Stephanie Schwiederek is an American artist and photographer. She grew up in a motel in Pine Brook, New Jersey, a transient space where the living situation was far from ideal. As a result of her precarious upbringing, Schwiederek’s work considers the themes of family, belonging, identity, trauma, memory, and archive while investigating the borderline where violence and intimacy; dysfunction and acceptance; resignation and resilience meet.
Coming off the success of her first documentary film, Leave Nothing Behind, she is focused on the aspects of female identity and bodily autonomy. She is interested in the notion of relationships evolving over time to realize how the ways personal experience can inform collective understanding. Her work blends the approaches of documentary, performance, and constructed photographs.
Stephanie Schwiederek received her BFA in 2018 from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, where she was awarded the Brovero Photography Prize. In 2020, she received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is an Adjunct Professor for the Photography Technology program at the County College of Morris.
stephanieschwiederek@gmail.com