Deborah Kuschner is a photographic artist living and working in upstate New York.

She began her career as founder and creative director at her international design firm based in Minneapolis. After 20 years in the graphic design business, Deborah moved to San Francisco where she taught Photography, Aesthetics and Senior Humanities at San Francisco Waldorf School.

In 2015 she moved to upstate New York to focus on her lens based work and a series of narrative photobooks, which are all at play with the intersection of fact and fiction, memory and place.

Education :

  • MA Visual Art and Cultural Studies, Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota.

  • Graduate Studies in Fine Art Photography, Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

  • Art History and French Studies, American University in Paris, France.

Exhibitions, Collaborations, and Symposiums :

  • Land Art Agency and Collective. Devon, United Kingdom. 2024.

  • Fotofilmic. Bowen Island, Vancouver, Canada. 2022. Igloo South Dakota at The Well Designed Photobook with Christian Patterson.

  • Penumbra Foundation, New York City. 2022. Mentorship with Raymond Meeks. In-depth exploration of creative process and artistic practice while bringing The Sound of Dogs Dreaming to life as an artist’s photobook.

  • Penumbra Foundation, New York City. Jan 2021 - December 2021. Penumbra Foundation Artist Study Group. As an extension to The Longterm Photobook Program - a self curated selection of studies with fellow artists including Collecting, Appropriating, and Re-presentng, History of the Photobook, Color as Concept, and Cinema and The Photobook.

  • Dialogues With Nature, UK. 2021 -2023. Ongoing collaborative dialogue with interdisciplinary artists focusing on creative practice and the land. Artist group led by sculptor Hanna Varga UK, artist and writer Maija Liepins UK, and artist and historian Anna Laurent UK.

  • Penumbra Foundation, New York City. Jan 2020 - Jan 2021. From Start to Finish: The Long Term Photobook Program in collaboration with Jenia Fridlyand, Tim Carpenter, Raymond Meeks, Emma Phillips, and Irina Rozovsky. A year long artist program focusing on the photobook.

  • Rochester Contemporary Art Center, Rochester, NY. Small Prints Exhibition. 2021.

  • Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, Cazenovia, NY. Forest for The Trees Exhibition, 2018. Pigment print from Karelia Series.

  • Shells, Associate Producer in collaboration with Vasilios Papaioannu and Emma Piper-Burket. 2017. Screenings at Syracuse International Film Festival, Great Lakes Intl. Shorts Festival, 7th Greek Film Festival Chicago, Oregon Independent Film Festival, 35th Long Island Film Festival, CICA Gimbo South Korea, FeelTheReel Intl. Film Festival Glasgow UK, Festival de Cine de Portoviego Ecuador, 10th London Greek Festival UK. Award for Best Experimental Short at Oregon Intl. Film Festival and FeelTheReel Intl. Film Festival Glasgow.

  • School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Proximity of Consciousness. 2015. Series of interior still photographs and video installation shot at Mildred's Lane Artist Residency, Narrowsburg, NY.

  • Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, Cazenovia, NY. Abolitionist Safe Houses - All Things Cazenovia. 2014. Series of black & white exterior night photographs of abolitionist safe houses in central New York.

Bibliography, Lectures, and Art Book Fairs:

  • Center for Photography at Woodstock. Upstate Art Book Fair. Kingston, New York. 2023.

  • The Universal Atlas Project. Igloo South Dakota. Delavan Studio. Syracuse, New York. 2022.

  • The Sound of Dogs Dreaming. Limited Edition Artist Book. FIEBRE Photobook Festival. Madrid. 2022.

  • The Mythology of Women Artists in Post-Communist Russia. Umerov Gallery, Minneapolis, MN.

  • Poetics: Virgin Mary and the Red Madonna, MALS Journal, Hamline University, St. Paul, MN.

  • Art and Nature, The Art of Ecofeminism. Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa.

  • Helmi’s Dream Book, LensCulture Gallery. lensculture.com

Art and Photo Advisory :

  • Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Director's Circle and Bridge Club Outreach Council.

  • Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Photography Council.

  • Deborah Kuschner Works on Paper. Private consulting with international art photography collectors and institutions accessing museum quality work for their private collections.