Diane Fellows resides in Oxford, Ohio, where she teaches architectural design and theory in the department of Architecture and Interior Design, Miami University. Fellows’ work in photography, digital film, painting and prose explores narrative constructions of the main subject of her work: the topological and temporal conditions of personal and public migration, dislocation, and refuge. Her work engages displacement through generations, and how, in unfamiliar landscapes, places of personal and cultural meaning are created.
Fellows’ work in photography and film began at the Philadelphia College of Art / University of the Arts, after which she earned a M.F.A. at The University of Wisconsin-Madison with a focus in video and drawing. Fellows continued work at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as a Rockefeller Fellow. In Boston, time-based projects evolved into architectural work, and she headed west where she received a M.Arch from the University of Oregon. Fellows worked for a number of architectural firms, and was a project designer for the international firm Ellerbe Becket Ltd / AECOM.
Fellows’ media work has been presented internationally including Brazil, Germany, and South Africa. Her film “This Water Cuts Its Own Course” was presented at the 2021 Toronto International Women’s Film Festival and awarded Gold Laurel, Best Historical Film. Fellows’ book chapter “Social Media, Shelter and Resilience: Design in Za’atari Refugee Camp” appears in Shelters of Protection?, Mark E. Breeze and Tom Scott-Smith eds., Berghahn Press, New York: Oxford. She is currently working on the photographic series, film, and texts entitled “My Dearest Margot” and “HWY15: when a stranger comes to visit”.