DIA's Friends of Prints, Drawings and Photographs

09/15/2025

Looking for a mentorship program in photography? The Photowork Foundation offers a great fellowship opportunity - applications due October 15, 2025.

The PhotoWork Junior Fellowship celebrates individual artists and their craft, offering a space for education and experimentation beyond traditional academic pathways. Through a holistic support network, Fellows receive personalized guidance that meets them at their current stage while challenging t...

11/11/2024

Tuesday, November 12, 6pm, photographer Cara Romero Detroit Institute of Arts!

10/16/2024

DIA to host GQ Creative Director Jim Moore - read more about him here...

Calling all fashion heads!

10/12/2023

Check out the 2023 Aperture Photo Book Awards shortlist -

Here are the 35 shortlisted titles for this year’s Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards, which celebrate the evolving narrative of the photobook.

08/07/2023

Join InsideOut Literary Arts and some of Detroit's finest poets for a reading celebrating the photography of James Barnor on Friday August 11th at 6 PM at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The event will showcase new poetic works written during visits to the James Barnor Accra/ London exhibition.

https://dia.org/events/ever-young-poetry-performance-inspired-photography-james-barnor

Featuring performances by:

Kweku Abimbola is of Gambian, Ghanaian, and Sierra Leonean descent. His first full-length poetry collection, Saltwater Demands a Psalm, won the Academy of American Poets First Book Prize. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writing Program.

MARS. is a writer and cultural organizer born and raised in Detroit. MARS is a 2021 Kresge Literary Arts Fellow in Poetry and a 2019 Lambda Literary Art Emerging Writers Fellow in Poetry. Their debut chapbook, FLOWER BOI, is available via Gold Line Press.

La Shaun phoenix Moore is a Detroit-based vocalist, spoken word artist, activist, culture creator and wife. Moore’s interdisciplinary work is infused with her love for the city of Detroit, hip-hop, God, social justice and her black momma. She is the recipient of the 2020 and 2021 Creators of Culture Award by CultureSource.

Peace Bell is a two-time Recording Artist, two-time Grand Slam Champion and organizer who continues to move crowds with her energetic wordplay. PEACE is the current Producer and Host of the "Open Mind Mic Series" in Downtown Detroit with her husband Comedian Jbell.

Robert Laidler, Assistant Professor of Teaching at Wayne State, is the author of a poetic libretto, The Fallen Petals of Nameless Flowers, which premiered at Chamber Music Detroit in 2022. He earned his MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writing Program.

07/27/2023

Please join a virtual conversation Thursday, Jul 27 at 6:00 p.m. sponsored by the University of Michigan Stamps Gallery of Art for the Envision Conversations Series featuring 2022-23 Envision Award Winner Parisa Ghaderi in conversation with Nancy Barr, Dept. Head of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs and the James Pearson Duffy Curator of Photography at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Join us for the virtual conversation by registering here https://stamps.umich.edu/events/envision-conversations-parisa-ghaderi-with-nancy-barr

Ghaderi is a creator, storyteller, and educator, working in diverse mediums and disciplines. Having lived both in Iran and the United States, her installation "For dancing in the Streets" at UofM's Stamps Gallery she uses audio, still photography, and digital video combining found images of recent protests over the killing of woman and children in Iran and as part of the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement which began in September 2022, along footage of Iranian dancers to foster a dialogue of resistance and solidarity.

This is also the last week to experience Ghaderi's powerful installation along with other artists on view in Envision: The Michigan Artist Initiative which runs until Saturday, July 29.

Event: 7/27/2023. Meet artist Parisa Ghaderi as she discusses her new work created for Envision: The Michigan Artist Initiative 2023 in a virtual conversation with Nancy Barr, Dept.

07/05/2023

The Detroit Institute of Arts is seeking applicants for its next class of Interpretive Programs Volunteers (IPVs) to provide tours to visitors in the museum and outreach programming in the community. If you're a lifelong learner who would love to study and share knowledge about the DIA's world-class collection, consider applying! Classes will run on select Saturdays from September 2023 through June 2024. Visit the "Interpretive Programs" section of our Volunteer webpage for a link to the application and details on the IPV program. If the IPV Committee is not for you at this time, applications for additional volunteer opportunities will open in August.

Apply here: https://dia.org/community/volunteer

07/03/2023

James Barnor in the New York Times!

James Barnor, Ghana’s first photojournalist and an influential fashion photographer in London, stars in a major survey at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

04/03/2023

The DIA was sorry to hear of the passing of Kwame Brathwaite over the weekend - we will always remember his work, life, and remarkable exhibition Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite that was on view here at the DIA on 2021.

His images asserted new forms of representation, particularly for Black women.

11/29/2022

Deadline December 6, 2022 to enter your photo work for the Aperture Portfolio Prize. The Aperture Portfolio Prize aims to identify trends in contemporary photography and highlight artists whose work deserves greater recognition. When choosing the first-prize winner and finalists, Aperture’s editorial staff looks for innovative bodies of work that haven’t been widely seen in major publications or exhibition venues. The Aperture Portfolio Prize is open exclusively to Aperture magazine print subscribers.

The Aperture Portfolio Prize highlights artists whose work deserves greater recognition.

11/28/2022

On view through April 9, 2023 at the DIA, Printmaking in the Twenty-First Century, celebrates the range and ingenuity of artwork by contemporary printmakers, featuring more than 60 prints, posters and artists’ books by local, national and international artists, such as Hernan Bas, Susan Goethel Campbell, Enrique Chagoya, Marc Dion, Nicole Eisenman, Walton Ford, Chitra Ganesh, Rashid Johnson, Julie Mehretu, Michael Menchaca, Ryan Standfest, Katia Santibañez, James Siena, Dyani White Hawk, Ai Weiwei and more.