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Sam Heydt (Visual Artist)

Visual artist Sam Heydt (born 1986, New York City) has lived and worked in Paris, Venice, Amsterdam, Athens, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Reykjavík, Udaipur, and Vienna. Her academic career traversed La Sorbonne, Cooper Union, University of Amsterdam, and University of Buenos Aires, ultimately earning a Bachelor of Arts in Communications, as well as a degree in Photography from Parsons New School for Design, graduating summa cum laude. She has attended artist residencies in Iceland, Australia and New Zealand, where she documented environmental exploitation.

Life and work

Sam Heydt
File:Samantha Heydt.jpg Portrait of visual artist Sam Heydt
Born	Samantha Lynn Marie Heydt (1986-04-20) April 20, 1986 New York, New York, United States
Alma mater	Parsons The New School for Design
Known for	Photography
Movement	Recycled Media
Website	www.samheydt.com

Heydt is both the founder and director of Jane Street Studio, L.L.C., a creative agency established in 2012 that has expanded from photography to provide design and marketing consultation with clients spanning Europe, North and South America, Asia and Oceania. She also founded KITSCH, a gallery and concept store launched in 2020. As a published author, producer, and lifelong social activist and environmentalist, Heydt anchors her practice in advocacy, working to give voice to "the veiled, the forgotten, the exiled, the condemned and the silenced." Working across different media including film, video, installation, photography, sculpture, sound and text, Heydt presents layered imagery that conflates time and place, disrupting logical relationships between occurrences. Her work examines "a world exploited beyond use and increasingly reduced to a bottom line, one marked by mass extinction, product fetishism, diminishing resources, and patented seeds," combining images of destruction with portrayals of virtues from the American Dream to confront contemporary disillusionment. In a 2014 interview with Aesthetica Magazine, she stated: "Illusion does not free us from reality. Ironically, through employing the very medium I critique, my work speaks to the disenchantment of the social psyche, which takes place at the hands of the modern media apparatus and at the expense of the natural world."

Photograph | HEYDT

Collections

Heydt's work is held in permanent collections of notable international institutions. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., holds three works by the artist, all acquired in 2021 as a gift from Herbert Lust:. Additional institutional collections include the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Perm Museum of Contemporary Art in Russia.

HEYDT | 2020 | Analog Assemblage

Museum exhibitions

Sam Heydt's work has been exhibited in numerous museums worldwide, showcasing her diverse artistic practice across multiple continents. Her international museum exhibitions include participation in the International Exhibition Art Resilience at the Musée de Peinture de Saint-Frajou in France, which emphasized aesthetics and the intrinsic connection between humanity and nature. At the CICA Museum in South Korea, she was featured in Color 2020 and Circle 2021, with works exploring themes of abstraction, materiality, and recycled media. Her work was exhibited at La Pinacothèque Museum in Luxembourg as part of events affiliated with the Luxembourg Art Prize, promoting emerging artistic talent internationally.

In 2021, Heydt's work was included in The New Art Fest exhibition at the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência in Lisbon, Portugal, exploring contemporary responses to the global pandemic. She participated in CODA Paper Art 2022 at the CODA Museum in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, contributing to an exhibition focusing on experimental uses of paper as an artistic medium. At the Newport Art Museum in the United States, her work was displayed in the annual members' juried exhibition featuring contemporary art.

Notably, Heydt participated in Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin at the Louvre Museum in Paris in May 2022, exploring intersections of film, art, and contemporary media. Her extensive exhibition history in Russian institutions includes shows at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (February–March 2016), Kaliningrad State Art Gallery (January–February 2016), Arkhangelsk Museum (January–April 2016), Museum of Petrozavodsk (December 2015–January 2016), and the Perm Museum of Contemporary Art

Art Fairs

Sam Heydt has participated in numerous international art fairs and exhibitions. In 2024, she was featured in the satellite exhibition "PATHs" at Palazzo Pisani Revedin during the 60th Venice Biennale. The exhibition explored themes of identity and globalization in the contemporary world, with Heydt contributing works in augmented reality, direct animation, and mixed media assemblage. Her work has also been featured at Aqua Art Fair, Art Copenhagen, Denmark (2015), HeadOn Photo Festival in Sydney, Australia (2014), Mini Print Internacional Cantabria in Santander, Spain, Chania International Photo Festival in Greece, Scope Art Fair, and I Never Read Art Fair in Basel, Switzerland (2019).

Exhibitions

In 2023, Sam Heydt's work was exhibited on billboards across the United Kingdom as part of The State We’re In exhibition by The Gallery S2, which reached over ten million viewers. Other selected solo exhibitions include Side Effects at SACI Gallery, New York City (2019), which debuted at Miami Art Basel and explored themes of self-deception and the American Dream through mixed media and digital imagery. In 2020, her exhibition View is Fine was showcased at Kunstkomplex & Mennuni in Basel, Switzerland. Additionally, her installation Caged Canary was featured at Faena Bazaar, Miami (2019), addressing themes of ecological and societal exploitation.

HEYDT | 2020 | Analog Assemblage

Film Festivals

Sam Heydt’s experimental scratch films have been internationally recognized and featured at numerous prestigious film festivals worldwide. Her work was part of the official selection at the Beneath the River Danube Film Festival in Belgrade, Serbia (June 2024). It was showcased at the Digital Multiverse, ]On[ Screen Video Art International in Vienna, Austria (January 2024). At Art Nova 100 in Beijing, China (February 2022), Heydt’s work was highlighted as a finalist in the Arte Laguna Prize. She also participated in the Kinosmena International Short Film Festival, Belarus (September–October 2018). Her films were screened at the Addis Video Art Festival in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (January 22, 2018), which promotes innovative video art in unconventional settings. Heydt’s work was featured at the Trashxploitation, Transeuropa Festival in Madrid, Spain (October 25–29, 2017). Additionally, she participated in the Les Rencontres, 21st Edition, Traverse Vidéo in Toulouse, France (March 7–31, 2018). Her films were also shown at the Sofia Underground International Performance Art Festival, Bulgaria (April 24–29, 2017). Furthermore, Heydt’s work was recognized at the Second Asia International Micro-Film Festival in Beijing, China (September 18–October 9, 2016). It was also featured in the 3rd International Experimental Video Festival: Process of Error in Valparaíso, Chile (May 31–June 4, 2016 ). Lastly, her films were screened at the 39th International Independent Film Festival of Elche, Spain (July 2016). These platforms have celebrated her innovative storytelling and critical engagement with themes such as environmental degradation, social disillusionment, and global inequality.

HEYDT | 2021 | Analog Assemblage

Awards and Recognitions

Aesthetica Art Prize (2014): Sam Heydt was a recipient of the prestigious Aesthetica Art Prize for her innovative approach to social practice and recycled media art. Arte Laguna Prize (2023): Heydt was recognized as a finalist in the Arte Laguna Prize for her thought-provoking video art piece One Hundred Seconds to Midnight, which tackles themes of ecological collapse and societal disillusionment.

Media Coverage

The Guardian (2023): Heydt's work was featured in The State We're In, a UK-wide public art initiative, where her piece Last to Inherit was displayed on billboards to provoke discussions on environmental and social issues. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (2022): Heydt was interviewed by The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists for her work inspired by the Doomsday Clock, addressing themes of global instability and humanity's existential challenges. PBS Emmy Award-Winning Segment (2023): Heydt was featured in an Emmy award-winning PBS Art Inc. segment titled Double Trouble. The episode explored her recycled media art and its focus on environmental and social crises, alongside the work of her father, watercolor artist William Heydt.

Category:Contemporary art