Dena Cowan

Born and raised in Tucson, Dena earned a BFA from New York University with a focus on writing and film. She worked as a film editor in NYC before moving to Spain, where she went to study Spanish and photography and stayed for 23 years. As a writer, photographer, editor and translator, mainly for a bilingual art photography magazine called EXIT Image&Culture she was able to live in rural ranching and farming communities in the mountains north of Madrid, where she became interested in traditional rural culture and agroecological practices, also writing and photographing for a regional newspaper, Senda Norte.

In 2005 she moved to a tiny hamlet in Asturias, northwestern Spain, to raise her two children. There, she also raised vegetables and berries, fruit and nut trees, sheep and a horse, and the family cleared a historical meandering path through the forest on their 7-acre homestead.

In 2010 she returned to Tucson, made a bilingual documentary called Tasting History (El Sabor de la Historia), and has since been affiliated with Mission Garden, serving as Community Outreach Coordinator and Garden Supervisor. Dena curated an exhibition about the Tucson City of Gastronomy designation for Tucson Meet Yourself, worked as heritage farming consultant for Arizona’s first certified regenerative organic farm, Oatman Flats Ranch, and developed heritage gardens for El Presidio del Tucson. She is currently Curator of Collections at Mission Garden, working to develop gardens and exhibits, document and describe plants, gardens and special features, manage the seed collection and reference library, and create content for interpretive materials and educational programming.

Dena is happiest in the garden with her hands in the dirt, tending the Spanish vegetable and herb garden, and feeling part of the miraculous bounty and beauty of nature.

Back to Our Team page