Violet Handforth is an artist, writer, and researcher based in New York City.

To Contact please email: violethandforth@gmail.com

Instagram: @die_let

RESUME

EDUCATION

The New School for Social Research, The New School, New York, NY Liberal Studies MA

Graduate student currently pursuing a Master’s degree in the Philosophy of Religion with MA thesis advisor Dr. Simon Critchley. 

Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, The New School, New York, NY Self Designed Major BA

Self designed major entitled "Art Practice as Mysticism" combined the disciplines of Philosophy, Religion, and Art. Minored in Religious Studies. Senior thesis paper, “The Parable of the Lord and the Servant”, on the philosophical implications of writings by the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich. 

EMPLOYMENT

Gallery Assistant, TRAMPS

(2018-present)
Past location at 75 East Broadway in Chinatown, NYC, Current location at 39 1/2 Washington Square South, NYC & 15f Micawber Street, London.

https://www.trampsltd.com/

Shoot the Lobster

(2024-present)
Curator for the re-opening of Shoot the Lobster Gallery in Glasgow, London, and NYC. 

https://www.shootthelobster.com/stl-uk

Artist Assistant, Lizzi Bougatsos

(2021-present)

Artist Assistant, Dara Friedman, River Hill Project & SKY WOMAN WOMEN Film, Schlangensonne

(2023-2025)

Land art and film produced by the University at Buffalo Arts Collaboratory, Bronwyn Keenan, and the NYFA Anonymous Was a Woman grant. Schlangensonne labyrinth for the skulpturenpark Düsseldorf. 

Writer, Contributor, & Editor, Superstars Only Magazine

(2021-present)

Superstars Only is an independently published art magazine based in NYC.

Teaching Assistant, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, The New School (2024-present)

-TA for Professor Mark Larrimore’s After Religion (2024). Surveying the contemporary religious landscape to consider what part religious discourses, practices and communities may play in an increasingly unsettled future.

-TA for Professor Caveh Zahedi’s Directors on Directing: Contemporary Independent Cinema (2024, 2025). On independent films that push the envelope of cinematic form by engaging in a dialogue with the rules and expectations of classical cinema.  

-TA for Professor McKenzie Wark’s Intro to Cultural Studies (2025). Many conflicts turn on matters that are in one or more senses ‘cultural.’ Economic and political power also work through cultural struggles, viewed through the lens of media and algorithms. 

- TA for Professor Christopher Nazzaro’s Post-Human Nuclear Experience (2025). Focused on nuclear-disaster history, nuclear energy alternatives, or utopian thinking with regards to the question: What could happen when humans destroy their environment so completely that no one can survive?

Research Assistant for Dr. Paul Kottman, The New School for Social Research

(2022-2024)
Collecting a series of texts, images, and artworks pertaining to the topic of Images/Aesthetics/Art and Ethics.

Research Assistant for Dr. Mark Larrimore, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts

(2019-2020)
Collected and curated a selection of artworks, images, and publications, and wrote academic papers on the topic of Religion and Art in the Anthropocene. The research dealt with the subject of art stepping into what once was solely the role of religion as we culturally adapt to the Anthropocene.

Library Assistant, The New School

(2022-2024)
Organized various publications and assisted with the research work of Master’s and PhD students at the List Library in the New School for Social Research. 

PANELS & LECTURES 

A Mnemonic Turn and the Future of Democratic Politics: International Conference

The Memory Studies Network (MSN) of the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies (TCDS) at The New School for Social Research in partnership with the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS) 

(2025) 

Gave a lecture on Sky Woman as Oral Tradition and Moral Theory

SKY WOMAN WOMEN Panel Moderator 

University at Buffalo, Department of Indigenous Studies 

(2025)

Sociologies, in Plural: Sociology Graduate Conference, New School for Social Research

(2025)

Gave a lecture on SKY WOMAN, The Haudenosaunee Creation Story: Oral Tradition as Embodied Spirituality

Haudenosaunee & Indigenous Matrilineality Symposium

Rematriation & Syracuse University, Center for Global Indigenous Cultures and Environmental Justice 

https://rematriation.com/symposium/

(2025)

SKY WOMAN WOMEN Screening & Discussion 

Anthropology Graduate Conference: Transcendence, New School for Social Research 

(2024)

Gave a lecture, entitled Substance as Method: The Anchoress' Cell, tracing the structure of the anchorite’s cell, as described in the Ancrene Wisse, to Neolithic cult buildings, as a means to induce hypnagogia and mystical visions. 

Visiting Lecturer

Dr. Fielve Tlaloc Palmer, “Religion and Culture”, University of Pittsburgh 

(2024)

Gave a lecture to Dr. Tlaloc Palmer’s Anthropology of Religion course on The Mystic Eclipse, concerning the via negativa and Apophatic theology in Mystical practice. 

Sky Woman as Creation Story and Indigenous Philosophy, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts
(2024)

Gave a lecture for the Indigenous Resurgence section of Professor Mark Larrimore’s After Religion course. Delved into the archetypal elements of the Sky Woman story, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy & the Great Law of Peace, The Song of Condolence and the Orenda, and the possibility of mystical practice.

Dr. Joe Stahlman, Remembering Peace: Scholarship as a Middle Road , New School for Social Research

(2023)

Invited Dr. Stahlman to speak at the NSSR and received an academic grant to help organize his lecture, which went beyond the conventional divide between secular and spiritual to discuss the topics of the Great Peacemaker, wampum, the Hodinöhsö:ni’ worldview, the practice of condolence, natural law, forest diplomacy, and cross-cultural scholarship.

Natural Sciences and Religion Panel Speaker 

(2019)

Spoke on a Natural Sciences and Religion panel hosted by the New School as a student representative of religious studies following a screening of the documentary film “Symbiotic Earth”, a deep dive into the work of evolutionary theorist and biologist Lynn Marguilis.

READINGS

On Cue | 就绪 A Performative Exhibition by Stilllife, 1 Kenmare Street, New York, NY

(May 2025)

Performed a reading of my writing, “Jesus Christ Modern”.

LANGUAGE SKILLS

I am bi-lingual English and German and fluent in French.