Leah Sobsey
visualhostorycollaborative.com
LEA-studios.com
Assistant Professor of Art
Photography area coordinator
The University of North Carolina Greensboro
Education
2001 MFA, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
1995 BA, Anthropology; Minor, Studio Art, Guilford College, Greensboro, NC
1997 Resident Certificate Program, Maine Photographic Workshops, Rockport, ME
Exhibitions Solo and Two Persons
2022 *ForthcomingHarvard Museum of Natural History,Thoreau’s Woods, Harvard University
2021 *Forthcoming*Hardman Gallery (date moved due to COVID 19),Mercer University, Macon, Georgia
*Forthcoming GPS, Greensboro, NC
2019 *Pink Dog Gallery, Asheville, NC
*Raleigh Convention Center, The Swarm
2018 *Community Foundation of Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, Curated by Elizabeth Harry (Greenhill Gallery)
*Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO Curated by Hamidah Glasgow
*Tintypes: A Community Portrait, Triangle Community Foundation, Durham, NC
2017 *Praxis Gallery, The Portrait, Minneapolis, MN
*Tintypes A Community Portrait, Anchorlight, Raleigh, NC
*The photography Show, AIPAD, New York, NY
2016 *Collections, 21c Museum Hotel, Durham, NC
*Collections, Rayko Photo Gallery, San Francisco, CA
*The Accidental Self, Carrack Modern Art, Durham, NC
2015 *Visual History Collaborative Tapestry, Denver Performing Arts Center, Denver, CO
2013-2011 *Rose Community Foundation, Denver, CO
Selected Group Exhibitions
2021 *Art on Paper, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC curated by Emily Stamey
*Primary Colors,New York Center for Photography, NYC, NY, Ann Jastrab juror
2020 *Threshold, Oneoneone Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC
*Winter Blues: Contemporary Cyanotypes,Center for Photographic Art, Monterey, CA, curated by Ann Jastrab
*The Lawn Sign Project in partnership with For Freedoms, MLK Memorial Park, Raleigh, NC (postponed due to COVID)
2019 *The Lawn Sign Project in partnership with For Freedoms, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY
*Kitab Book festival/exhibition, Delhi, India
*Faculty Biennial,Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC
2018 *Abstraction, Lafaytte Gallery and the Griffin Museum of Photography, Boston, MA, curated by
*Paula Tognarelli, Griffin Museum of Photography
*Swarm, Moss Arts Center, Virginia Tech, VA, curated by Meggin Hicklin
*Across County Lines, Contemporary Photography from the Piedmont, The Nasher Museum of Art,
Durham, NC, curated by Marshall Price
*Anti-Nostalgia, The Carrack Modern Art, Durham, NC, curated by Elin O’Hara Slavick
*The Fence Project, Public Art Installation, Durham North Carolina
*The Wild, Bloc2, Raleigh NC Curated by Stacy Bloom Rexrode
2017 *The Portrait,Praxis Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, Juror Ross Anderson
*Faculty Biennial, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC
*The Fence Project, Public Art Installation, Durham North Carolina
2016 *Collections, Rayko Photo, San Francisco, CA
2016 *Actual Size, Cassilhaus Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC
*Collections, Rayko Photo, San Francisco, CA
2015 *The Modernists, Lee Hansley Gallery, Raleigh, NC
*Faculty Biennial, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC
*The Scanners, Carrack Modern Art, Durham, NC
*The Committee, Horace Williams Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC
*Butterflies Are Free, Light Art Design, Chapel Hill, NC
*Self Portraits by NC Artists, Greenhill Gallery, Greensboro, NC
2014 *Bull City Summer, NC Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
*Bull City Summer, Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh NC
*Spirit, Brink Gallery, Missoula, Montana
*Art on Paper, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Curator Xandra Eden, Greensboro, NC,
*Engaging Light, Frank Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC
2013 *Faculty Biennial, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC
*The Residents, Gatewood Gallery, Greensboro, NC
2012 *Through Your Eyes, National Parks System Gallery, digital gallery online
2011 *No Mirrors, Rayko Gallery, San Francisco, CA
*North Carolina Museum of Art, Art of the Auction, Raleigh, NC
*Local Histories, the Ground We Walk On, 523 East Franklin, Chapel Hill, NC
*Art on Paper, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC
2010 *North Carolina Artists Exhibition, Betty Ray McCain Gallery, Progress Energy Center for the
*Performing Arts, Raleigh, NC
*Flora, Photo Place Gallery, Middlebury, VT
Collaborations
2020 LEA Wearable Art Poject, with Collaborators Emily Meinke and Ann Schroth
Ongoing- Harvard Museum of Natural History,Thoreau’s Woods, Harvard University with Emily Meineke, Harvard researcher, Marsha Gordon, film-maker, Robin Vuchnich, graphic designer
2019 Ongoing-For Freedoms Project, created by Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman, For Freedoms is an artist-run platform for civic engagement, discourse, and direct action for artists in the United States.
