ABOUT

Diana Eusebio is a designer, photographer and editorial storyteller based in New York City and originally from Miami.

In June 2020, Eusebio earned a BFA in Fiber, Experimental Fashion and Photography at MICA or the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD.

Artist Statement

My work encompasses a wide range of practices such as fashion, design, photography and editorial writing. I’m very passionate about translating stories and writing into visual content for media and publications.

As an Afro-Latina working within the media and creative industries, my goal is to translate misrepresented stories and intersectionality into visual content. In order to challenge society’s constructed perceptions of identity, so BIPOC can visualize their reflections in the media.

“I believe the combination of photography, design and writing, within the media, can shape our perception of reality.”

Eusebio is fortunate to have over 10 years of award-winning experience as an artist and designer.

︎︎︎ In 2016, from over 12,000 applicants Eusebio was recognized as a 2016 National YoungArts Finalist and then went on to be honored by the Barack Obama administration as a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts– the highest national honor for a young artist in the United States. 

︎︎︎ In 2018 at the Museum of Modern Art and Parsons New School of Design in New York City, Eusebio presented Kerasynth –a vegan biotechnological textile group research project– as a finalist in the 2018 BioDesign Challenge.

︎︎︎ Last year in Florence, Italy, Eusebio was awarded the 2019 SACI Jules Maidoff Award for “Best Student Artwork in Fashion, Jewelry Design and Photography”. 

︎︎︎ During Art Basel in Miami, Eusebio was chosen as a 2019 Photography Fellow for PRIZM Art Fair– Exhibiting Contemporary Artists from the Global African Diaspora.

Her family and heritage are her perpetual source of inspiration and motivation behind her success.

Personal Statement

I was raised in a first-generation American home at the intersection of Peruvian-Dominican heritage and Black-Latino culture. With Spanglish (English with siblings + Spanish with parents) as our language of origin, the parameters of our intersectional identities were not easily defined.

However, the complex nature of our identities are the very reason we felt limitless when imagining and working toward our “American Dream” (whatever that may be). I was encouraged to advance or “avanzar” forward without the fear of a “right” or “wrong” trajectory.

Visual media: TV, film, magazines and photos were the only windows to finding others that looked like me. They were windows but did not turn out to be mirrors. I wanted to find myself through a reflection of someone else that looked like me.

My Afro-Latina identity has been a journey of self-discovery. I eventually figured out that the only people that reflect my intersectional identity are my family, which strengthens our bond.

I’ve since discovered the term Afro-Latinx, a broader term that allows me to find a community in others that are Black and of Latin American ethnicity. Besides fangirling from time to time over prominent Afro-Latina’s in the media like Tessa Thompson, Cardi B or Zoë Saldana, I no longer try to find myself in someone else’s image. Before I would look for someone else that looked like me as a reference to then shape the idea of “what people that look like me do and how they act”. I no longer look for an outside reflection of myself but rather look within to define my true self.

I do not have to define myself and my identity as the surface level tropes of my people, I can create my own image based off of the complexities and nuances that make me. The mirror is no longer facing outside but rather in. My artwork has allowed me the time and space to find inner peace and self research.

Regardless of race and ethnicity, everyone should feel limitless when visualizing themselves in the media and contextualizing their identities outside of what is expected.