Sam Heydt

Social practice and recycled media artist

Jun 30, 2021

Static Window, HEYDT, 2021, Analog Assemblage

“The edge is closer than we think.

Illusion won’t free us from reality, even as the sustained narrative of tabloids become history and the myth of progress continues to perpetuate inequality.”

-an excerpt from Sam Heydt’s artist statement

Sam Heydt (b.April 20, 1986) is an American social practice and recycled media artist born/raised in New York City. Although currently residing in Vienna, Heydt has lived/worked in Paris, Venice, Amsterdam, Athens, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Reykjavík, and Rajasthan. Her academic career traversed Parsons School of Design, The New School, Cooper Union, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Universidad of Buenos Aires, and La Sorbonne. In 2012, Heydt launched Jane Street Studio, L.L.C. in Manhattan. Since established, the photo studio has broadened its performance to provide both design and marketing consultation in addition to art direction. Its growing roster of clients spans Europe, North & South America, Asia, and Oceania.

Coming Out Of The Past Heterotopia, HEYDT, 2020, Analog Assemblage, 5inx8in

In addition to this entrepreneurial undertaking, Heydt has attended artist residencies in Iceland, Australia and New Zealand; where she has documented different forms of environmental exploitation. A published author, producer and lifelong activist, Heydt has undertaken a range of altruistic, non-proft work. Her art, anchored in social advocacy, attempts to give a voice to the veiled, forgotten, exiled, and silenced.

In her practice, she works across a spectrum of different media- flm, video, installation, photography, sculpture, sound, merchandize, text — and employs a range of materials often reinventing or trespassing their associative use. Heydts’ vision looks beyond the ordinary. Esteemed as one of the pioneers of the recycled media movement, Heydt’s work has been shown in galleries, museums, art fairs and film festivals worldwide.