Sophia Cutino
 
Sophia Cutino is a documentary photographer, multimedia journalist, and graduate of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She is the 2025/2026 recipient of the Jim Marshall and Dorothea Lange Fellowships for her project Down Th ere, chronicling lesbian community across Mississippi. Blending visual and emotional truths, she recounts intimate narratives about isolated identity, obscured community, and hidden humanity. Her work has been published by SFGate, Berkeleyside, and KQED, and her debut photobook, Diaries of a Wet Bird (Sunstroke Press) has been featured in DAZED, The Luna Collective, and Photo Book Journal.
 
 
“Down There” is a documentary photography project examining the hidden networks of lesbian communities across Mississippi, the most religious state in the U.S. Amid strict religious values and anti-LGBTQ+ laws, lesbians in Mississippi fight an unseen revolution by growing love and liberation in a hostile environment that prays for their extinction. In response to social ostracism and eroding protections, these communities sustain love, joy, and community through land stewardship, independent publishing, and the creation of alternative spiritual and cultural spaces. Simply existing and choosing not to leave becomes a form of resistance against beloved traditional values and institutional hatred. Through an intimate, long-form visual approach shot primarily on 35mm film, “Down There” documents the quiet intimacy within homes and the precarious, omnipresent balance between accepting oneself and treading carefully in public spaces.
 
Syd & Bella Get Ready For Bed
Analog film photograph on Archival Inkjet Paper
2025
12 x 18 in