Bio:
Sarah Sudhoff is a Cuban-American artist born in Honolulu, Hawaii and based in Houston, Texas. She uses data, performances, photography, prints, sound, and video to unpack the gun violence epidemic’s ongoing socio-cultural impacts, the psychological landscapes of caregiving and motherhood, sexuality and gender-based violence, and heritage and transgenerational memory. Her work has been exhibited at Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, Blaffer Art Museum in Texas, Donggang Photo Museum in South Korea, Pioneer Works in New York, Luckman Gallery in California, and the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans. Sudhoff’s recent visiting artist lectures include Duke University, Ohio State University, Austin Peay State University, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Rice University, RMIT University in Melbourne, and Rhode Island School of Design. Articles including her work have appeared in The New York Times, Wired, Time, Cabinet, and Southwest Contemporary. Sudhoff’s research and residencies have been supported by Artpace, Tiffany Foundation, Penland School of Craft, McColl Art Center, Houston Arts Alliance, Kinsey Institute, the DoSeum, and DOMUS Artist Residency in Italy.
Sudhoff completed an MFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design, New York, and a BA in Journalism and Photography from the University of Texas at Austin.
Statement:
“77 Minutes in Their Shoes,” serves as an extension of my ongoing socially engaged project “Not a Drill,” which surveys our exposure to gun violence in the USA through photography, performance, and installation. As an artist and mother of two school-aged children, I feel compelled to continue responding to these atrocities and lack of action through art and activism because gun violence devastates all people at personal, community, state, and national levels.
“77 Minutes in Their Shoes” and “Not a Drill” includes long-term, community involvement with the victims’ families and survivors devastated by the 2022 shooting in Uvalde, Texas at Robb Elementary. Since 2022, I have been fostering a relationship with Lives Robbed to witness and understand the full impact of these massacres and the role of art in helping communities process grief, establish connection, and enact change. I continue to work with this and other gun violence awareness nonprofits to research and develop the various bodies of work within this larger project.
The color photographs framed in floating pine boxes feature the shoes worn by each child at the time of death, serving as the brute reality of this tragic event. The shoes are paired with intimate, black and white portraits of the family holding the familiar items. Printed on sheer fabric, the family portraits reveal their vulnerability, resilience, and anger, as these parents hold a shared grief, and possibly through participation and community, hope for the future. The ripple effects of this event affected more than the 21 lives lost. This tragedy forever changed the lives of those still living, affecting those near and dear as well as the population at large, looking on. Through long-term community engagement with the victims’ families and with the survivors, Sudhoff aims to witness and understand the full impact of the massacre and the role of art in helping communities process grief, establish connection and community, and enact change.
