Residency 2021 - 2022

Brittany Nelson (b. 1984, Great Falls, MT) works with 19th century photographic chemistry techniques to address themes of queer and feminist science fiction. Nelson’s work utilizes space exploration and off-planet transmissions to discuss themes of isolation and loneliness in relationship to the experience of being closeted. Nelson works with the image archives of the NASA Mars rovers, as well as the archives and personal letters of the science fiction author James Tiptree Jr., the pseudonym of Alice B. Sheldon. Nelson holds a master’s degree in photography from the Cranbrook Academy of Art (Bloomfield Hills, MI) and a bachelor’s degree in photography and philosophy from Montana State University (Bozeman, MT). Her work has been exhibited at Die Ecke (Santiago, Chile), Sonnenstube (Lugano, Switzerland), Bonniers Konsthall (Stockholm, Sweden), The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (Detroit, MI), The Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York, NY), The Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI), The Newcomb Art Museum (New Orleans, LA), The International Print Center (New York, NY), among many others. Her monograph “Out Of The Everywhere” was released in 2019 by Mousse Publishing (Milan, Italy), and her sculptural book “Monuments to the Conquerors of Space” was released in 2017 and published by Small Editions (New York, NY). Her work has been featured in publications such as Art in America, Frieze, and The New Yorker. Nelson is an Assistant Professor and Area Head of Photography at the University of Richmond and is currently based in Richmond, Virginia and Trondheim, Norway.