2017 *Click! Photography Festival PIC grant award with Tim Telkamp, created tintypes in a mobile unit to bring community together.
2016 The Accidental Self, with Linda Belans, Carrack Modern Art, 2016
2014 Bull City Summer: A Season at the Park, with artists Alex Harris, Frank Hunter, Kate Joyce, Elizabeth
Matheson, Alec Soth, Hiroshi Watanabe, Jeff Whetstone, and Hank Willis Thomas
2011-present
Visual History Collaborative, with Lynn Bregman Blass
2013Professor Diablo’s True Revue, a documentary production with biologist Courtney Fitzpatrick and
musician Melissa Swingle, Casbah, Durham, NC
2006Gathering in the Stories: One Man’s Impact on the Members of the Duke University Health System
Community as part of the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration, Duke Hospital, Durham, NC
Monographs/Publications
Nest, Terms of Surrender, His Golden Messenger CD cover, Cover art for internationally distributed CD, 2019
Collections, The Royal Society Publishing, Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the Anthropocene, Volume 374, Issue 1763, London, UK, November 19, 2018
Collections,Leah Sobsey. Daylight Books, 2016, 128-page monograph of photographs and installations created from specimens from the collections of the US National Park Service museums, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and North Carolina State University Insect Museum
Bull City Summer,Daylight Books, 2014, Collaborative photography and writing project documenting a season at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. Artists include: Alex Harris, Frank Hunter, Kate Joyce, Elizabeth Matheson, Alec Soth, Hiroshi Watanabe, Jeff Whetstone, and Hank Willis Thomas
International Press
Stir World, August 26th, 2020 https://www.stirworld.com/tags-leah-sobsey
Royal Society Publishing, November 18, 2018,
Telegraph, July 14, 2016
AmateurPhotographerUK, June 15, 2016
Fisheye, no. 6, May 14, 2014, pp. 8-9, 33-34
https://issuu.com/fisheye-magazine/docs/fisheye6-issuu
L'oeil de la photographie, April 14, 2014
National Press
Don’t Take Pictures, March 25, 2020
https://www.donttakepictures.com/
Lenscratch, March 14, 2020
Carmel Pine Cone, March 13, 2020
http://pineconearchive.fileburstcdn.com/200313PCA.pdf
The Phoblographer,October 23, 2018,
The Roanoke Star,October 18, 2018
Virginia Tech Daily, October 15, 2018
Lenscratch, November, 17, 2017
The Caolinian, October 4, 2017
Audubon,August 3, 2016
Crave Online, August 21, 2016
sey-discovers-life-death
Slate.com, September 16, 2016
All about Photo.com,January 10, 2016
Art Fix Daily,March 29, 2016
Hyperallergic, July 13, 2016
Musee Magazine,June 16, 2016
PDN blog,March 22, 2016
http://potd.pdnonline.com/2016/03/37427/
Daylight Publishing, July 2016
http://stories.daylight.co/leah-sobsey-collections/
Mandatory Magazine, August 21, 2016 by Miss Rosen,
Walter Magazine, October 2016,
Indy Week, December 23, 2015
News and Observer, October 13, 2015
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/community/durham-news/dn-community/article38749014.html
Indy Week, August 26, 2015
Photo Booth ( blog), New Yorker,August 13, 2014,
Mother Jones, August 31, 2014, http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/08/bull-city-summer-minor-league-baseball
Burnaway The Voice of Art in the South, June 3, 2014 http://burnaway.org/review/art-baseball-bull-city-summer-raleigh-nc/
Slate.com, March 4, 2014
Paris Review Daily (blog), Paris Review,July 24, 2013,
Southern Photographer,February 9, 2011
NC ArtBlog,Our Stories: A Community–Based Public Art Project, Jeff York, 2010
Shots Magazine, no. 105 autumn issue, 2009
The State of Things,NC Public Radio, 2009
Chapel Hill Herald, “Art’s Value Lies in the Stories behind It,” Rebekah, Cowell, 2009
Daily Tarheel,“Art Project Aims to Share History,” Mazare Rogers
Metro Magazine,“Marching,”Louis St. Lewis, 2008
Chapel Hill Magazine,Sept./October issue,2008
Durham Magazine,August/September issue,2008
Winston Salem Journal, Reviewed by Tom Patterson, August 10, 2008,
Yes Weekly, “Green Hill Gallery Hangs Art Garden,” August 2008, reviewed by Amy Kingsley
Metro Magazine, Review by Louis St. Lewis, June 2008,
Rambler Magazine,July August Issue,2008
Book of Alternative Photographic Processes,Christopher James, 2008
Rambler Magazine, October/November issue, 2007
Independent Weekly,2007
Durham Herald,Jan. 2006
WRAL TV,2006
Independent Weekly,May 2003
Independent Weekly,March 2002 - 40k
Television, Radio & Podcast
The Chris or Jenny Show, 2021,
The Wise Fool Podcast,2020
http://wisefoolpod.com/photographer-professor-leah-sobsey-north-carolina-usa/
WUNC, The State of Things,NPR affiliate, 2016,
http://wunc.org/post/things-my-mother-would-have-told-me-if#stream/0
Drunkbooksellers Podcast, July 2016,
WRAL TV,2016,
WUNC The State of Things, NPR affiliate, 2015
http://wunc.org/post/scanning-dead-birds-celebrating-unconventional-photography-triangle#stream/0
