Sunny Leerasanthanah (b. Bangkok, Thailand) works across moving image, photography, and installation, integrating performance, objects, research, archives, sound, prints, books, and text.
Sunny explores the permeability and thresholds of different forms of borders that shape our sense of identity, belonging, and survival. Between the living and the dead, the desired and unwanted, stranger and acquainted, fiction and reality, and between species, place, and time. Past works include inviting Thai immigrant strangers to roleplay as their late father; a satirical speculative fiction film with National Park Service characters; examination of xenophobic rhetoric through the lens of U.S. invasive species policy; a performance-lecture on the failure of various containers; mining for motifs in archival video, text, and pictures; documentation of Sisyphean sand patterns created by foraging crabs; creating image and text typologies; and transforming a PreK-12 school gallery into an immersive installation.
They have presented solo exhibitions at Cuchifritos Gallery (NY, 2026), Anne Reid ‘72 Gallery (NJ, 2025), Smack Mellon (NY, 2024), and John Michael Kohler Arts Center (WI, 2023). They’re a recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant (2026), BRIClab Contemporary Art Residency (2026), Artists Alliance Inc. LES Studio Program (2024-25), Center for Book Arts Residency (2023), Image Text Workshop Residency (2023), Fire Island Artist Residency (2022), Queens Council on the Arts Grant (2021), Columbia University’s Teachers College Scholarship (2017), Ithaca College’s James B. Pendleton Grant (2015), and more. They’ve exhibited and screened works at SculptureCenter (NY), Asia Art Archive in America (NY), Bureau of General Services Queer Division (NY), Lubov Gallery (Projects) (NY), Handwerker Gallery (NY), Local Project Art Space (NY), and more.
They’ve been a guest speaker at the University of British Columbia and Princeton Day School, and spoken in public programs at Asian American Arts Alliance’ Town Hall, Urban Soils Institute, Candice Madey Gallery, Soho Photo Gallery, and more.
Sunny received an MA from Teachers College at Columbia University, and a BFA from Ithaca College. Alongside their multidisciplinary practice, they are also an independent freelance photographer for hire.
Sunny also works as a freelance photographer. In their commissioned work, they notably published 40+ portraits of American artists and art world figures in the book We Are Here: Visionaries of Color Transforming the Art World by Jasmin Hernandez (2021), published by Abrams Books. They have a body of work photographing artists-in-residence at Fire Island Artist Residency (2023-2025), and have photographed the queer line-dancing event Stud Country/SCUFF for over two years (2024-ongoing). They are an Up Next Member with Diversify Photo.
Photo by Mary Kang
Fire Island Art: 100 Years
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