Amira Ziyan
Photographer, Artist, Teacher
Born in 1977, Amira Ziyan lives and works as a photographer, artist and teacher in Yarka, a Druze village in the north of Israel. She holds both a Bachelors and Masters of Fine Arts from Haifa University. Ziyan's artwork focuses on staged photography. Her work often emphasizes the subject's absence by evoking their presence through objects. The main subjects of Ziyan's art are women from her Israeli Druze society, as well as identity and gender in contemporary Druze culture.
Ziyan’s principal artistic medium is staged photography. She builds her works as planned compositions in which image, color, and landscape are employed with intention to express a symbolic narrative. At the center of this creative process is the "stage" that she creates for the photographed scenes. Through this, Ziyan aims to create works that the viewer can "read."
As a woman, photographer, and artist from Yarka, and a member of the Druze community, Ziyan uses her art to mediate the two worlds between which she finds herself torn: the traditional and the modern.
Education
2012 MFA, University of Haifa, Israel
2010 BA in Fine Arts and French Studies, University of Haifa, Israel
Awards and Grants
2026 Artnow Grant for the solo exhibition “at Ramat Gan Museum, Ramat Gan
2024 Pais Culture Council’s Grant for the solo exhibition “at Ramat Gan Museum, 2026
2024 A grant from the Independent Creators Foundation from the Ministry of Culture
and Sports for 2023
2023 Artis Residency RU Grant Support
2022 Oscar Handler Award from Kibbutz Lohamei HaGetaot
2020 Joshua Rabinowitz Foundation for the Tel Aviv Arts
2020 Pais Culture Council’s Grant for the solo exhibition “at Wilfrid Israel Museum, Kibbutz Hazora
2020 Special Commendation of "Beki Prize" of the year from the Association for Women's Art and Gender
Research in Israel
2017 The Israel Ministry of Culture Creativity Encouragement Award
2016 Pais Cultural Fund’s Grant for a solo exhibition at the Umm El Fahem Gallery
2010 High Achievement in Final Project Award by the Friends of the University of Haifa
2009 The Shpilman Award for Photography Students, The Shpilman Institute, Tel Aviv
2008 The Saar Efroni Artist Prize, Israel
Collections
Ramat Gan Museum of Art
Alexander Tutsek Stiftung, Germany
Haifa Museum of Art
The Knesset (Israeli Parliament)
Edna Fast
Diana Lipton
The Core Collection of Contemporary Art, NYU Tel Aviv
Umm El Fahem Art Gallery
Adv. Kofti Mazen
The law firm of Herzog Fox Ne'eman, Tel Aviv
Private collections in Israel and abroad