is an interdisciplinary artist, scholar, and filmmaker living in New York City. They are a 2010 Fulbright Fellow and earned a Master of Fine Art from Bard College. They have an professional practice in the arts, are an educator of the arts, and also work professionally as a director and editor, collaborating on film projects, including feature films, activism documentaries, and experimental works. Additionally, Sisson is working towards a second master’s degree in clinical social work and psychoanalytic study to expand the scope and impact of their work with artists. Sisson (b. 1987 in Cincinnati, Ohio) lived and worked in Los Angeles, CA, for 9 years and in 2021, moved to New York City.
Sisson is interested in the arts in relation to community participation, new-narratives, image-making, and experimental story-telling - that often hugs social practice. Their current work is an experimental-collage documentary project focusing on the-stuff-of-memory, the carcerality of the mental health care system (how it affects the clients and families within it), and the power of community-driven resources. The work explores memory systems through images, sound, and visual distortian. Past visual work has examined materials by intervening with perceived systems of value, using an assortment of materials- found, collected, and made. They’ve led conversations/lectures about artist day labor and finances, worked with printers as performers, have staged participatory installations, and have brought discarded electronic objects back to life through sound.
Sisson began their career with a BA of Science in Design (2010) where they created a wearable instrument in a semi-synthesis, audio-design, performative-display. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for art and with the fellowship, lived in Reykjavik, Iceland, authoring the feature-length, experimental documentary, I Send You This Place. The film poetically talks about perceptions of and systems around mental illness, and the process of grief/acceptance. Andrea wrote and performs, and with collaborator Pete Ohs co-created the imagery, soundscape, and soundtrack for the work. The film premiered at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, garnering aNew York Times Review, and Sisson and collaborator were selected for ”Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film 2013.”
Sisson has been a visiting artist at Carnegie Mellon School of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Maryland Institute College of Art, and the University of Cincinnati, and their work has been shown at São Paulo Museum of Image and Sound, broadcasted on SFE ART TV at Palais de Tokyo in Paris and on European public television stations, PAM Los Angeles, Los Angeles Contemporary Archive, S1 Portland, Swapmeet at Andrea Zittel’s High Desert Test Sites, Poetic Research Bureau Los Angeles, the Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati, and several film festivals including Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and Los Angeles Film Festival. They’ve been a resident at PAM Residencies Los Angeles, Alternative Worksite in Roanoke, VA, and S1 Portland. Additionally, she has worked and volunteered with the Los Angeles Artists Census, the Bard College MFA Student Government, artist-run therapy groups, and co-founded and momentarily ran an Artists’ in Mental Health working group.
Sisson also co-founded and ran a small film studio for five years (2012-2017) as a producer, director, and maker on widely-seen projects. They collaborated on films, including the feature film, Everything Beautiful Is Far Away (2017), staring Julia Garner from Ozark (L-E).
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