Nora Chovanec has a deep background in documentary photography, media literacy, and in using art as a vehicle for social change. Born in Virginia, raised in Oregon, and educated in Massachusetts, Nora has been photographing the world around her for almost 10 years. At sixteen, she traveled to Ukraine, worked for an orphanage and a children’s hospital, photographed the experience, and upon returning to the U.S., showed her work in galleries, made a book of her photographs, and used this work to raise awareness on social justice issues in Ukraine. Her experience in Ukraine taught her that photography could be a tool for understanding human rights issues and for empowering social change. She has since gone on to create documentary stories from Uganda, Mexico, and across the United States. Her work explores and makes connections within the issues of human rights, food development, social justice, environmental justice, and globalization. Nora’s photographic work relies heavily on moving past the assumption that documentary photography should create simply a document of someone’s life. Instead, she works to create intimate portraits of people and their relationships to their culture and community. She strives to create narratives that are not linear, but instead serve to inform the viewer and create a space for conversation.

Nora has exhibited in numerous group shows, been given the opportunity to present her work at multiple national conferences, held artist talks about her past and present work, and been published in newspapers and magazines across the country. Currently she is finishing her fifth year of the combined-degree B.A./B.F.A. program with Tufts University and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), Boston, majoring in Photography and Women’s Studies. She is currently shooting a piece about brownfield sites in the Boston area and has upcoming shows slated for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Tufts University Art Gallery, and the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University.