Andrea Sisson

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

Sisson is a filmmaker, interdisciplinary artist, writer and scholar whose work bridges independent narrative, experimental documentary, and psychoanalytic inquiry. A Fulbright Fellow, Sisson holds an MFA from Bard College and an MSW focused on psychodynamic study. Sisson’s film projects move between narrative invention and experimental documentary, exploring systems of memory and the limits of perception. Interested in material and form, and working across image, sound, and text, Sisson treats filmmaking and storytelling as a social and philosophical tool. Her films often merge the personal and the structural, using poetic form and hybrid storytelling to explore the thresholds between visibility and erasure. Her award-winning films have screened internationally at the São Paulo Museum of Image and Sound and SFE ART TV at the Palais de Tokyo, and have been recognized by The New York Times, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” Sisson’s essays have appeared in Filmmaker Magazine and the European Journal of Psychoanalysis.

Sisson’s catalogue includes independent and microbudget feature film, avant-garde cinema and experimental documentary, and more recently, theater and performance dramaturgy. Sisson is often involved in many pieces of the filmmaking process - development/research, writing, directing, producing and creative producing, creatively crafting/editing, and sound. Sisson has also collaborated on and produced other filmmaker’s, writer’s, and playwright’s projects - directing, creative producing and dramaturgy, editing, sound. Sisson’s interdisciplinary art practice runs complementary to her filmmaking, branching into deconstructed narratives, participatory artworks and social projects, hybrid forms of writing and essay, photography, and collaborations in performance. Sisson’s inquiry is into forms of narrative and storytelling as it reflects the human need to make sense of the world around them, often with themes of institutional critique and an ethos of play.

Sisson channels her experiences into an investment in the growth of her community as a facilitator and educator. She is a professor of film at FIT in the department of Film, Media, and Performing Arts since 2023, supervises social practice and public artworks, facilitates community projects, mentors, and collaborates in her communities. Sisson has 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.”

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 psychoanalytic study. Sisson’s second masters, has deepened the under-pinnings of her film and creative work through research. The degree also makes Sisson a licensed social worker, allowing her to work with a select pool of clients at the psychoanalytic clinic, Rose Hill Psychological Services in New York City. Sisson approaches this clinical work as an artist, combining a psychoanalytic foundation with an enlightening, curious, and creative mentoring perspective. 

 


Project History, Exhibitions, Press

Sisson has collaborated and made works with actors Julia Garner and Joseph Cross, dramaturgy for playwright Amanda Horowitz, choreographer Ryan Heffington (Sia), director Pete Ohs, artist Fia Backström, and musicians Amiina, Sam Amidon, Slow Club, Greenhouse Studios Iceland, EMI Records, Music NOW festival, 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 (Ozark), Joseph Cross (Running with Scissors), C. S. Lee (Dexter), and with music by Neon Indian (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 (worn by Yuniya Edi Kown and Ethan Philbrick. 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 has made impactful short, feature, and experimental 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.