Project Space Residency

Sophie Schwartz is a Cleveland born artist living in between New Haven and New York. They use collaboration as an entry point to explore grief, memory, and queer connection. Schwartz received an MFA from Yale School of Art and a BA in Modern Culture + Media from Brown University. They were the recipient of the Richard Benson Prize and Harvey Geiger Travel Fellowship from Yale University and were selected as a finalist for the Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize, Critical Mass, and the Palm Photo Prize.

My research positions collaboration as an entry point to investigate grief, memory, and queerness. At the core of my practice are interpersonal relationships and the dance of making images with other people. I am fascinated by the way photographs can capture how people can see one another within the frame and beyond it. My work reveals the tension between the performance and authentic, the past and present, and the photographer and model. I display the behind the scenes and process of the photograph, and its working documents: the contact sheet, test print, and archive. Using a view camera and black and white film roots my practice in early photographic history while I disrupt the traditional process with the contemporary queer subject.

VSW Project Space Residencies are supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the New York State Legislature, Monroe County, and Joy of Giving Something. Photography artists participating in the program receive support from the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation.