Andrea Sisson

is a filmmaker, director, multidisciplinary artist, and scholar. They are a 2010 Fulbright Fellow, a 2013 Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Face of Independent Film, and earned a Master of Fine Arts from Bard College in 2021.

Sisson’s award winning films bridge indie/microbudget film, experimental documentary, and avant garde film. As an artist, Sisson is involved in most pieces of the process - developing and research, writing/directing, producing, creatively crafting/editing, sound, and the whole of what she calls “creative services.” Sisson has also collaborated on and produced other filmmaker’s projects. Sisson’s contemporary art practice runs complementary to her filmmaking practice with equal weight, branching into deconstructed films/new media, participatory artworks, social practice projects, material studies, essays, and collaborations in performance. As a conceptualist, the content of Sisson’s work is what weaves throughout - an ethos of play, the human experience, and institutional and social critique.

Rounding out her practice, Sisson is an interdisciplinary scholar. Sisson earned a Masters of Fine Art from Bard College, is a Fulbright Scholar, and most recently completed her Masters of Social Work in 2025, focusing on psychodynamic study. This second masters, has deepened the under-pinnings of Sisson’s work through research. The degree also makes Sisson a licensed clinical social worker, allowing her to work as a therapist with a select pool of clients. Sisson approaches this clinical work as an artist, combining psychoanalytics with an enlightening, curious, and creative mentoring perspective. 

Sisson channels all of her experiences into an investment in the growth of her community as a facilitator and educator. She has taught at FIT in the Film and Media department since 2023, supervises social practice and public artworks, facilitates community projects, mentors, and collaborates in her community. Sisson has also facilitated projects that bridge the arts and the social in non-conventional and boundary-pushing ways. Mentor Yazan Khalil, from Sisson’s Master of Fine Arts board, once said, “for Sisson, “community IS material.”

 


Sisson’s projects, history, and visibility:

Sisson (b. 1987 in Cincinnati, Ohio) lived and worked in Los Angeles, CA, for 9 years and in 2021, moved to New York City.

In her most notable works, Sisson has collaborated with actress Julia Garner, Ryan Heffington (Sia’s choreographer), artist Fia Backström, musical act Amiia, director Pete Ohs, and has been reviewed by the New York Times and notable film industry publications.

Sisson’s 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. 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. Sisson has 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 and artist-run therapy groups. Sisson also co-founded and ran a small film studio for five years (Lauren-Edward, 2012-2017) as a producer, director, and maker on widely-seen projects. The studio designed their own unconventional filmmaking process and collaborated on films, including the feature film, Everything Beautiful Is Far Away (2017), staring Julia Garner from Ozark (L-E).

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 a New York Times Review, and Sisson and collaborator were selected for ”Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film 2013.”

Sisson’s work has explored memory systems, the carcerality of the mental health care system, and the power of community-driven resources - through images, sound, and visual distortian. Past visual work has examined material by intervening with perceived systems of monetary value, using an assortment of materials - found, collected, and made. She’s made impactful short and feature films, led conversations/lectures about artist labor and finances, worked with printers as performers, has staged participatory installations, and has brought discarded electronic objects back to life through sound.

Please inquire for additional information including project documentation and further description.