words from Sonja thomsen
I build installations combining photographs, optics, mobiles, and video, environments that shift as viewers move through them. For years I have been in dialogue with Lucia Moholy and Hazel Larsen Archer, two women central to the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College whose contributions were eclipsed by the men beside them. I call my method gravitational lensing: bending historical narrative to reveal what institutions kept peripheral. The work triangulates archive, geography, and studio practice, treating research as a physical act. What looks like structure and motion is also an argument about care and belonging.
THOUGHTS ON THE LAB
I recently realized that I was the first AIR in Latitude's new space in 2014 preparing for my 2015 solo show at DePaul Art Museum (RIP). My work at Latitude and exhibition at DePaul was an incredible opportunity at a vulnerable time. I was a young mother living in Milwaukee just starting to work and connect with artists in Chicago. I was working with Greg Harris to build "glowing wavelengths in between" into a site responsive installation in the luminous second floor galleries and stairwell. I met the incredible artist Shir Ende at Latitude, she was just finishing her studies at SAIC and I would begin teaching there the following year. I used my time at Latitude to meet and connect with what has become much of my art community as an artist working between Milwaukee and Chicago.