Sasha Wortzel is a visual artist and filmmaker using video, installation, sculpture, sound, and performance to explore how this country’s past and present are inextricably linked through resonant spaces and their hauntings. Raised in South Florida and based in New York City, Wortzel specifically attends to sites and stories systematically erased or ignored from these regions’ histories. Projects examine queer place-making, ecology, and the systems that marginalize, extract, and erase communities, peoples, and histories. Wortzel’s films have screened at the Museum of Modern Art’s DocFortnight, Berlinale, True/False Film Festival, DOC NYC, BAMcinemaFest, Blackstar, New Orleans Film Festival, Wexner Center for the Arts, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Aspen Art Museum, among others. Solo exhibitions include Dreams of Unknown Islands at Cooley Memorial Art Gallery with Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, OR (2022) and Oolite Arts, Miami Beach, FL (2021). Her work has been exhibited in group exhibitions at the New Museum, Brooklyn Museum, The Kitchen, New York; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; and SALTS, Birsfelden. Wortzel has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation, Field of Vision, Doc Society, Chicken and Egg Pictures, Art Matters, and a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship. Wortzel has participated in residencies including Silver Art Projects, Smack Mellon’s Artist Studio Program, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Program, Abrons Arts Center, Watermill Center, New York; AIRIE (Artists in Residence in the Everglades) and Oolite Arts; Miami Beach. Wortzel’s work is in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Studio Museum of Harlem, Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, and Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places. Her film This is an Address (2020) is distributed by Field of Vision. Happy Birthday Marsha! (2018; co-director Tourmaline) won special mention at Outfest and is distributed by Frameline. Wortzel has been featured in publications including The New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, and New York Magazine.

Sasha Wortzel is an artist and filmmaker working between Brooklyn and Miami. Blending documentary and narrative storytelling, her films, installations, and performances explore how structures of power shape our lives around race, gender, desire, and landscape. Wortzel’s work has been presented and exhibited at MoMA, New Museum, Brooklyn Museum, The Kitchen, BAMcinématek, DOC NYC, Berlinale, and ICA London. She has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Field of Vision, Art Matters, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Queer/Art/Mentorship, and the Astraea Foundation. Wortzel was awarded a 2018 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in film/video and a 2018-2019 Abrons Arts Center’s AIRspace Residency for Visual Artists. Her film Happy Birthday, Marsha! (2018, co-director Tourmaline) won special mention at Outfest 2018 and is distributed by Frameline. Her work is the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum and Leslie Lohman Museum of Art. Wortzel has been featured in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Artforum, and Art in America. She received an M.F.A. in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College.

Blending documentary and fiction, Sasha Wortzel’s films, installations, and performances excavate narratives of political resistance and mutual aid that have been systematically erased from the official record. Approaching her work through rigorous research, often reworking found footage, text, and materials, gaps in the archive become creative departure points for reimagining historical events and dreaming a new way forward. Wortzel’s work has been presented and exhibited nationally and internationally at the Museum of Modern Art, New Museum, Brooklyn Museum, The Kitchen, BAMcinématek, DOC NYC, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; Outfest, Los Angeles, CA; Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, Illinois; Berlinale, Berlin, Germany; S.A.L.T.S, Birsfelden, Switzerland; ICA London, London, England; and Sharjah Film Platform, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Wortzel has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Art Matters, Field of Vision, Queer/Art/Mentorship, and a 2018 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in film/video. She has participated in residencies including the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Program, Abrons Arts Residency for Visual Artists, Watermill Center, New York; and AIRIE (Artists in Residence in the Everglades), Florida. She is a 2020 studio resident at Oolite Arts, Miami and the spring 2020 artist in residence at the Crisp Ellert Art Museum, St. Augustine, Florida. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum and Leslie Lohman Museum of Art. She has been featured in publications including The New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, and New York Magazine.