"Transitioning Within Landscapes" Photographer Kimberly Anderson Returns to USU

Photographer, marriage and family therapist and Utah State University alum Kimberly Anderson will give a presentation on her work and participate in a moderated conversation on Wednesday, March 11. The presentation will start at 5 p.m. in the Russell/Wanlass Performance Hall, followed by a reception with light refreshments at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art on the Logan campus.

Her presentation, “Transitioning Within Landscapes: The Photography of Kimberly Anderson,” touches on her work as a photographer interwoven with her identity as a transgender woman. It includes landscape photographs taken during her transition and a later series of salt-print photographs of the Great Salt Lake using actual salt from the lake itself. 

She is also the photographer and author of the Mama Dragon Story Project, featuring portraits and autobiographical essays from over 135 Mormon mothers of LGBTQ+ children.

Anderson’s work is part of the museum’s collection and is currently on display in the exhibition Sky Above, Earth Below, which runs through July 31. 

Born and raised in northern Utah, Anderson earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s of fine arts from Utah State University. As a transgender woman who was raised in an orthodox Mormon home and was married for twenty years to a woman with whom she shares two children, Anderson is—in her own words—“embarking on the second half of her life reinventing nearly every aspect of who she is.”   

After 25 years working nationally and internationally as a documentary and fine-art photographer and 10 years as a university lecturer, Anderson earned a master’s in counseling psychology from the University of San Francisco. 

She currently practices as a marriage and family therapist in the San Francisco and Sacramento areas where she specializes in working with LGBTQ+ youth and their families through transitions related to faith and spirituality. 

This event is sponsored by the USU Inclusion Center, the USU Center for Intersectional Gender Studies and Research, the USU Department of Psychology and the USU Department of Art + Design.

Visit artmuseum.usu.edu to stay up to date on future museum events.