Dea Hovhannisyan (b. Deanna Oganesian) is a Bay Area-based visual artist and photographer whose work explores memory, land, and being through analog film and multimedia collage.

Her photographs reflect a relationship to earth, ancestral legacy, and connection, each frame a study in the poetry of presence. Living in Armenia and working with displaced communities shaped a practice grounded in attunement, lived experience, and lineage. This foundation shaped her contributions to the feature film The Dragon Under Our Feet, where she worked as both a BTS photographer and B-camera operator, creating still and moving images rooted in cultural memory and craft.

Her work has been featured in QAMI JAN Magazine, a visual campaign for Nairian, at Pershing Art Space in Los Angeles, and in the group exhibitions This Sacred Feeling at Oakland Photo Workshop and Edge of Home at ARTogether, where she was also a co-curator.

As a member of the East Bay Photo Collective, Dea explores analog film as both process and practice, developing and printing 35mm film in the darkroom. She is also a co-founder of Mother Armenia, a SWANA/MENA cultural platform that produces community events, radio shows, exhibitions, and fundraisers, with $17,500 donated in humanitarian aid since its founding.

At the intersection of artistry and cultural work, Dea creates spaces that honor lineage while inviting diasporic storytelling and collective transformation.