Kristine Thompson
Associate Professor
Graduate Coordinator
225-578-4930 | 227 Art Building
kthompson@lsu.edu | kristinethompson.com
MFA University of California, Irvine
Kristine Thompson is an associate professor of photography and the MFA graduate coordinator of the LSU School of Art. She received her BS from Northwestern University and her MFA from the University of California, Irvine. Her work considers how contemporary photographic imagery circulates and addresses representations of death, memorial practices, and mourning. She often brings references from different time periods into a shared visual space in order to initiate a conversation between the past and the present, to imagine a tactile connection or relationship with people who are no longer around, and to question how photographs might elicit empathy.
Recent projects include Images Seen to Images Felt, an ongoing series of photograms made by pressing light-sensitive photographic paper to her laptop screen in the darkroom. They are direct impressions of digital images that she has collected from a range of online news sources. These virtual images are turned into tangible ones to facilitate a slowed-down way of considering difficult, contemporary events. She is also working on a long-term project about individuals who die with no next of kin, the government workers who handle their remains, and the often-anonymous burials of the unclaimed. She is a recipient of several grants, including a DAAD Fellowship awarded by the German government to facilitate a year-long research project and an Investing in Artists Award from the Center for Cultural Innovation. Her artwork has recently been exhibited at Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles; the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, California; the Colorado Photographic Art Center; and School 33 in Baltimore. Thompson served for several years as a curator at UCR/California Museum of Photography, and she continues to initiate curatorial projects.
Courses
2995 Basic Photography
2996 Intermediate Photography
2055 Moving Image
4941 Special Studies in Photography (Photo as Object: Material Photographic Investigations)
4941 Special Topics in Art (Malleable Narratives)
4941 Special Topics in Art (Artist as Researcher)
4941 Special Studies in Photography (Representing Selves: Portraiture and Identity) 4992 Concepts in Advanced Digital Photography
4998 Senior Project in Photography
7900 Graduate Photography
8000 Thesis Research
Portfolio
