Marisa Scheinfeld was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1980 and raised in the Catskills. She took her first photography class at age 15 and hasn't put the camera down since. In 2002, she graduated from The State University of New York at Albany. From 2002 - 2003 she interned in the Community Programs Department at The International Center of Photography. In 2003 Marisa moved out west and worked in the Education Department of the Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) in San Diego, CA for four years while teaching it's outreach photography programs, curating many exhibitions and managing its Docent Program. In 2009, she was accepted into the graduate program at The School of Art, Art History and Design at San Diego State University.
Scheinfeld’s work is motivated by an interest in the ruin, or site, and the histories embedded within them. Her photographic projects and books are in the collections of The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, CA, The La Jolla Athenaeum in La Jolla, CA, The Edmund and Nancy K. Dubois Library at MoPA in San Diego, CA and The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Washington, DC, California, Kansas and London and has appeared in publications such as Tablet Magazine, Feature Shoot, The San Diego Union Tribune, The Washington Post, The Lo-Down, Hadassah Magazine and GOLDBERG Magazine. Scheinfeld received her MFA in the spring of 2011 and relocated back to New York. She is currently living in the Lower East Side.
Many of the Borscht Belt's resorts sit in a state of decay and disrepair. Photographer Marisa Scheinfeld documents what's become of the once-glamorous Jewish vacation mecca.
