Priscilla Briggs

Priscilla Briggs is a professor of Art & Art History, the advisor for the Film & Media Arts major, and supports the Film & Media Studies interdisciplinary program. Priscilla teaches Digital Photography, Video Art, Graphic Design, the Zines for Sustainability challenge seminar, and the Arts Now professional practice seminar for junior art majors. 

She enjoys teaching within the liberal arts mission of Gustavus and guiding students in their experience of the visual arts as both an intuitive and intellectual process that contributes to well-being and supports our curiosity as human beings. She enjoys collaborating with students and has led multiple faculty/student summer research projects.

Priscilla is a practicing artist who investigates the intersections of capitalism, identity, social justice and the environment through photography, collage and book-making. Her research has been supported by numerous grants, most notably the McKnight Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as the Saatchi Gallery in London, the Landskrona Photo Salon in Sweden, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the Musei San Domenico in Forlì, Italy, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. 

Her artist monograph, Impossible Is Nothing: China’s Theater of Consumerism, was published by Daylight Books. Many images from the book were created during artist residencies at the Chinese European Art Center in Xiamen and Art Channel in Beijing. Priscilla recently launched Rose Bramble Books, an artist zine/book platform. Her work has been featured in print and online publications such as European Photography Magazine, Newsweek Japan, Photo District News, Hyperallergic, L’oeil de la Photographie, Lenscratch, and F-Stop Magazine. Priscilla is a member of both Rosalux Gallery and the FotoMatter Collective.

Priscilla’s research has taken her near and far from the Badlands to China and India, but her travels began in her early twenties when she taught English in Tokyo and backpacked through Southeast Asia for two years. She has led travel courses in Thailand and Ireland. Wherever she goes, she looks for the nearest hiking trail.