Sarah Neumann
Calgary, Alberta
ARTIST BIO
Sarah is a photographer and MSc. Candidate in Geography at the University of Calgary. With a background in Environmental Science, her work explores the intersections of environment and performance, most often through analog photography. She is passionate about visual storytelling as a tool to make science more accessible, creating images that connect contemporary research with human experience. Alongside her academic and artistic practice, Sarah is also a figure skating coach, musician, and theatre artist. These experiences continue to inform her interest in performance and human connection within her photography.
PROJECT STATEMENT
“This series, titled Chameleon, explores the dissonance in how humans relate to our environments, both natural and built. Each hand-printed image was created on 35mm film in collaboration with my sister, a dancer, as the subject. Together, we explored movement as a way of reintegrating the human body with its surroundings. In these images, the subject becomes camouflaged, echoing a chameleon folding back into its environment. This act of blending with place challenges the common paradigm of human separation and superiority over nature. Chameleon invites viewers to reconsider our relationships with the world around us and to reflect on the need for deeper, more reciprocal connections in an increasingly divisive age.” – Sarah Neumann
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that the Exposure Photography Festival is situated on land adjacent to where the Bow River meets the Elbow River. The traditional Blackfoot name of this place is “Moh’kins’tsis”, which we now call the City of Calgary. This is the traditional Treaty 7 territory of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. It is home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland. We honour and acknowledge all Nations, who live, work and play in Moh’kins’tsis, help steward this land, and honour and celebrate this territory.