Brandon Sward is an artist, writer, and doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago. He was a quarterfinalist for the VanderMey Nonfiction Prize, was shortlisted for Disquiet International’s Literary Prize, and was an honorable mention and finalist for the New Millennium Writing Awards. He’s won residencies at Alternative Worksite, Byrdcliffe, the Hambidge Center, the Institute for LGBTQ+ Studies, Main Street Arts, NAVE, SloMoCo, the Sundress Academy, the Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Wassaic Project, and Western Montana Creative Initiatives. His first solo show, How the West was lost, opens at Stone House Art Gallery in October 2021. Group exhibitions include: The Long Dream (MCA Chicago), a series of small gestures (Smart Museum), With All Our Might (Carr Center Contemporary), Experimental Film and Video (CICA Museum), And That Is Where The Bobcat Is Right Now (Tiger Strikes Asteroid), Angelespuma (NAVE), Seasons Change (Wassaic Project), Utopian Living (Kleinert/James Center), and Two Silences Leaning Together (In/Passing). He’s participated in the film festival Release Me through Single Channel VT and his photographs and prints have appeared in Anima Loci and Under the Bridge, respectively. His words can be read in littledeathlit, Stellium Literary Magazine, querencia, Art Style, Flash Art, BOMB, The Point, Full Bleed, aqnb, Hyperallergic, Chicago Reader, Chicago Review, Contemporary &, Prospect Art, Newcity, Sixty Inches From Center, The Seen, ASAP/J, Post45, Tesserae, Tripwire, hazel, Power Clash Art, and Flatpack Publications. He’s spoken at the College Art Association, American Sociological Association, Nasher Sculpture Center, Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, Southeastern College Art Conference, Universities Art Association of Canada, Royal Anthropological Institute, Horasis Global Meeting, and Universities of California, Maryland, and Montreal.
Sward’s work was on view at SHAG in October 2021 in his solo exhibition How the West Was Lost.