Sarah Sense

Sarah Sense (born 1980) is an American Chitimacha/Choctaw visual artist known for large scale weavings of photographs, maps, and cultural ephemera to create social and political statements. Sense employs traditional weaving techniques from her Chitimacha and Choctaw family to create two-dimensional photo weavings and three-dimensional photo baskets.

Early life and education Sense grew up in Sacramento, California.

She has a BFA from California State University, Chico (2003) and an MFA from Parsons the New School for Design, New York (2005).

As a teenager and during her college years Sense spent her summers on the Chtimacha Reservation in Charenton, Louisiana. This is where she was introduced to the art of basket weaving. At age 18 the tribe's cultural department asked her to visit Southwest Museum of the American Indian in Los Angeles to research if the museum held Chitimacha baskets. This experience influenced the direction of her own creative work.

A significant aspect of Sense's art practice involves international travel to visit with, interview, and learn from indigenous people.

According to the National Women's History Museum her early works were inspired by a "British Library Visiting Fellowship and include map and landscape weavings focused on colonial impact on climate, with purpose to conceptually reinstate Indigenaity with traditional weaving patterns while decolonizing colonial maps."

In 2022 the Bruce Silverstein Gallery stated, "Woven into Sense’s work are her two personas, the Cowgirl and the Indian Princess. These recurring figures in the artist’s work comment on American popular culture’s Native interpretations in film, decoration, fashion, and education since the late 19th century. Sense associates these personas with her duality of being raised by a Native mother and a non-Native father."

Sense has completed murals in Louisiana and in California.

Significant exhibitions

Sarah Sense, MTV/Viacom, New York, NY, 2005 I Want to Hold You Longer, Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York, NY, 2024 A Plan of Boston, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, 2023 Mississippi Meshassepi , Florida State University, 2021 Speaking with Light: Contemporary Indigenous Photography, Amon Carter Museum of Art, Fort Worth, Texas, 2022

Publications Weaving the Americas: A Search for Native Art in the Western Hemisphere (Pascoe, 2012)