Biography
Artwork © Mimi Pantuhova
Donna Bassin is a photo-based artist, filmmaker, clinical psychologist, professor, and published author who was born in Brooklyn and now living in New Jersey. The death of her younger sister when she was ten years old motivated and shaped her clinical and art practice. Her work on long-term projects responds to distressing aspects of contemporary life, such as the aftermath of September 11, coming home after the war, racism, social injustice, and, most recently, the destruction of the environment. Those pursuits have resulted in two awarding documentaries, two solo museum exhibitions, publications in various art and culture periodicals, public installations, book covers, inclusion in private and museum collections, a billboard in Brooklyn, and participation with other artists in curated group shows.
The Afterlife of Dolls, a solo exhibition at the Montclair Art Museum, was featured on PBS' State of the Arts. Tricycle, Fotonostrum, Grazia, and Lens Magazine have published her work. Her photo-based installations have appeared at the Jamestown Arts Center, Smack Mellon, Mills Reservation, Jersey City, and the Montclair Art Museum. She received the 2021 New Jersey Council on the Arts Fellowship in Photography, was honored as a Showcase artist for Art Fair14C in Jersey City, and was recently chosen as one of the top 50 photographers for Critical Mass 2022. Her series, My Own Witness: Rupture and Repair, explores the human desire for reconciliation in the wake of social fractures. It is currently on exhibition at the Passaic Country Arts Center, New Jersey.