Jennifer Sakai is an artist, fine art photographer, [1] [2] [3] MFA professor at American University, [4] [5] and independent curator [6] based in Washington, D.C.
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] Her work has also appeared in W [9] and Vogue. [10] Jennifer is featured in the inaugural issue of The Photographer, to debut November 2025 at Paris Photo in Paris France. [11] She is the curator and designer of The Road, a book of photographs by Punk Musician Brian Baker (musician). [12] published by Akashic Books.
Sakai’s work has been exhibited at: Addison/Ripley Fine Art (2025), Artsy [13] (2023), Glen Echo Park (Maryland) (2022), Corcoran Gallery of Art (2017), and Photo London at Somerset House in May 2023. [14]
In 2024, Sakai received the Prix Virginia, the Biennial International Prize for Photography for women, for When We Return Home. [15] [16] She also received an Aperture Foundation Creator Lab Prize for her photography practice. [17] [18] She is a member of Women Photograph, an international US-based non-profit supporting women and nonbinary visual journalists. [19] In 2025 she was.a selected artist for Women Artists of the DMV, A major, multi-venue exhibition showcasing the work of over 400 women artists from the District, Maryland and Virginia area curated by Florencio Campello. [20] [21]
She was a selected artist for the Charcoal Chico review in 2020 and 2021 [22] and in 2003 was a prize winner in the LensCulture New Discoveries in ArtPhotography. [23]
Sakai has received grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for her photographic practice. [24] [25] [26] She received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University [27] and studied chromogenic printing with George Nan. [28]
An independent museum curator, she curated The Gifts of Tony Podesta (2019), [29] Border Wall (2020), [30] and Vertiginous Matter (2022) at American University's Katzen Arts Center. [31] [32] The latter named one of the year's top eight local photography exhibits by Washington City Paper . [33]