Lauren Greenfield
-
company
Institute Pictures
-
position
Co-Founder, Director & Photographer
-
website
-
when
Tuesday 6 October 10:00
10:35 Wednesday 7 October 19:00
21:00
Named by The New York Times as “America’s foremost visual chronicler of the plutocracy”, Lauren Greenfield is an Emmy Award-winning director (Thin, The Queen of Versailles, Generation Wealth, The Kingmaker) and acclaimed photographer (Fast Forward, Girl Culture, Thin, Generation Wealth, The Queen of Versailles: An American Allegory) whose work has garnered multiple DGA, WGA, Independent Spirit, and Critics Choice nominations. Her latest Emmy-nominated FX series Social Studies, a groundbreaking episodic documentary that delves into the lives of the first generation raised on social media, premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and won the Gotham Award and two Cinema Eye Awards for Best Non-Fiction Series and Best Editing. A museum exhibition of her Social Studies photography, film and experiential work will open at Fotografiska Berlin in September 2026, and then travel to museums in Stockholm and Tallin. Greenfield’s iconic photography has been widely published, exhibited, and collected by many private and public institutions including LACMA, the Getty, SFMOMA, the Harvard Art Museum, and the International Center of Photography.
Alongside her film and photography career, Greenfield has directed award-winning advertising campaigns. Her Emmy-Award winning Super Bowl spot, #LikeAGirl, swept commercial awards including 14 Cannes Lions, making Greenfield the first woman named “Most Awarded Director” by Ad Age. In 2025, #LikeAGirl was voted by Ad Age readers as the “Best Super Bowl Ad of All Time.”
A Los Angeles native and Harvard graduate, Greenfield has been profiled in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Times, and other leading publications around the world. In 2019, she founded the commercial production company, Institute, with her producing partner, Frank Evers.
(Photo credit: Stine Heilman for 5media)
2026 Speakersspeaking at
Lauren Greenfield has built an unprecedented longitudinal record of how commercial media shapes culture, youth, gender, and, increasingly, democracy itself. Her award-winning docuseries Social Studies, whose immersive exhibition is open from September at Fotografiska Berlin, turns to the same machinery’s youngest targets, exposing what the engagement-at-all-costs economy is doing to the next generation.
Drawing on new work from Dove’s Beauty Machine to Kids + AI for LEGO to the terrifying data propelling her new museum installations, she will make the case that in this time of distraction and consumer distrust, there is an opportunity to establish trust with audiences through meaningful stories that connect, inform, and move people instead of feeding the machine.
Join Lauren Greenfield for a private artist walkthrough of her immersive exhibit Social Studies, at Berlin’s Fotografiska Museum, co-hosted by Ethos Studios, Squeak E. Clean and F/A/Q Health.
All CICLOPE pass-holders are then invited to join Lauren at the museum’s Cafe Bar for drinks and hors d’ouevres, where she will also be signing her latest monograph, The Queen of Versailles: An American Allegory.
Free Museum entry with CICLOPE pass after 18:00, and guests are welcome to visits exhibitions until close at 23:00.