Open Book: Sonja Thomsen

Please join us for Open Book: Sonja Thomsen

About the Book:

You Will Find It Where It Is: a reader

by sonja thomsen, 2020
Edit & Design: Christina Labey.
Design: Studio Elana Schlenker.
Paper: Mixed Paper Stock (Uncoated, Translucent, Acetate) Cover: Colorplan (Smoke)
Printed by Conveyor Studio in Jersey City
Bound by Sonja Thomsen in Milwaukee

1st edition published by Poor Farm Press
edition of 300

Artist Sonja Thomsen believes that wonder is paramount to imagine post-patriarchal futures. Thomsen’s first publication with Poor Farm Press, You will find it where it is: a reader,  is a meditation to move our locus of attention.

The layered book of photographs creates space and redacts gendered histories of knowledge to make room for new discoveries. Polishing her feminist lens, Thomsen intercepts the timelines of nineteenth century writer, Margaret Fuller; twentieth century photographer, Lucia Moholy; and twenty-first century conceptual artist, Maria Nordman among others.

This wondrous artist book serves as a catalyst and declaration of Thomsen’s iterative practice where time and light are material and metaphor.

The reader is in the following PUBLIC COLLECTIONS:

Cleveland Museum of Art Ingalls Library
Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell Foundation
Hirsch Library at The Museum of Fine Arts Houston

Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection at SAIC Flaxman Library

Milwaukee Art Museum Library
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago
Rhode Island School of Design Fleet Library
Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library at Yale University Library
Texas State University Alkek Library
Walker Art Center Library

Artist Biography:

Sonja Thomsen is an American artist and organizer manifesting mass and co-authoring meaning. Her multifaceted practice choreographs light; in image, object and architecture. Lines of inquiry into scientific epistemologies and feminist politics are shaped by her profound personal experiences and are articulated in an object-based practice which encompasses books, installations, mobiles, and images. She is a mother working in abstraction, trained in the sciences, whose practice creates space for radical wonder.  Thomsen’s publication ‘You will find it where it is: a reader’ was published by Poor Farm Press in 2020.  She is currently Assistant Professor, Adj at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Thomsen has exhibited with the Bauhaus Archiv in Berlin, Center for Photography at Woodstock , DePaul Art Museum Chicago, Gallery f5,6 in Munich, Higher Pictures in New York, New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, the Reykjavik Museum of Photography among others. Thomsen’s work resides in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, Haas Family Arts Library at Yale University, DePaul University Art Museum, Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, MoCP Chicago, MFAH Houston, Milwaukee Art Museum and Walker Art Center.

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