about.
Susannah Tantemsapya is the Founder & Executive Director of Creative Migration, a women-of-color-led, international arts organization based in Los Angeles and Bangkok. Its mission is to advance cultural diplomacy through art, public engagement and sustainability.
Her career has spanned the fields of music, art, film and journalism with an eclectic mix of experience. Her most ambitious endeavor to date is Bangkok 1899.
Susannah holds a B.A. in Photojournalism from the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During that time, there were two defining experiences that shaped her commitment to preserving the environment: spending 80 days in the Baja California wilderness through the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS); and a five-week organic architecture workshop at Arcosanti, Paolo Soleri’s experimental town in Arizona’s high desert.
While at Carolina, she started out as an editor and photographer for the independent music publication ‘SUP Magazine. Following graduation in 2000, Susannah moved to New York City to work at Jupiter Media Metrix and V2 Records with now Advisory Board member Andy Gershon. This path eventually led her to Capitol Records in Los Angeles. Subsequently, she worked as road crew for Grammy-winning recording artist Lucinda Williams and the critically-acclaimed indie band Eels.
Her career has spanned the fields of music, art, film and journalism with an eclectic mix of experience. Her most ambitious endeavor to date is Bangkok 1899.
Susannah holds a B.A. in Photojournalism from the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During that time, there were two defining experiences that shaped her commitment to preserving the environment: spending 80 days in the Baja California wilderness through the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS); and a five-week organic architecture workshop at Arcosanti, Paolo Soleri’s experimental town in Arizona’s high desert.
While at Carolina, she started out as an editor and photographer for the independent music publication ‘SUP Magazine. Following graduation in 2000, Susannah moved to New York City to work at Jupiter Media Metrix and V2 Records with now Advisory Board member Andy Gershon. This path eventually led her to Capitol Records in Los Angeles. Subsequently, she worked as road crew for Grammy-winning recording artist Lucinda Williams and the critically-acclaimed indie band Eels.
NOLS (Baja California)
Arcosanti
Her first film experience was as a Production Assistant in 2005 for avant-garde theater director Robert Wilson with talents Sean Penn, Robin Wright and writer Laura Albert (a.k.a. JT Leroy). She has continued to work in various aspects of this medium both in front and behind the camera. This includes Creative Migration’s sustainably produced film POST NEW BILLS: The Story of Green Patriot Posters (2014), which was part of a traveling exhibition with the Design Museum Foundation from 2014-16.
Robert Wilson shoot, photo by Pavel Antonov
POST NEW BILLS screening for Project Green, a sustainable filmmaking initiative, in Stockholm, Sweden
As an art journalist, Susannah’s writing has appeared in publications such as Whitewall Magazine, Canvas Magazine, art ltd. and The WILD Magazine. In 2014, she started producing and hosting ...the charming mistakes of my youth... on KCHUNG Radio in Los Angeles. Being an architecture enthusiast, Susannah has been the Estate Manager for mid-century modern architect Richard Neutra’s Wirin House, as well as working closely with his son Dion Neutra at the Neutra Museum. Most recently, she has been collaborating with CM artist Noémie Goudal, curating her residency at the Neutra VDL House (2018) and producing her conceptual work Telluris (2017) in the Mojave Desert.
Since 2015, Susannah has been a Global Ambassador for the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in London. Founded in 1754, the RSA is a prestigious society that includes Benjamin Franklin, Charles Dickens, Marie Curie, Karl Marx, Stephen Hawking and Tim Berners-Lee amongst its notable past and present members. She is a dual citizen of the United States of America and the Kingdom of Thailand with extensive, lifelong experience abroad, beginning as a young child. She is currently based in Los Angeles and Bangkok.
CV
Since 2015, Susannah has been a Global Ambassador for the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in London. Founded in 1754, the RSA is a prestigious society that includes Benjamin Franklin, Charles Dickens, Marie Curie, Karl Marx, Stephen Hawking and Tim Berners-Lee amongst its notable past and present members. She is a dual citizen of the United States of America and the Kingdom of Thailand with extensive, lifelong experience abroad, beginning as a young child. She is currently based in Los Angeles and Bangkok.
CV