Benja Thompson

Archiving

Art, Film, Performance

Audio-Visual Coordination

A practicing queer archivist, Benja Thompson interweaves obscured truths with radical imagination. As a 2024 Dance/USA Archiving Fellow, they vitalized LEIMAY's experimental performance history and presented an hour of footage for the 2025 AMIA Conference. In 2026, they recieved ArtsConnection's inaugural Ted S. Berger Award For Artistic Excellence to support further creative archival activations in collaboration with Shige Moriya. Their filmwork has shown in microcinemas and festivals across the country, including Other Cinema, Northwest Film Forum, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Film-Makers' Coop. They are currently developing an emerging practice of embodied cinema, performing at The Tank and Dixon Place, as well as producing and curating Pollen, an expanded cinema marathon series. Technical coordinator credits include the Bessie-nominated A Meal by LEIMAY (HERE, 2024), MOMMA! (Exponential Festival, 2025), IMI (SoMad, 2026), and No Tail! (Cannonball Festival, 2026), alongside video supervision for Mercedes (BAM Next Wave, 2024) and Black Lodge (Prototype Festival, 2025). In addition to freelance archiving for New Dance Alliance and LEIMAY, they pay the rent as a projectionist for Anthology Film Archives and BRIC.