Marisa Scheinfeld was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1980 and raised in the Catskills. She received her B.A. from the State University at Albany in 2002, and her MFA from San Diego State University in 2011. Her work is motivated by an interest in landscape and its embedded histories, both apparent and hidden.
Marisa’s photographic projects and books are among the collections of the Library of Congress, The New York Public Library, Yeshiva University Museum, The National Yiddish Book Center, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art & Life at UC Berkeley, The Simon Wiesenthal Center, The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation and The Edmund and Nancy K. Dubois Library at the Museum of Photographic Arts.
Marisa is a frequent guest lecturer and her photographs have been exhibited throughout the United States and in the UK. Her work has appeared in publications such as National Geographic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Jerusalem Post, American Photography, Tablet Magazine and The Jewish Daily Forward.
On October 4, 2016, Cornell University Press released her first book entitled The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland. In 2023, Marisa founded the Borscht Belt Historical Marker Project with a group of artists and historians dedicated to commemorating the history of the Borscht Belt, a celebrated era in American Jewish life, American culture and Catskill history. The project’s mission is the creation of a large-scale historic marker trail that leads audiences on an education and adventurous tour through history. The 20-marker trail aspires to permanently cement the Borscht Belt in its physical place and pay tribute to its immense legacy. Marisa is an Adjunct Professor of Photography at Purchase College and working on her second book, anticipated in 2026.
