Laura Asherman, Director of Ethics and the Arts, is a documentarian, stop-motion animator, and sculptor. After growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she moved to Georgia to attend Emory (BA ‘12), where she began observing and documenting Southern stories. She is interested in the manifestation of intergenerational trauma, environmental racism, and artists who use their work for social justice. Her recent films use humor as a lens to explore climate change, personifying animals to examine the Anthropocene.
Asherman earned an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University in 2023, where she participated in a yearlong fellowship at Duke’s Kenan Institute for Ethics. In 2022, she co-directed Crisis of Substance, a Southeast Emmy-winning PBS documentary about the opioid epidemic in Georgia. Through her production company, Forage Films, Asherman directed and shot documentaries aired on PBS, VICE, and HBO and content for brands such as Red Lobster, Parents Magazine, and Colgate. Her independent films have played at RiverRun, Maryland, Sidewalk, Atlanta Jewish, and Cucalorus film festivals, among others.
