Tema Stauffer

Associate Professor of Photography 
Department of Art & Design,  
East Tennessee State University 

Tema Stauffer is a photographer whose  work examines the social, economic, and cultural  landscape of American spaces. Her work has  been exhibited at Sasha Wolf, Daniel Cooney Fine  Art, and Jen Bekman galleries in New York, as  well as galleries and institutions nationally and  internationally. Her work is currently represented  by Tracey Morgan Gallery in Asheville, North Carolina. She is an Associate Professor of  Photography at East Tennessee State University and  has previously taught at Concordia University in  Montreal, Ramapo College of New Jersey, College  of Staten Island, School at ICP, William Paterson  University, and Toxico Cultura in Mexico City. She  was awarded an AOL 25 for 25 Grant for innovation  in the arts in 2010 for her combined work as an  artist, curator, and writer. She has contributed  articles to PDNedu, American Photo Magazine, Ciel  variable, Culturehall, and other publications. 

In 2018, Daylight Books published a monograph  of her Upstate series portraying the lingering  legacy of American industrial and agricultural  history in and around Hudson, New York. The  book was nominated for the Unveil’d Photobook  Award 2018 and the prints were exhibited at  ETSU’s Reece Museum, Tracey Morgan Gallery, ilon  Art Gallery, and Hudson Hall. Her current series,  Southern Fiction, was exhibited at Tracey Morgan  Gallery in Fall 2021. The production of this body  of work received support from ETSU’s Research  Development Committee through Small Grant  Awards in 2019 and 2021 and Major Grant Awards  in 2020 and 2022. She was also the recipient of  a Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist  Fellowship in 2021. Daylight Books will release her  second monograph, Southern Fiction, in September  2022.