ENTER SITE
Sara Jordenö is a filmmaker, visual artist, researcher and Assistant Professor of Film & Video at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Their practice resides in the intersection of art, activism, visual sociology and documentary cinema. Jordenö is interested in what can be made knowable through art, film and the practice of fieldwork in social research. Their work is disseminated in film, contemporary art and the social sciences.
Jordenö directed the documentary feature film KIKI about a youth-led social movement for LGBTQ+ youth of color in NYC. This film was the product of a close collaboration with community leaders Twiggy Pucci Garcon, Gia Marie Love and other members of the NYC Kiki scene. KIKI premiered in the US Documentary Competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016, has been shown in over 200 film festivals around the world, had theatrical releases in Sweden, the US and the UK, and have been broadcast in several territories. Jordenö also collaborated with Twiggy Pucci Garcon on the community-public art projects THE REINCARNATION OF ROCKLAND PALACE and PASSE- PRESENT- FUTUR.
Jordenö has been written about in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the LA Times and many other publications. Their work has been cited in many academic papers. Their films and video installations have been shown internationally at venues such as Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Bildmuseet, Umeå, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and the Kitchen and MoMA PS1 in NYC.
Jordenö’s work has been commissioned by, among others, the Gothenburg International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Printed Matter and The Berlin Biennial. DIAMOND PEOPLE, a commission for the Public Art Agency in Sweden, was a public artwork in the form of a documentary film and in-situ screening/discussion with the former employees of a now- closed diamond factory in a small town in northern Sweden.
Working in a close collaboration with sociologist and criminologist A Horning-Ruf, Jordenö has for 10 years conducted fieldwork related to sex work, trafficking and forced migration. Ruf and Jordenö are the founders of FRINGE FIELD COLLECTIVE, a platform and network for researchers, advocates and cultural producers. With the help of an Oral History Project grant at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Sara and A are currently completing an interviewing project with sex workers about their experiences of (un) safety in the criminal justice system. Their collaborative film project THE CIVIL SOCIETY (2019) documents members of a social movement/network in Sweden entitled who advocates for teenage refugees from Afghanistan and other countries. Their current film project, THE SWIMMER, is a collaboration with Arsalan Haider, a young refugee from Afghanistan. Jordenö & Horning-Ruf are currently working on a book project with the title Hustle, Drift and Collaboration: Representations of Pimping and Third Party Sex Work.
Jordenö is the recipient of numerous awards such as an Art Matters Award (2012) the Teddy Award for Best Documentary Film at the Berlin International Film Festival (2016), the Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights at Full Frame Documentary Festival (2016) and the Edstrandska Stiftelsens Art Award (2019). Jordenö was a nominee for the 2017 Film Independent Spirit Truer Than Fiction Award, and was named by Variety as one of "Ten Filmmakers to Watch."
For more information about the feature documentary KIKI, please visit kikimovie.com
For more information about Fringe Field Collective, please visit fringefield.org