+1 651 373 9709
BETWEEN OREGON & NEW YORK
@SARAHBLESENER
Working across photography, archives, writing, painting, and mixed media, their practice explores themes of silence, testimony, trauma, and the ethics of representation. In 2025 they co-created Enter/Exit, a collaborative project of methodologies, critiques, poetry, and artwork outlining alternative ways of working with survivors.
They are faculty at the International Center of Photography and co-founder of Tacet Eye, an interdisciplinary educational community focused on alternative approaches to visual narratives, poetics, process, and ethics.
Ethics and aesthetics
Participatory and collaborative image-making practices
Trauma-informed visual journalism
Archives, testimony, and narrative memory
Poetics, ambiguity, and indirect representation in documentary work
Accountability and responsibility in documentary practice
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
International Center of Photography (ICP) — Faculty, New York, NY
Tacet Eye — Co-Founder & Instructor
Interdisciplinary educational community focused on visual narrative, ethics, and artistic process
GUIDING QUESTIONS
What does it mean to truly contextualize a story? What does accountability look like in documentary practice? Do we have a stake in the stories we tell? What does that stake mean and how does it manifest in our work? Who is at the table when decisions are made about representation? Who is not? What does participatory photography actually look like beyond rhetoric? How do we cultivate humility as practitioners? What systems do we create for our own character checks? How do we remain open? How do we attune ourselves to the people and environments we work within? What practices keep us soft, receptive, and present in our work? When our work begins to repeat itself, how do we interrupt that repetition and return to the question of what if? Who are we accountable to in our work, and what does it mean to carry that responsibility forward?
PEDAGOGICAL CREDO
I teach photography and storytelling as practices of attention. Ethics, to me, is a form of responsiveness: a willingness to remain open to the people, contexts, and uncertainties that shape the work. Rather than teaching fixed methods, I encourage students to ask more questions about power, responsibility, and the stories we choose to tell. The aim is to cultivate practitioners who remain curious, accountable, and attuned to the world around them.
I emphasize contextual thinking, collaborative critique, and process-based experimentation. Students are encouraged to work across mediums - writing, archival exploration, symbolic imagery, and participatory methods.My pedagogy asks students to remain in an active process of questioning: where we place ourselves in the narrative, what it means to have a stake in the work we are doing, and how our images shape the lives of the people represented within them.
PEDIGOGICAL APPROACH
My teaching integrates poetics and socially engaged methods with process-driven experimentation. I emphasize collaborative inquiry, reflective critique, and interdisciplinary practice. Students are guided to consider ethics and accountability at every stage of a project, while cultivating curiosity, humility, and attentiveness. Assignments are designed to support exploration, responsiveness, and engagement with real-world contexts, encouraging both rigor and openness to uncertainty.
COURSES DEVELOPED
Poetics and Process
A course examining photographic storytelling through poetic inquiry, process-based experimentation, and reflective critique.
Anonymous Portraiture
A conceptual exploration of portraiture through absence, symbolism, and indirect representation, questioning how identity can be depicted without direct visibility.
Long-form Project Development
An intensive mentorship program guiding photographers through the development of long-form projects, emphasizing narrative structure, ethics, critique practice, and research methodology.
Documentary Practice and Personal Project Development
COURSES PREPARED TO TEACH
Foundations of Documentary Photography. Long-Form Documentary Project Development. Ethics of Visual Storytelling. Investigative and Narrative Photojournalism. Participatory Photography and Collaborative Image Making. Socially Engaged Art and Documentary Practice. Trauma-Informed Visual Storytelling. Accountability and Ethics in Documentary Practice. Poetics and Process in Visual Storytelling. Anonymous Portraiture: Identity, Absence, and Representation. Visual Narrative Through Archives and Memory. Experimental Documentary Methods. Independent Project Mentorship. Thesis Development in Visual Narrative. Portfolio and Professional Practice for Documentary Artists.
WORKSHOPS, LECTURES, AND ARTIST TALKS
2025 Contemporary Care Practice panel with Isadora Kosofsky and Bora Un, moderated by Alexey Yurenev, International Center of Photography.
2025 Looking In: The Conversations Between Our Images and Ourselves, International Center of Photography.
2025 Grant and Creative Writing Workshop in partnership with the International Center of Photography and Indian Photo Festival.
2025 To Bind Anew: Reimagining Our Photographic Archives with Jenny Stratton, Photo Farm, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
2025 To Bind Anew: Archival Strategies for Reflection and Discovery with Kate Warren and Jenny Stratton, Hudson, New York.
2024 Panel participant, Visual Strategies in Documentary Practice, International Center of Photography.
2024 Guest lecture, Photojournalism course, University of California Berkeley.
2022 Guest lecture, Columbia University for Nina Berman.
2021 Co-instructor with Brian Frank, Documentary Practice and Personal Project Development: Intermediate, Social Documentary Network.
2020 Guest Lecture Series, Cochise College.
2019 Artist Talk, MANA Contemporary.
2018 Artist Lecture, International Center of Photography.
2018 Artist Lecture, Dokfestivalen, Fredrikstad, Norway.
2018 Artist Lecture, Scandinavian Photo, Oslo, Norway.
2018 Artist Lecture, United Nations International School, New York.
2017 Artist Lecture, Pratt Institute.
2017 Artist Lecture, California College of the Arts.
2017 Artist Lecture, The New School.
2017 Artist Lecture, Gallup High School, New Mexico.
2017 Artist Lecture, Documentary Matters, Social Documentary Network.
2016 Artist Lecture, Bronx Documentary Center.
EDUCATION AND RESEARCH:
2025 MFA Candidate, Art and Social Practice, Portland State University.
2025 Studio Art Therapy Techniques, School of Visual Arts.
2024 Forensic Architecture, Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.
2024 Dreams and Dreaming: Philosophy, Psychology and the Unconscious, Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.
2024 Artistic Realism: From Representation to Revolution, Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.
2024 German Language Studies, Goethe Institute.
2023 Silence: Art, Literature and Philosophy, Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.
2023 Writing the Ephemeral with Jordan Kisner, Pioneer Works.
2023 ACOS Alliance Annual Safety Coordination Meeting: Psychological Safety, Ford Foundation.
2023 Introduction to Trauma, Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.
2022 Trauma-Informed Approaches to Journalism, Poynter Institute.
2022 Trauma Awareness for Journalists, Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.
2021 Russian Language Studies, Middlebury Language School.
2020 French Language Studies, Alliance Française.
2020 Spanish Language Studies, Cervantes Institute.
2019 Philosophy and Critical Theory, Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.
2019 German Language Studies, Goethe Institute.
2018 Photobook Workshop with Teun van der Heijden and Sandra van der Doelen.
2016 Reporting Safely in Crisis Zones, Dart Center, Columbia Journalism School.
2015 Visual Journalism and Documentary Practice, International Center of Photography.
2012 Bachelor of Arts, Psychology