On Grief, Existential Questions & Art
Talks and Workhops Maria Sandgren
Licensed Psychologist, PhD in Psychology, Certified ISTDP Therapist, and Fine Art Photographer
I give talks and workshops on grief and existential questions at the intersection of psychology, research and art.
As a licensed psychologist, researcher and fine art photographer, I am interested in how people continue to live after loss—and how images, stories and artistic expression can help us approach experiences that sometimes lie beyond words.
My photographic work on grief following a personal loss also became a way of exploring questions of memory, identity, love, vulnerability and the experience of time itself.
Talks & Workshops
The Psychology of Grief
On the many expressions of grief, identity, relationships, the body's responses, and the human search for meaning.
Existential Health and Vulnerability
On life crises, loneliness, and what helps people continue living after profound loss.
What Art Knows About Grief
On photography, visual language, and art's capacity to hold experiences that lie beyond words.
Grief Through Images and Poetry
A visual and personal format where photographs and poems from Broken Light are woven together with psychological and existential perspectives.
For Healthcare, Culture, Education and Organisations
For organisations that wish to create space for reflection on grief, existential questions and human experience.
Formats
Talks can be delivered in person or online and may take the form of:
— Lecture
— Conversation
— Workshop
— Presentation incorporating poems and photographs from Broken Light
45–90 minutes, or by arrangement.
What is absent often remains present.
Contact & Bookings
Broken Light
Broken Light is a forthcoming photobook exploring the experience of grief following the loss of a loved one through photography and poetry.
Working primarily in black and white, I draw on the symbolism of light and darkness as a natural reflection of loss. The work seeks to capture the complexity of grief: sudden encounters with memory, shifting perceptions, emotional intensity, and the altered experience of time.
As a psychologist, I often meet people whose expectations about grief differ profoundly from the reality of loss. Cultural narratives frequently offer comfort, reassurance and advice, while leaving little room for the existential dimensions of grief itself. The project has been influenced in part by Roland Barthes' Mourning Diary, in which he writes openly and exploratively about loneliness, despair, pain and a love that can no longer be reciprocated.
Within photography, memory and time are often represented as forms of history. In Broken Light, I am interested instead in the continuity of the self—the enduring experience of being a thinking, feeling and acting person in relation to an irreversible loss.
It is often tempting to turn away from grief. Yet in doing so, we may also lose touch with the depth and intimacy of what has been lost. Grieving can therefore become a form of care: a way of remaining in relationship with a shared life that once was.
This work continues my longstanding interest in care, relationships and human connection, building on my earlier photographic project Circles of Care, exhibited at the Hasselblad Photo Salon 2025 in Gothenburg, Sweden.
PSYchOLOgical FORUM - ART, EXISTENCE, & SCIENCE
Maria Sandgren
Licensed Psychologist
PhD in Psychology
Certified ISTDP Therapist
Fine Art Photographer
Private practitioner
Educator
Based in Stockholm, Sweden
Links
Photography: Maria Sandgren
Individual therapy: Psychological Forum
Research: Google Scholar
In my artistic work, I return to questions of grief, memory, identity and existential health. By bringing together research, clinical experience and photography, I explore different ways of understanding what it means to be human.
Broken Light is a forthcoming photobook about the grief following the loss of my mother. Through photography and poetry, the project explores loss, love, time, and the enduring presence of what is no longer there. The images on this website are drawn from that work.
Alongside my artistic practice, I work as a psychologist, educator and speaker. For many years, I taught psychology and conducted research at university level. Today, my experience from research, clinical work and artistic practice comes together in the talks and workshops presented here.