A versatile artist and entrepreneur with endless curiosity, Scott Cohen has a proven track record of pushing boundaries across disciplines as a filmmaker, photographer, placemaker and venture builder. His work consistently demonstrates a commitment to exploring innovative forms of storytelling and creating connections where none previously existed. Cohen’s interests in science, invention and technology led him into a partnership to co-found Newlab, a pioneering platform that fosters deep-tech entrepreneurship and tackles pressing societal challenges. His projects frequently emphasize a profound engagement with the natural environment and civic life, showcasing his unique blend of artistic vision and entrepreneurial acumen.

NEWLAB

Cohen is civically active through his work with Newlab which he is the co-founder and the original curator of its specialized community. Newlab is working globally to pair governments and industry with exceptional founders and startups working on pressing challenges.

RED KNOT

His narrative feature film, Red Knot was shot in the southern ocean on a research vessel en route to and in Antarctica won the FIPRESCI Grand Jury Award for Best New American Cinema.

“There’s nothing incidental about returning from a journey like the one we took to Antarctica. I held Antarctica as a destination inside for the better part of my life. Every since my father spun a globe in my room, the poles rooted in my imagination.  It was nothing like I imagined.  There are no words to describe the majestic beauty and delicate impermanence of icebergs the size of buildings floating like nature’s Brancusi’s at sea. What is it that draws us away from the comforts of home and into the wild? Where does this inclination to touch something virgin and wild comes from? To be close to and preserve what is wild within ourselves, and thus wild in our environment is something I think we all relate to. Having returned, I question the distinction between self and what’s around us. Borders, territory, even our skin are very thin barriers to what is flowing all around us, through us, all the time. As for the film. I wanted to explore relationships, loss and these others in our lives that are there for us to pick up the pieces. To somehow expose the blurry beauty that comes from sharing a life with another.”

PHOTOGRAPHY

Cohen’s photographic works and films are tactile field notes of the everyday. He’s often working across disciplines and challenging conventional notions of documentary-based work.

When Barbara Stehle presented Cohen’s “An Unfinished Ballad” at the former Joyce Theater, she wrote of his photographic works and two immersive film installations:

“Cohen’s meditative portraits, landscape and films are witness to the passing of time and the character of spaces. The mural-sized work is literary in presence and often reads more as drawings than photographs. The physicality of the prints, the texture of the films and the musical soundtrack all conspire to create a lyrical ballad.”

- Barbara Stehle

Campaign :: Spirowave

Spirowave was an effort to help New York City meet the Covid crisis at a time when the city was looking for backup solutions for the respiratory challenges of the pandemic. Cohen mobilized engineers at Newlab and partnered with colleagues at MIT to rapidly iterate on a 2014 MIT design for a rudimentary ventilation device for less developed nations. After weeks of designing, redesigning, engineering, testing, and close work with NYC hospitals and the FDA, the Spiro team completed the delivered back-up ventilators to NYC. The open-source design was also adopted by other countries around the world.

EPHEMERA

Research has rarely been a cerebral excercise for Cohen but more about improvising with constraints. Whether discovering an ice fisherman in Northern Mongolia, reflections in an urban landscape or a shard of light, the work for Cohen is more about showing up and being present for what is about to unfold. These short films present almost as visual essays.

THEATER

Cohen explored directing theater in the 1990’s. He was part of The Telluride Repertory Theater Company and with the support of the Lucky Star Foundation dedicated a couple of years to the works of Samuel Beckett ulimately directing staged productions of Waiting for Godot and Krapp’s Last Tape at the Sheridan Opera House. He also directed William Mastrisimone’s Extremeties and, among other productions, co-developed and produced Andre Gregory’s Bone Songs with the director Liz Sherman. It was this work and his partnership with Sherman that brought him to New York.

Campaign :: Silent but Deadly

Campaign :: An Obama Minute

An Obama Minute was an effort to create impact by bringing together individuals into a collective voice. The campaign began with Cohen’s address book and a call out for us all to come together at the same moment and actively support Obama as President. The homegrown campaign raised nearly $800,000 in two discreet minutes. The first minute crashed the Obama Campaign website. The power of a few people acting together can be profound!