Short Bio

Esraa Dayrwan was born in Damascus, Syria, in 1990. She holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Damascus and a diploma in photography from the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig.

In 2013, after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, she moved with her family to Beirut, where she worked as a translator. At the end of 2015, she moved to Leipzig, where she now studies and works.

Her artistic work stems from a deeply personal exploration of themes such as memory, trauma and the fluidity of identity in times of crisis. Her life experience, shaped by migration in three different countries, forms the basis of her visual language, in which she explores the psychological traces of war, exile and family ties. In symbolically multi-layered visual narratives, she examines how inner worlds are shaped by external upheavals and uses photography as a means of reconstructing emotional and temporal continuity.

Since October 2025, she has been a postgraduate student (Meisterschühlerin) in Prof. Tina Bara's class for photography and moving image at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig.

October 2025 Meisterschülerin with Prof. Tina Bara at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig

October 2019- July 2025 studied photography at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (Photography Diploma)

October 2008 - 2012 English Literatur at Damascus University (Bachelor Degree)