WUNC The State of Things, NPR affiliate, 2013
http://wunc.org/post/writer-musician-and-photographer-walk-casbah#stream/0
WRAL TV,February, 2014,
Residencies
2020 Hambidge Center for Art and Science, Rabun GA
Penland School of Crafts, Spruce Pine, NC
2019 Hambidge Center for Art and Science, Rabun GA
Penland School of Crafts, Spruce Pine, NC
2018 Hewnoaks Artist residency with stipend, Lovell, Maine
2010 Grand Canyon Artist in Residence, National Park Service, AZ
2008 HABLA The Center for Language and Arts, Teaching Artist Residency, Merida, Mexico
2006 Vermont Studio Center Artist Residency, Fellowship, Johnson, VT
Awards & Grants
2020 UNCGEarly Career Undergraduate Research Mentor College of Visual and Performing Arts.
UNCGCVPADean's Research/Creative Initiative Funds Award
2019 UNCG Melon Fund Award
UNCGCVPADean's Research/Creative Initiative Funds Award
2018 UNC-Greensboro Diversity Initiatives Grant, Greensboro, NC
Kohler Award, UNC-Greensboro, Greensboro, NC
Globally Engaged Undergraduate Research and Creativity Award, UNC-Greensboro, Greensboro, NC
UNC-GreensboroDean's Research/Creative Initiative Funds Award, Greensboro, NC
Triangle Community jury award with honoraria, Durham, NC
Society for Photographic Education Conference presenter, Penland, NC
UNCG New Faculty Research Grant, Greensboro, NC
CVPA Diversity Initiatives Mini-Grant, Greensboro, NC
2017 UNCG New Faculty Research Grant, Greensboro, NC
UNCGDean's Research/Creative Initiative Funds Award
CLICK Triangle Photography Festival PIC grant winner
Juror/Panelist/Curator/Book Signings/Conferences, Artist talks
2020 Artist talk, The Center for Photographic Art, Online due to Covid, Carmel, CA
Reviewer, Portfolio review East Carolina University, Greenville, NC (rescheduled due to Covid-19)
2019 Curator, For Freedoms exhibition, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY
Curator, PhotoIreland Photography Festival, The Library Project, Dublin, Ireland
Curator, Growing Together, Marthana Yater exhibition at the Horrace Willimas Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC
2018 Curator,Titus Brooks Heaginsexhibition at the Horrace Willimas Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC
Artist talkClick Photography Festival, Durham, NC
Artist talk, The Fence, Durham, NC
Conference presenter, Society for Photographic Education, Penland, NC
Artist talk, The Center For Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO
Artist talk, Moss Arts Center, Virginia Tech, VA,
Curator, GPS, 485 Exhibition, Greensboro, NC
Curator, For Freedoms exhibition, Greensboro, NC
2017 Curator*GPS, 485 Exhibition, Greensboro, NC
Curator, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Gatewood Gallery
