Sarah Ballard is an artist and educator whose work fuses personal narratives with historical accounts to address structural inequalities shaped by gender and class through experimental nonfiction filmmaking. Her research examines how systems of power are internalized within bodies, architectures, and landscapes, with a particular focus on embodied knowledge and experiences of mental illness that extend beyond the individual as collective symptoms of capitalist structures.

Sarah's work has been exhibited at venues and festivals such as the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City, Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London, Images, Crossroads, Alchemy, Kasseler Dokfest, Antimatter [Media Art], Arab Image Foundation, Kunstnernes Hus Cinema, and Beijing International Short Film Festival, among others. Her recent film, Full Out, received the New Cinema Arts Award at BFMAF, the Critical Mass Award at the RPM Film Festival in Boston, the Best Use of Sound award at Athens International Film and Video Festival, and an Honorable Mention at Onion City Experimental Film Festival in Chicago. She is a 2025-2026 Mary L. Nohl Fund Emerging Artist Fellow and a recipient of the 2023 Princess Grace Award in Film.

Sarah currently teaches at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

email sarahballardfilm@gmail.com for inquiries