Welcome Fall Magnum Foundation Fellow Destiny Mata
Destiny Mata, A collaborative yearbook created with students during my teaching artist residency at City-As-School High School. City-As-School High School Yearbook 2021-2022.
Magnum Foundation is pleased to announce Destiny Mata as our newest Magnum Foundation Fellow. Throughout the Fall of 2023, Destiny will split her time between supporting Magnum Foundation’s programming and pursuing her project Alphabet City Yearbook 2023-2024. “Reflecting back to my high school yearbook, it was a unique time capsule and a way to express the sign of the times. Flipping through the pages of my year book I reminisce over the array of original artwork, pictures, music, and poetry bringing me a sense of belonging. Inspiring me to propose a photo archival project in collaboration with residents from Lower East Side public housing to create a yearbook which celebrates the spirit and legacy of our community through photography and conversations between our elders and youth. This yearbook will serve as a timeline to preserving resident narratives and touching on community wellness, perceptions of space, finding common ground through shared memory.”
Destiny is a Mexican American photographer and filmmaker based in her native New York City as she focuses on issues of subculture and community. After studying photojournalism at LaGuardia Community College and San Antonio College, she spent two years as Director of Photography Programs at the Lower East Side Girls Club. Destiny has had work published and featured in The New York Times, The Nation, i-D Magazine, and The Culture Crush. Mata has exhibited La Vida En Loisaida: Life on the Lower East Side at Photoville Festival 2020. She has taken part in a group exhibition at ICP Concerned Global Images for Global Crisis at the International Center of Photography 2020, Magnum Foundation US Dispatches Grantee 2020, Mexic-Arte Museum, Young Latino Artists 21: Amexican@ 2016 and in 2014 she exhibited photographs of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy at the Museum of New York City’s, Rising Waters: Photographs of Sandy exhibition.
On receiving the fellowship, Destiny shared, “My photography is deeply rooted in where I'm from, the Lower East Side. The support from this fellowship will allow me the time to continue collaborating with my community on the Lower East Side which is going through constant change.”
The Magnum Foundation Fellowship offers mentorship and stipends to early-career practitioners who are at a critical moment in their development as photographers. This fellowship is designed for New York City-based photographers to work in the Magnum Foundation office while also developing their own photographic project in the city that demonstrates a commitment to social issues and community based work. Learn more here.
The Magnum Foundation Fellowship is made possible with the support of the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation and the Select Equity Group Foundation.
Destiny Mata, History of Tattoos. A collaborative yearbook created with students during my teaching artist residency at City-As-School High School. City-As-School High School Yearbook 2021-2022.
Destiny Mata, A collaborative yearbook created with students during my teaching artist residency at City-As-School High School. City-As-School High School Yearbook 2021-2022.