Sonja Ruth Thomsen

Sonja Ruth Thomsen is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). She teaches foundational and advanced courses including Introduction to Photographic Image Making, Color Photography, and Lighting Fundamentals.

Her educational background includes:

• BA, 2000, Kenyon College, Gambier OH
• Post-Baccalaureate in Photography, 2002, San Francisco Art Institute, CA
• MFA, 2004, San Francisco Art Institute

Thomsen's interdisciplinary practice harnesses light as both medium and metaphor, creating immersive installations that blur boundaries between photography, sculpture, and architecture. Working at the intersection of feminist theory and scientific inquiry, she transforms exhibition spaces into sites of perceptual discovery through installations incorporating materials that shift with viewers' movement. Drawing from artistic kinship with polymathic women whose voices have been historically marginalized, Thomsen treats wonder as both methodology and subject. She builds images, objects, and video that refract, reflect, and record light while positioning wonder as a feminist act of resistance.

Her recent artistic output demonstrates an evolving focus on matrilineal connections to women artists like Lucia Moholy and Hazel Larsen Archer, moving from individual photographic explorations to large-scale installations and collaborative projects examining the intersection of art, science, and ecological care. The "pool" collaboration with Thom Bridge represents a significant expansion of her practice into community dialogue about environmental issues.

Her notable awards include:

• Ruth Arts Mary L. Nohl Alumni Award
• Milwaukee Arts Board New Work Commission
• Hermitage Artist Fellowship
• Active Archive Residency at Black Mountain College Museum
• Josef Breitenbach Research Fellowship

Thomsen has exhibited widely at prestigious venues including Aperture (NY), Bauhaus Archiv (Berlin), DePaul Art Museum (Chicago), High Museum of Art (Atlanta), and the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago). Her work is held in major collections such as the Art Institute of Chicago, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, and Milwaukee Art Museum. She has developed a significant collaborative practice through her "pool" project, creating space for dialogues about care, climate, and cross-cultural collaboration.

Her current touring exhibition "and then down became up" explores pioneering women artists through a multidisciplinary investigation of balance, perspective, and maternal lineage, challenging traditional narratives of Modernism by centering women's experiences as gravitational forces in art history.