John D. Freyer

Associate Professor

Cross Disciplinary Media

Pronouns: he, him, his

Department of Photography + Film

Contact Info

VCU School of the Arts
Pollak Building, Rm. 312
325 North Harrison St.
Richmond, Virginia 23284
www.johnfreyer.com

John D. Freyer is an associate professor of Cross Disciplinary Media in the Department of Photography + Film.  His projects include All My Life for Sale, Big Boy, Live IKEA, Free Ice Water, and Free Hot Coffee.  Freyer’s practice engages accidental audiences in galleries, museums, and public spaces. He explores the role of everyday, personal objects in our lives – as commodities, fetishes, and totems and investigates how the circulation of objects and stories enrich social ties between individuals and groups. He earned his B.A. from Hamilton College and M.A. & M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. His work has been reviewed in The New Yorker, The Sunday London Times, Artforum, Print Magazine and NBC’s The Today Show. Freyer is a Fulbright Scholar, a Macdowell Colony Fellow and was an Artist in Residence at Light Work and the Fannon Center, Doha, Qatar. Freyer has brought his social practice projects – Free Ice Water and Free Hot Coffee to the TEDx stage, has exhibited at Mixed Greens Gallery in New York, the Liverpool Biennial Fringe in Liverpool, UK and was a 2018 Tate Exchange Associate at Tate Modern, London. 

Recent Work

FotoFika 2020 All Stars

Anne Leighton Massoni, Betsy Schneider & Becky Senf
Center for Creative Photography | International Center of Photography | Society for Photographic Education | 2021

Fifty/Fifty Conversations from the other side

Tate Exchange | John D. Freyer | VCUarts
Tate Modern, London, UK | 2018

Free Naloxone Bike

John D. Freyer | Rams In Recovery | Richmond City Medical Reserve
Harm Reduction Project | 2020

Recovery Ally Choir

John D. Freyer | Lida Bourhill
VCUarts | Caritas | 1708 Gallery | InLight | Rams in Recovery | 2019

Song Pong

John D. Freyer & Bekah Fisk
Spotify | Anchor | 2021