Bio

Sasha Tycko is an anthropologist, photographer, and filmmaker. She is currently a PhD candidate at Emory University and received a BA from the University of Chicago.

Sasha's current work focuses on the Atlanta forest at the center of the conflict over “Cop City,” where she integrates ethnographic research and a visual art practice to explore how the contested landscape—once the site of a city prison farm and antebellum plantation—motivates new articulations of history and nature. Through this work, she has produced two films, "Dwelling: A Measure of Life in the Atlanta Forest" (2023, 40 min.) and "Atlanta Forest Garden: Four Days of Work" (co-produced with Marion Lary, 2023, 12 min.) and a photography exhibition, “Ways of the Atlanta Forest" (2025, Institute 193). Her writing and photography has been published in n+1, Jewish Currents, Mergoat Magazine, Sixty Inches From Center, and elsewhere. Her essay "Not One Tree" (co-authored with Grace Glass, 2023, n+1) was awarded the Krause Essay Prize.

Sasha has also been a DJ, punk guitarist, barista, zine monger, music programmer, shop girl, museum guard, radio host, and "female sound guy." At earning an hourly wage, she was happiest lurking in the projection booths and back hallways of the Art Institute of Chicago as an audiovisual technician. She currently lives in Maine.