima) is a Peruvian-Australian artist working across photography, painting, performance, and writing. She studied at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, the Royal College of Art in London, and holds a photography degree from the International Center of Photography in New York. In 2023, she held her solo exhibitions with the UNHCR in Lima at the Museum Lugar de la Memoria and with the Ombudsman of Peru. Since 2016, Rivera has exhibited internationally, including at Rotterdam Photo Festival, Photo IS:RAEL, Photo Vogue Festival (Milan), Head On Festival (Sydney), and The Foreign Correspondents Club (Tokyo). Her work has been featured in National Geographic, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, Harvard Review of Latin America, and Sekka Magazine. She is a Lucie Foundation Emerging Photographer Grant recipient and has been a finalist and shortlisted by PhMuseum, Photo Lúcida, International Photography Grant and the International Women’s Photography Association.
Fabiola Ferrero is a journalist and photographer born in Caracas in 1991 and currently based between Colombia and Venezuela. Her personal work is the result of how her childhood memories contrast with nowadays Venezuela, her home country. Using her background in writing and investigative journalism, which she studied in Caracas (UCAB), she develops long term visual projects about South America, and specially Venezuela's crisis. Her educational background in photography includes the Joop Swart Masterclass 2019 and the Photography and Social Justice Program of the Magnum Foundation. She was a Fellow at the Columbia University's Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris for the 23-24 cohort. In 2021, she received the Carmignac Photojournalism Award, which resulted in her first catalog, The Wells Run Dry. She also won a World Press Photo for the Long-Term Projects category in the South American region in 2023, the Inge Morath Award given by Magnum Photos in 2021, the 6Mois Photojournalism Award, and currently the Deloitte Photo Grant to support her new ongoing project, Reinas, a look into beauty and modernity in Venezuela. She was also a finalist for the Alexia Grant, Eugene Smith Memorial Fund and the Leica Oscar Barnack Newcomer Award. Interested in bringing opportunities to other newcomer photographers in the region, Fabiola founded Semillero Migrante, a photography mentorship program around migration, where free education is given to young Spanish speaking photographers.
Freisy González Portales is an Anthropologist, Photographer and Musician (Caracas, Venezuela).Her interest as an artist focuses mainly on the exploration of the notions of identity and memory, migration and gender; weaving narratives based on experimentation and implementation of mixed media, such as analog and digital photography, archives, video, audio and the intervention of images through embroidery and collage. As well as fanzines, artist books and collaborative projects. With her photographic projects she has participated in exhibitions and talks in Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Costa Rica, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Costa Rica, United States, France and Spain. She has also published in platforms such as Photographic Museum of Humanity (PH Museum), El Nacional, Últimas Noticias and National Geographic. And recently received a grant from the ECO 24 program of Vist Projects (along with Andrea Hernández and Lety Tovar), as well as was awarded an Artist Residency in Madrid (Spain), by Boom!
Maryam Wahid is a British photographer and photography consultant, currently the Head of Program and Outreach for the Tasweer Photography Festival by Qatar Museums. Her work spans visual storytelling, conceptualisation, production, curation, and interactive engagement. Wahid’s photography practice explores themes of identity, migration, memory, womanhood, and the concept of home and belonging. Wahid holds a First-Class BA (Hons) in Photography from Birmingham City University and has won numerous awards, including from the British Journal of Photography, Firecracker, Format Festival, Photoworks, and the Magenta Foundation. Her work has been featured in major publications such as The Guardian, The Financial Times, and Wellcome Collection, and exhibited nationally and internationally, with notable exhibitions at Midlands Arts Centre (Birmingham, 2022), The Photographers Gallery (London, 2022), and Ffotogallery (Wales, 2019).
