Jennifer Sakai is a fine art photographer [1] [2] [3] , MFA professor at American University, [4] [5] and independent curator. [6]
In 2025, her project "When We Return Home" detailed her Japanese family's incarceration in Poston War Relocation Center during World War II and their post-war life, along with her own photography.The work was featured in Le Monde's M Magazine with an interview by Claire Guillot. [7] [8] [9] Her work has also appeared in W [10] and Vogue [11] .
Sakai’s work has been exhibited at: Addison/Ripley Fine Art (2025), Artsy [12] (2023), Glen Echo Park (Maryland) (2022), Corcoran Gallery of Art (2017), and Photo London at Somerset House in May 2023. [13]
In 2024, Sakai received the Prix Virginia, the Biennial International Prize for Photography for women, for When We Return Home. [14] [15] She also received an Aperture Foundation Creator Lab Prize for her photography practice. [16] [17]
She was a selected artist for the Charcoal Chico review in 2020 and 2021 [18] and won an award at the 2023 LensCulture Art Photography Awards. [19]
Sakai has received grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for her photographic practice. [20] [20] [21] [22]
An independent museum curator, she curated The Gifts of Tony Podesta (2019) [23] , Border Wall (2020) [24] , and Vertiginous Matter (2022) at American University's Katzen Arts Center. [25] [26] The latter was called one of the year's top eight local photography exhibits by Washington City Paper . [27]