ABOUT

Sonja Langford (b. 1994, St. Augustine, Florida) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work examines how we witness one another and how space is made for experience, for absence, and for forms of knowledge that resist tidy narratives. Working across photography, archival research, bookmaking, installation, and language-based forms, she studies how stories about the body are recorded, interpreted, or withheld within medical and historical archives. Her research is driven by questions of (1) how we witness one another responsibly, (2) how care, accountability, and embodied experience shape the ethics of looking, and (3) what it means to make work within the tensions those relationships produce.

Her parallel background in leadership development and experiential education informs her artistic approach. For more than a half a decade, Langford has facilitated challenge course programs and student leadership workshops focused on belonging, relational learning, and collective problem-solving, experiences that continue to shape how she thinks about trust, attention, and shared meaning in her studio practice.

Sonja’s work has been exhibited nationally and supported by exhibitions, residencies, and curatorial projects that bridge research, care, and community, including the Gadsden Museum of Art (forthcoming), the Mattatuck Museum, the McColl Center, and Goodyear Arts. She lives and works in Connecticut and is expected to complete her MFA at the University of Connecticut in May 2026.