Born and raised in Lebanon Rania Matar moved to the U.S. in 1984. As a Lebanese-born Palestinian/American artist and mother, her cross-cultural experience and personal narrative inform her photography. Matar’s work has been widely exhibited in museums worldwide in solo and group shows, including Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Carnegie Museum of Art, ICA/Boston, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Fotografiska, Institut du Monde Arabe, and more. It is part of the permanent collections of several museums. Matar received several awards including a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2017 Mellon Foundation artist-in-residency grant, 2021 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grants, 2011 Griffin Museum of Photography Legacy Award. She was a finalist for the Oskar Barnack Award 2023, Arnold Newman Prize 2022, Outwin Portrait Competition with an exhibition at Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery/DC, and Taylor Wessing Prize with an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Amanda Zanco is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Communication, Media and Film at the University of Calgary, where she holds the 2024/2025 Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship and 2021 Eyes High Doctoral Recruitment Scholarship. She received a Master's degree in Social Communication with Honours (Summa cum laude) from Universidade Metodista de São Paulo, funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), and a bachelor's degree in Advertising and Publicity from UMESP. Her research centers on the intersection of photography, art, migration, critical media and research-creation. Her work has been published and presented at national and international conferences and journals.
Dagne Cobo Buschbeck is a journalist, photographer, and visual storyteller focusing on gender, environmental, food, and health issues. As a black woman and migrant mother, migration and racism are also topics that interest her. More than ten years of experience in photojournalistic coverage, development of documentary works, research, and photographic curation. Based in Chile, she was part of the Matraz laboratory, an independent research space on art, territory, and society, with a focus on gender and society. In this instance, she developed the first chapter of Caribeños, a multimedia documentary work that proposes the vindication of the dignity of the bodies and stories of people from the Caribbean who are migrants in Chile, through the story of Makanaky, Wiki, Martina, Mimy and the author. Caribeños was exhibited in the Matraz collective exhibition at the Departamento J gallery, in Santiago de Chile.
Daniela Rivera Antara (b. 1996, Lima) is a Peruvian-Australian artist working across photography, painting, performance, and writing. She studied at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, the Royal College of Art in London, and holds a photography degree from the International Center of Photography in New York. In 2023, she held her solo exhibitions with the UNHCR in Lima at the Museum Lugar de la Memoria and with the Ombudsman of Peru. Since 2016, Rivera has exhibited internationally, including at Rotterdam Photo Festival, Photo IS:RAEL, Photo Vogue Festival (Milan), Head On Festival (Sydney), and The Foreign Correspondents Club (Tokyo). Her work has been featured in National Geographic, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, Harvard Review of Latin America, and Sekka Magazine. She is a Lucie Foundation Emerging Photographer Grant recipient and has been a finalist and shortlisted by PhMuseum, Photo Lúcida, International Photography Grant and the International Women’s Photography Association.
Fabiola Ferrero is a journalist and photographer born in Caracas in 1991 and currently based between Colombia and Venezuela. Her personal work is the result of how her childhood memories contrast with nowadays Venezuela, her home country. Using her background in writing and investigative journalism, which she studied in Caracas (UCAB), she develops long term visual projects about South America, and specially Venezuela's crisis. Her educational background in photography includes the Joop Swart Masterclass 2019 and the Photography and Social Justice Program of the Magnum Foundation. She was a Fellow at the Columbia University's Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris for the 23-24 cohort. In 2021, she received the Carmignac Photojournalism Award, which resulted in her first catalog, The Wells Run Dry. She also won a World Press Photo for the Long-Term Projects category in the South American region in 2023, the Inge Morath Award given by Magnum Photos in 2021, the 6Mois Photojournalism Award, and currently the Deloitte Photo Grant to support her new ongoing project, Reinas, a look into beauty and modernity in Venezuela. She was also a finalist for the Alexia Grant, Eugene Smith Memorial Fund and the Leica Oscar Barnack Newcomer Award. Interested in bringing opportunities to other newcomer photographers in the region, Fabiola founded Semillero Migrante, a photography mentorship program around migration, where free education is given to young Spanish speaking photographers.
