Jen Folsom is an American fine art photographer, educator, and founder of Alchemy, a photography collective based in Nice, France.
Born into five generations of Nevada mining country, her work centers on landscape, memory, archive, and the American West. She holds an MFA in Photography from SCAD. Her work has been exhibited internationally across Europe and the United States. She has taught photography at every level from middle school through university, building award-winning programs and community-based installations that use photography as a tool for collective reflection. She is currently developing The Last Place I Call Home, a longitudinal documentary project spanning thirty years of fieldwork and five generations of family history.
Thirty years of photographic practice moving fluidly between large-format landscape, portraiture, archive, alternative process, and documentary work. Work centers on people and the narratives that shape our connections — imposed, forgotten, mythologized, or erased — with an ongoing focus on identity, labor, memory, and the American West.
Savannah College of Art and Design
Thesis: Bare Witness — Exploring Gendered Roles, Power Dynamics and Intimate Space Associated with the Male Nude
National Polytechnical University
Thesis: Incorporating Digital Practice into a Traditional Media-Based Art Curriculum
Arizona State University
Thesis: Calendar Girl — Exploring the Tropes of Female Representation in the Male Gaze
Palo Alto, CA
Built comprehensive program from the ground up: darkroom, medium and large format, wet plate collodion, and alternative process. Coordinated TEDxGunnHighSchool — the first and largest student-run TEDx — including annual large-scale community installations and international student learning immersions to Bhutan.
Colorado
Visual Communications, Digital Photography I & II, Photojournalism, Digital Darkroom Techniques. Cross-campus curriculum development and online learning environments.
Alternative process workshops including cyanotype with youth organizations. Sharing photographic practice at all levels from community workshops through university.
Photography practice encompassing commercial, editorial, and education work, currently focused on building a community-centered photography collective. Exhibition, alternative process education, and community programming around lens-based work.
Nice, France
[email protected]
+33 06 72 05 17 18
+1 (970) 227-3692