Skip to content
People  •  Art + Design  •  Associate Teaching Professor

Dana Mueller Robinson

Mueller’s photographs are visual records of encounters with people and environments that engage both familiar and foreign realms. Her narratives of everyday lives explore individual and collective identities using social context and landscape to investigate these identities in relation to cultural and political realities. A second major theme is her return to her homeland of Thuringia and the emigrant experience of Heimat as otherness.

Mueller published her first monograph MAY DAYS in 2018. She is the recipient of numerous awards, such as the 2018 FOLA Photobook Award Finalist (Argentina), the 2017 Visual Arts Project Grant, Somerville Arts Council (MA), the 1st Prize Juror’s Award, New England Photography Biennial 2015, Danforth Art Museum (MA), the Half Prize Books Award as part of the Joyce Elaine Grant Award, Texas Woman’s University (TX), the St. Botolph Foundation Grant (MA), the second place in the Hotshoe International Next Perspective Award (UK), among others.

Her work has been extensively exhibited, including recent photo-book exhibitions such as the 2018 Arles Books – The Photography Book in all its forms, Les Recontres de la Photographie (FRA), the 2018 Photobook Show, Athens Photo Festival, Bernaki Museum (GRE) and the J Book Show, Cork Photo Festival, Lewis Glucksman Gallery (IRE). In addition, her work was shown at the Le Lieu Unique/ National Center for Contemporary Arts, Nantes (FRA), the Pavillon de Bagatelle, Paris (FRA), Rick Wester Fine Art (NY), the Chase Center, RISD Museum of Art (RI), among others.

Publications include Ain’t-Bad Magazine, TIME LightBox, Flak Photo, Humble Arts Women in Photography, Prison Photography, One One Thousand – Publication of Southern Photography, Purpose (FRA), Artscope, and The New York Photo Review.

Dana Mueller was born and raised in Thuringia, East Germany until the fall of the Berlin Wall. She received her MFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art + Design.

Research/Publications Highlights

Monograph

  • 2018 May Days, Publisher Fraction Editions, Limited edition of 500, Printed by Kehrer Design, Germany

Departments

Art + Design

Education

  • M.F.A., Photography, Massachusetts College of Art and Design
  • B.F.A., The Art Institute of Boston (now Lesley Art + Design)

Awards

  • 2018 FOLA Photobook Award Finalist, Fototeca LatinoAmericana, Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • 2017 Visual Arts Project Grant, Somerville Arts Council (MCC), Massachusetts
  • 2015 1st Prize Juror’s Award, New England Photography Biennial, Danforth Art Museum, MA
  • 2015 Visual Arts Artist Fellowship Grant, Somerville Arts Council (MCC), Massachusetts
  • 2014 Photo Annual Awards, Honorable Mentions, Teplice, Czech Republic
  • 2014 Faculty Development Grant, Lesley University College of Art + Design, Boston, MA
  • 2013 Half Prize Books Award as part of Joyce Elaine Grant Award, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, TX
  • 2013 Faculty Development Grant, Lesley University College of Art + Design, Boston, MA
  • 2012 First Place Award Winner, Visual Art Exchange Juried Exhibition Unfettered, Raleigh, NC
  • 2010 Faculty Development Grant, Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, Boston, MA
  • 2009 Faculty Development Grant, Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, Boston, MA
  • 2008 Next Perspective 2nd Place, HotShoe International, UK
  • 2008 BridgeARTFair Miami Juried Competition Finalist, Miami, FL
  • 2007 St. Botolph Artist Grant, St. Botolph Club, Boston, MA

Courses Taught

  • International Studies
  • Documentary and Contemporary Photography, in conjunction with Introductory Design and German Cultural Context