About
Laura Asherman is a filmmaker, sculptor, and educator based in Atlanta. After growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she moved to Georgia, where she turned to documentary filmmaking as a tool to explore and make sense of her new surroundings. Her research-driven creative practice investigates intergenerational patterns, the Anthropocene, and the relationship between humans and animals as a way to grapple with climate change. Her most recent work, which weaves together documentary, animation, and sculpture, highlights the global plastic pollution crisis.
Asherman earned an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University in 2023, where she devoted herself to bringing her sculpture and film practices together through puppet building and stop-motion animation. During the program, she co-directed a Southeast Emmy-winning film about the opioid epidemic in Georgia. Through her production company, Forage Films, Asherman has directed and contributed to documentaries aired on PBS, VICE, and HBO and shown her independent films at RiverRun, Phoenix, Maryland, Sidewalk, Atlanta Jewish, and Cucalorus film festivals, among others.
While Asherman uses film to understand cultural dynamics and shed light on social issues, sculpturing has been a fixture of her creative life since early childhood. From 2012-2017 she co-taught free ceramics classes at a community arts center in Atlanta. In the summer of 2024, she attended a two-week residency at Azule in Hot Springs, North Carolina, where she experimented with recycled materials to create the first in a new series, Strata of Refusal, contending with the imagined legacy of landfills. Currently, Asherman serves as Director of Ethics and the Arts and teaches in the Film and Media department at Emory University.
Contact: laura@foragefilms.com