Samantha Sutcliffe – Broken Mirror

The photographs in Broken Mirror are about the shadows of society in the U.S. The work revolves around the themes of isolation. The photographs have a sadness. They make others think about the cracks in our society. The work was taken over the period of six years. I lived in each place and spent time with each person.

Part of my process was retracing the footsteps of my youth to understand how a place can damage a person. I absorbed a lot of suffering as a child. I grew up around strip malls and pharmaceutical headquarters. Another part of my process was connecting with strangers who suffered with similar problems that caused my extended family to fall apart – homelessness, addiction, depression and PTSD.

A common response to my work is a lack of people interacting. The truth is there are a lot of people who don’t socialize. They don’t leave their house. People get stuck in their head. There is no community. That is the problem.

Photography has always been a way to resolve, connect and understand the complexity of the human condition. The people in the portraits and the words that they speak are proof that the structure of society is flawed. There is a responsibility to circulate the project with hope that the record of suffering can create more empathy for one another.

Samantha Sutcliffe lives and works in New York City. She teaches at The International Center of Photography and The Bushwick Community Darkroom. Her first documentary “Under the Shadows of…”, about a trans female sex worker who de-transitions after four years of being on hormones, was shortlisted for The Hopper Prize and published in the Fotofilmic JRNL 10 edited by Paul Schiek. Her work is shot on film and printed in the darkroom. In 2019 she wrote a short story titled Vodka Vida Raging Bull, about a thirteen year old Catholic School girl from the suburbs of New Jersey who suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder, that was published by Uncensored New York and turned into an exhibition at The Royal Society of American Art. She was the recipient of the 2021 City Artist Corps Grant, a 2021 Fotofilmic Scholarship, a 2021 Hopper Prize Finalist, a 2021 Lucie Foundation Notions of Home Prize Winner, a 2018 Medfoto artist in residence and a recipient of a 2018 International Center of Photography Director’s Cut Scholarship.