Sarah Pollman

Thesis title: Perpetual Care: materiality and memory at former psychiatric hospitals in Massachusetts

Sarah Pollman is an interdisciplinary scholar working at the intersections of communication studies, art history and American studies. Their current research looks at cultural memory practices at contested historical sites in the United States by examining material interventions by a range of actors—including mental health service survivors, activists and contemporary artists—at former psychiatric hospitals and their cemeteries in Massachusetts. Previous projects have examined the role of the psychiatric institution in the treatment and burial of anonymous loved ones and the movement of family photographs through capitalist systems of distribution and display.

Sarah's published works include a book, The Distances Between Us (Trëma Forlag) and articles in Art New England and Big, Red & Shiny. Their work has been supported by a 2025 Jay and Deborah Last Fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society, a 2025 PBEEE scholarship (Programme de bourses d’excellence pour étudiants étrangers) from the Ministère de l’Enseigment supérieur du Québec et le Fonds de recherche du Québec; a 2020 Capacity Building Grant from Assets for Artists and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art; and a 2014 AICA-USA and Creative Capital / Warhol Foundation Art Writing Workshop, among others. Their visual projects have been shown internationally, including solo shows at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Danforth Art Museum, with works held in permanent collections that include the Danforth Art Museum, the SGCI Archives in the Zuckerman Museum of Art and the Savannah College of Art and Design, et al.

Sarah is a PhD candidate at Concordia University in Montréal and holds an MFA from Tufts University and a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. In addition to traditional scholarly output, Sarah maintains visual arts and curatorial practices and is committed to principles and actions of equity, inclusion and justice in the classroom and beyond.