People

Sarah Sanneh

Sarah Sanneh headshot

About

Hello! I'm Sanneh and I'm from Duluth, Georgia. I'm a senior in the Visual Arts program and absolutely love the community and creativity that makes this department what it is.

I had a somewhat roundabout and longwinded journey into the Arts and Archaeology department: as a first-generation kid of Ethiopian/Gambian immigrants, I learned very quickly to see education as the ultimate tool for creating a good and stable future. In the pursuit of this 'good' and 'stable' future, I entered Princeton as a computer science major. Even though I *knew* I disliked engineering, I switched into B.S.E Computer Science during the summer before my freshman year. By the end of my first semester, I had hurriedly exited BSE and become an AB Cos major (spoiler alert: also did not last!). Two years later, in my Junior spring, I switched from AB Cos to Sociology to The Practice of Art (PA). If I'm honest, I somewhat always knew I'd leave Princeton with a degree in the Arts, but it was really important for me to try the 'stable', more traditional paths and fully understand that they are not for me and, more importantly, that my work in photography and graphic design is something that I want to seriously pursue outside of and beyond school. This roundabout journey has also inspired a lot of my work and has led me to explore the tension between traditional immigrant values (especially about education) and the pursuit of art.

In addition to being a Peer Arts Advisor, I am an A/RCA in Butler (the best college!) and I host a radio show at WPRB, the radio station housed beneath Bloomberg. A lot of the communities I have sought out at Princeton (like WPRB and the Arts department) are hubs for creativity, artistic experimentation, and spaces to be both creator and creation. If you're at all interested in any of those things (and even if you're not!), reach out! I'm always down for conversations about art/navigating Princeton as a first-gen kid/everything!

Class of '19

Program in Visual Arts

Residential College

Butler

Email Address

ssanneh@princeton.edu