Lesly Deschler Canossi is an artist, photography educator, and cultural producer. She holds an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she focused on the museological object's role in the construction of culture. Her research aims to reframe the history of photography, better reflecting a story of innovation that includes women. As an educator, she is interested in creating conversations in support of deep creativity and representational justice.
In 2016, she co-founded Women Picturing Revolution (WPR), an organization dedicated to women-identifying photographers who have documented conflicts and crises in private realms and public spaces. In 2019 WPR presented on the photographic representation of Black motherhood at the Tate Modern and in 2022 published 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 works as an independent cultural producer, leading seminars, lecturing, and curating panels for educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and corporate clients. 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.
SELECTED INTERVIEWS
International Center of Photography Faculty member Lesly Deschler Canossi discusses her upcoming class Domestic Space in the Era of Social Distancing.
WOMAN UP! Podcast Series 2, episode 8 – Women Picturing Revolution
Humble Arts Foundation co-founder Jon Feinstein interviews Women Picturing Revolution
International Center of Photography interview with Women Picturing Revolution - page 15
Black Perspectives interview with Women Picturing Revolution by Jonathan Collier
SELECTED LECTURES, PANELS AND SEMINARS
Moderator: When Langauge is Not Enough, Karen Marshall Between Girls, Focus on the Story Photography Festival, June 19, 2021
Moderator: International Center of Photography, Book launch + talk with photographer Karen Marshall on her work Between Girls published by Kehrer Verlag, October 21, 2021
Moderator: Live Online Photo Talk, StrudelmediaLive, Samantha Box with Lesly Deschler Canossi — September 18, 2020
Moderator: Urgent Pictures! Photographs of Unrest Reconsidered in Isolation & Future Imagination, Focus on the Story Photography Festival, July 7, 2020
Paper presented, Representations of Black Motherhood in Contemporary Photography, Fast Forward Women in Photography: How Do Women Work?, Tate Modern; London, England — December 1, 2019
Moderator: From Darkness to Daylight, Film Screening, Director Harvey Wang, Story Screen, Beacon, New York — November 14, 2019
Seminar with Magnum Photographer Diana Markosian & Yukiko Yamagata, curator and deputy director of Culture and Art at the Open Society Foundation, International Center of Photography; New York, NY — October 27, 2019
Women Picturing Revolution & International Women's Week, B&H Photo & Video; New York, NY — May 24, 2019
Women Picturing Revolution: The Photographic and Electronic Media Now, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Graduate School of Photography; Baltimore, MD — October 2018
Women Picturing Revolution in conversation artist and activist Lola Flash, Baxter St. at CCNY, New York, NY, — May 24, 2018
Women Picturing Revolution in conversation with Catherine Morris, Curator, and co-organizer of We Wanted a Revolution, Brooklyn Museum, Lightfield Photography Festival; Hudson, NY — September 9th, 2017
Women Picturing Revolution: Focus on Africa and African Diaspora, with guest artists Ayana V. Jackson and Nona Faustine, Columbia University, Institute for African American Studies (IRAAS); New York, NY — March 11, 2017
The Most Important Picture: Syria with panel guest, Packard Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn, NY — May 5, 2017
Women Picturing Revolution panel with Photographers Donna De Cesare, Tanya Habjouqa, and Muriel Hasbun, moderated by Grace Aneiza Ali, International Center of Photography; New York, NY — November 16, 2016
Seminar with Photographer Sheila Pree Bright & Filmmaker Laura Doggett & filmmaker Khaldiya Jibawi, Women Picturing Revolution International Center of Photography; New York, NY — November 5, 2016
EDUCATION
Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Baltimore, MD — MFA Photography & Electronic Media, 2007
Herron School of Art + Design, Indiana / Purdue University, Indianapolis, IN — BFA in Photography with a minor in Art History, 1995
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Be in touch. Assignments, workshops, lectures, conversation.
DeschlerCanossi@gmail.com
Tel: 347.731.5198
Instagram: @DeschlerCanossi
My happy place doing what we do in the classroom, International Center of Photography, photo by Marisa Sottos
January 10, 2016. Heroes was made the day David Bowie left this world for the next. Japanese Kozo Mulberry paper for pigment print.