Review Santa Fe: Ania Moussawel: The Days Are Long

In early November 2025, I used to be invited to CENTER’s Review Santa Fe. Being my first time within the Southwest and expertise on the Reviewer aspect of the desk, I wasn’t fairly positive what to anticipate. As an educator, I like reviewing work; when others hear “critique,” they might draw back, however I like the expertise of serving to others by their concepts. Review Santa Fe is an extremely welcoming expertise, fastidiously cultivating significant tasks and conversations. Living in a really rural space, this was an inspiring alternative to see what’s on the horizon of the photograph world. I’m so excited to share just a few of those tasks over the primary week of February.

Today, we’ll be sharing Ania Moussawel’s The Days Are Long.

Ania Moussawel is a visible artist and educator from Miami, Florida. She obtained a BFA in images from Barry University in Miami Shores, FL and an MFA in Photo, Video, and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in New York, NY.  Her work in images and video explores notions of household, reminiscence, and loss by portraiture, rituals, and observations of every day life. Her household’s cultures, Cuban and Lebanese, are central themes in her work, typically set within the properties of her maternal and paternal grandmothers.  Moussawel’s most up-to-date physique of labor, The Days are Long, investigates the complicated relationship between mom and baby over generations in her household.

Moussawel has exhibited her work in numerous group reveals at venues such because the Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, DC; the Griffin Museum of Photography; Filter Photo; the Center for Fine Art Photography; and the Center for Book Arts, amongst others. She has had solo reveals at Soho Photo Gallery, O’Cinema in partnership Oolite Arts, and Florida International University.

Moussawel was the winner of the 2024 South Florida Cultural Consortium, 2022 Soho Photo Gallery International Portfolio Competition. She was additionally a semifinalist within the 2022 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition from the National Portrait Gallery, winner of the Miami Individual Artist Grant (2022-2024), and was a prime 200 finalist in Photo Lucida’s Critical Mass (2022-2024).  Moussawel lives and works in Miami, FL, the place she lives together with her husband, two youngsters, and canines.

Follow Ania on Instagram: @aniamoussawel

The Days Are Long

My work in images and video explores notions of household, reminiscence, and loss by portraiture, rituals, and observations of every day life.  My household’s cultures, Cuban and Lebanese, are central themes in my work, typically set within the properties of my maternal and paternal grandmothers.  As a second-generation American, I observe the small print of their properties, feeling like a foreigner at instances, regardless that I’ve identified these locations for almost my complete life. I’ve photographed within the house of my maternal grandparents extensively, documenting their every day lives.  It reveals completely different generations as they develop and age, rituals and practices which have now been left behind, and the life that continues after the lack of a member of the family.  In making these pictures, I piece collectively a visible narrative of an immigrant household, whereas connecting with my very own identification. 

Epiphany Knedler: How did your venture come about?

Ania Moussawel: While in graduate faculty, I started making work about my household and cultural heritage. I’ve continued to discover these themes since commencement.  My latest physique of labor, The Days are Long, started in 2020.  I used to be at house with my household in the course of the COVID-19 lockdown, photographing my youngsters of their every day moments.  I began developing portraits of my daughter, however in the mean time, I didn’t know it could evolve right into a long-term venture.  It was after I was lastly capable of go to my grandmother that I took a candid photograph of her sitting in her front room, which I titled “The Days are Long,” that the venture started to take type.

EK: Is there a particular picture that’s your favourite or notably significant to this sequence?

AM: My favourite photograph from this sequence is Great-Grandmother’s.  While a lot of the images on this sequence are staged, this candid was a singular second when the whole lot within the body got here collectively, together with my daughter’s expression and pose, which she did on her personal.   My son additionally occurred to be strolling by with an armful of toy trains. And all this occurred in my grandmother’s front room, their great-grandmother’s.

EK: Can you inform us about your inventive follow?

AM: My journey with images started twenty-five years in the past.  From the start, my work in images centered on private themes, notably household and identification, by portraiture and capturing every day moments.  This grew to become the main target of my graduate work and my present artwork follow. In addition to my artwork follow,  I’ve additionally been working as a photographic educator since 2006.  I’ve taught images programs at a number of establishments, together with Barry University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida International University, and, at present, Rhode Island School of Design and Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

EK: What’s subsequent for you?

AM: I’ll proceed exploring household historical past, constructing on my earlier sequence, The Days are Long.  For the brand new work, I’ll flip my lens towards my paternal Lebanese lineage, utilizing images to piece collectively a fragmented narrative.

---

Epiphany Knedler is an interdisciplinary artist + educator exploring the methods we have interaction with historical past. She graduated from the University of South Dakota with a BFA in Studio Art and a BA in Political Science and accomplished her MFA in Studio Art at East Carolina University. She relies in Aberdeen, South Dakota, serving as an Assistant Professor of Art and Coordinator of the Art Department at Northern State University, a Content Editor with LENSCRATCH, and the co-founder and curator of the artwork collective Midwest Nice Art. Her work has been exhibited within the New York Times, the Guardian, Vermont Center for Photography, Lenscratch, Dek Unu Arts, and awarded by Lensculture, the Lucie Foundation, F-Stop Magazine, and Photolucida Critical Mass.
Follow Epiphany on Instagram: @epiphanysk