Artist talk The Fence, Durham Arts Council, Durham, NC
Artist talk The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL
Juror, Durham Arts Council Emerging artists Grant, Durham, NC
Conference presenter,Collections, at the Unleashing and confronting stories Of Bildung: Remediations of cultural-natural heritage, University of Copenhagen, December 4-5, 2017
Artist talk/Book signing,Association of International Photography Art Dealers, NYC
2016 Book Signing, Rayko Photo Gallery, Collections, San Francisco, CA
Artist talk/Book signing, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Collections, Greensboro, NC
Artist talk/Book signing, Durham Public Library, Collections, Durham, NC
Artist talk/Book signing21C Art Museum, Collections, Durham, NC
Artist talk/Book signing, SF Camerawork, Collections, San Francisco, CA,
2015 Artist talk, Carrack Modern Art, The Scanners, Durham, NC
Panel member,Carolina Theater, Durham, NC, Artist talk, Bull City Summer
Artist talk, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Observed / Examined / Fabricated, POV Talk with Leah Sobsey + Chris Poulos, Discussion with curator and panelist
2014 Artist talk/Book signingContemporary Art Museum, Raleigh, Bull City Summer,
2011 Curator, University of NC Greensboro Multi-Cultural Gallery, Black Marker Project
Curator, Jackson Library, UNC Greensboro, Shifting Grounds
Commissions/Public Art
2020 For Freedoms Lawn Sign Project, MLK Memorial Gardens, Raleigh, NC (rescheduled due to Covid)
2019 For Freedoms Lawn Sign Project, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY
The Raleigh Convention Center-City of Raleigh, The Swarm2013-14Bull City Summer, Durham, NC
2011-16 Rose Community Foundation, Visual History Project, with Lynn Bregman Blass, Denver, CO
Habitat for Humanity Durham 25th anniversary, with Lynn Bregman Blass
Films
Leaving Traces, dir. Ivan Weiss, 2014, documentary film covering the making of the book Bull City Summer
Selected Public and Private Collections
North Carolina Museum of Art, City of Raleigh-Convention Center, Credit Suisse, Cassilhaus Collection, Fidelity Investments, Rose Community Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Durham, NC, Town of Chapel Hill. Bill Gates- Microsoft Collection, Maine Photographic Workshops, Rockport College Collection, San Francisco Art Institute, Duke University Medical Archives, Grand Canyon National Park.
Membership & Professional Development
2021 Harvard University online course, Photography Experiments on Clay
2020 Harvard University online course,Plant basedprinting 2
Harvard University online course,Plant basedprinting 1
Society for Photographic Education member- Attended national and regional conferences since 2016