Freisy González Portales is an Anthropologist, Photographer and Musician (Caracas, Venezuela).Her interest as an artist focuses mainly on the exploration of the notions of identity and memory, migration and gender; weaving narratives based on experimentation and implementation of mixed media, such as analog and digital photography, archives, video, audio and the intervention of images through embroidery and collage. As well as fanzines, artist books and collaborative projects. With her photographic projects she has participated in exhibitions and talks in Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Costa Rica, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Costa Rica, United States, France and Spain. She has also published in platforms such as Photographic Museum of Humanity (PH Museum), El Nacional, Últimas Noticias and National Geographic. And recently received a grant from the ECO 24 program of Vist Projects (along with Andrea Hernández and Lety Tovar), as well as was awarded an Artist Residency in Madrid (Spain), by Boom!
Maryam Wahid is a British photographer and photography consultant, currently the Head of Program and Outreach for the Tasweer Photography Festival by Qatar Museums. Her work spans visual storytelling, conceptualisation, production, curation, and interactive engagement. Wahid’s photography practice explores themes of identity, migration, memory, womanhood, and the concept of home and belonging. Wahid holds a First-Class BA (Hons) in Photography from Birmingham City University and has won numerous awards, including from the British Journal of Photography, Firecracker, Format Festival, Photoworks, and the Magenta Foundation. Her work has been featured in major publications such as The Guardian, The Financial Times, and Wellcome Collection, and exhibited nationally and internationally, with notable exhibitions at Midlands Arts Centre (Birmingham, 2022), The Photographers Gallery (London, 2022), and Ffotogallery (Wales, 2019).
Born and raised in Lebanon Rania Matar moved to the U.S. in 1984. As a Lebanese-born Palestinian/American artist and mother, her cross-cultural experience and personal narrative inform her photography. Matar’s work has been widely exhibited in museums worldwide in solo and group shows, including Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Carnegie Museum of Art, ICA/Boston, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Fotografiska, Institut du Monde Arabe, and more. It is part of the permanent collections of several museums. Matar received several awards including a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2017 Mellon Foundation artist-in-residency grant, 2021 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grants, 2011 Griffin Museum of Photography Legacy Award. She was a finalist for the Oskar Barnack Award 2023, Arnold Newman Prize 2022, Outwin Portrait Competition with an exhibition at Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery/DC, and Taylor Wessing Prize with an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Images used on this page:
© Dagne Cobo Buschbeck Santiago de Chile, August 31, 2023.
The image depicts Dagne’s grandmother's belongings against a dark blue background: her Dominican ID, one of the letters her mother sent her, her glasses and a ring she wore, along with a carnation, her favourite flower.
Where You Are No Longer Anything + Back to the Blue © Freisy González Portales
A self-portrait by Freisy, depicting herself immersed in water and accompanied by the caption: “Born, once and again.” Captured from an upward angle, the photograph shows her body submerged, with arms gently extended at her sides.
Where Do I Go? Fifty Years Later © Rania Matar
Aya A. (The Old Railroad Tracks), Mar Mikhael, Beirut, Lebanon, 2024. The image depicts a woman walking along a broken train track that no longer connects to the ground. Dressed in a black shirt and skirt, she looks ahead with determination as the wind lifts her skirt and sweeps through her hair. The scene evokes a sense of movement.
© Dagne Cobo Buschbeck Santiago de Chile, August 31, 2023.
The image depicts Dagne’s grandmother's belongings against a dark blue background: her Dominican ID, one of the letters her mother sent her, her glasses and a ring she wore, along with a carnation, her favourite flower.
Where You Are No Longer Anything + Back to the Blue © Freisy González Portales
A self-portrait by Freisy, depicting herself immersed in water and accompanied by the caption: “Born, once and again.” Captured from an upward angle, the photograph shows her body submerged, with arms gently extended at her sides.
Where Do I Go? Fifty Years Later © Rania Matar
Aya A. (The Old Railroad Tracks), Mar Mikhael, Beirut, Lebanon, 2024. The image depicts a woman walking along a broken train track that no longer connects to the ground. Dressed in a black shirt and skirt, she looks ahead with determination as the wind lifts her skirt and sweeps through her hair. The scene evokes a sense of movement.