Hanna Leka

Hanna Leka is a first generation Ethiopian American and self-taught photographer currently based in Washington, DC. Her introduction to image making was in taking painting and drawing lessons for seven years of her childhood in Orange County, California.

Image making later evolved from the canvas to the camera and with humans with her Ethiopian roots being at the center of her interests, she has done conceptual projects that explore revelations of beauty and explain the nuances of the East African diaspora. While obtaining her bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the University of California, Riverside, her curiosities towards understanding the world better and image making only grew.

When Leka decided to pursue photojournalism and enrolled into George Washington University’s New Media and Photojournalism master’s program, her main goal was to take advantage of every opportunity she could to improve her craft and gain insight into the industry. From the beginning of her first semester she decided to seek out stories that connected her back to her roots and exposed her to Eastern world cultures. She photographed holidays of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and conducted visual research on the Islamic community throughout Maryland, D.C. and Virginia in effort to create work that she believed wasn’t being made in a western context. She attended notable conferences and workshops such as the Northern Short Course, the Missouri Photo Workshop and the Eddie Adams Workshop where she received the “Keep in Flight” grant for her empathetic and passionate approach to her given assignment.

Hanna’s work currently explores the subtle and profound relationships between identity, culture, and migration. Her origins in the quiet suburbs of Irvine, California rooted under the upbringings of an Ethiopian household has brought about contemplation on the nuance of Eastern cultures that move within Western contexts. Hanna holds her efforts towards photojournalism as a vehicle to bridge gaps and unravel truth on cultures and communities that are misunderstood and underrepresented in Western media. Her frequent visits to Ethiopia have informed her on-going efforts to document the presence of Ethiopian culture and social life within the United States.

Her work has been displayed in exhibitions across Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and has also appeared in The Washington Post, El Pais, Dazed MENA and more.