Olivia Bee
Olivia Bee is a photographer and director. She is intrigued by the magic of everyday life, a human's inherent connection with land, the duality of love, and how the beauty of memories (real or imagined) touches us. With an initial rise in the photography world via Flickr in 2009, she began shooting commercially for international brands such as Nike and Converse at the age of 15, had a New York Times Magazine cover under her belt at 16, and a commission for Hermès by 17. While she was still a teenager, spearheading the rebrand of the iconic Cacharel fragrance Anaïs Anaïs got her foot officially in the door of the directing world. Within a few years, her music video for Olivia Rodrigo's "traitor" was nominated for a VMA in 2022, and her narrative short film "All The World" showed at multiple festivals in the US. She became the youngest artist to have a book published with Aperture Foundation with the release of her monograph "Kids In Love" at 22 years old in 2016. The work was shown as a solo show at Aperture Foundation as well as agnès b in New York City. She has been included in group exhibitions with Danziger Gallery, agnès b, Aperture Foundation, Weinstein Gallery, Bernal Espacio Galeria, and with Van Cleef & Arpels in Kyoto and Paris. Her solo show "In The Secret Distance" showed at Headstone Gallery at Upstate Art Weekend in 2025, as well as online at Danziger Gallery. Olivia has given two Tedx talks and has spoken at conferences around the world. She has been listed in PDN 30 Under 30 and Forbes 30 Under 30. Olivia lives in Southwestern Oregon with her husband, Joe, and their daughter, Mary. They run Y Knot Farm + Ranch in Oregon's Umpqua Valley, with a focus on regenerative, pasture raised meats. The dance between the rootedness of farm life, and the sparkle of international travel, punctuated with art making, is what makes Olivia tick.
Olivia brings her love of analog process outdoors for a cyanotype workshop built around sunlight instead of a darkroom. Drawing on her years of making large-scale cyanotypes alongside editorial and advertising work for clients like Hermès, Nike, and Levi's, she walks participants through digital negatives, photograms, and the Anna Atkins tradition of printing with plant matter, with the paper developing in real time.
Discovered on Flickr as a teenager, shooting Converse by 15, the cover of the New York Times at 17, and campaigns for Nike all over the world before she could legally drink, Olivia Bee has since traded a nonstop commercial travel schedule for a farm in southern Oregon, where she raises grass-fed beef and pasture-raised poultry between shoots. This talk is an honest look at the constant negotiation between art and commerce, the value of building a perspective far outside New York, LA, or Paris, and what it takes to stay rooted while still making work for clients like Adidas, Vogue, and the New York Times Magazine.
Olivia transforms an entire room into a giant pinhole camera, projecting the world outside upside down and backwards onto the wall. Attendees can step inside, sit for portraits, wear costumes, or capture the projected image on cyanotype paper, experiencing in real time the optical trick at the heart of every photograph.
A conversation with photographers who have stayed committed to film as their primary medium, covering why they do it, how they sustain it commercially, and what the format still teaches them that digital cannot.
Space is limited. Get your passes today.
