About the Artist and Her Projects 

Sasha Phyars Burgess was born in Brooklyn, New York to Trinidadian parents and raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Bard College in 2010. She uses photography as a way to connect with others and share moments of impact. Through listening and being observant, she aims to capture peoples’ hardest laughs, and feelings of both loneliness and love. She has experience photographing people in a variety of contexts, as well as teaching photography and editing photos. She is excited to begin her residency and to photograph and create with the neighborhood community.

My time at NTE was challenging. As an artist placed into a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, I tried my best to understand my role as an outsider in helping to affect change and provide service for a community who is doing their part to maintain identity in the face of change. What I learned is that there are many factors outside of the community, ephemeral and concrete, which propel rapid change in a way that is unstoppable. However, it is vital to support what already exists, to lend a