Jess Saldaña

they/them/theirs

Transdisciplinary in praxis, teaching, facilitating, and clinical work engage with studies of disability justice, racial capitalism, ecology, and queer aesthetics. They have a longstanding interest in the protean nature of identity, perception, and environment.

They have worked with the Barnard College Library, the Educational Video Center, NYU CLACS, and others to facilitate visual media literacy, administration, and access to equipment for education. They are currently seeking their clinical licensure in art therapy from Pratt Institute, focusing on intersubjective play in trans and mixed race children and adults. They are curious about integrating creative arts therapy into psychodynamic theory and practice. In 2025 they received an honorable mention for the Susan C. Warshaw essay award for the paper, "That boy, Dorothy": Countertransference, Gendered Scripts, and Queer Moments in the Intersubjective Playground. In 2024 they were granted the APsA Candidate in the Community Mentoring award, and their essay, The Analytic Goodbye: Memory, Primary Narcissism, and Dreams was declared the winner of the APA Division 39, Section 1 candidate essay contest.

Writing, photographs, paintings, and drawings have been featured in the following; Stonewall’s Legacy: Poetry Anthology (2019), Entropy Magazine (2019), Hyperallergic (2020), LAMBDA Lit (2023), Sinister Wisdom (2023), among others. They have presented scholarly work as a part of Black Portraiture[s] 2019 alongside Angela Davis, poetry for The New Museum’s education programming, and have composed music for the 2021 promotional trailer for Visual AIDS’ Day With(out) Art: ENDURING CARE. In 2021 they were a NYFA City Artist Corps Grant recipient and were awarded Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots grant.

Image descriptions for this website are available upon request. Please inquire via email.

jesscame2b@proton.me