Maria Sandgren is a photographer and psychologist based in Stockholm. Her artistic work explores emotions, care, and human relationships. She is working with both black and white and color in a contemplative visual language that moves between the poetic and the documentary.
Alongside her artistic practice, Maria works as a reg psychologist specializing in affect-focused psychotherapy. She meets people in processes of change, grief, and creative development. Psychology is part of her way of seeing – a means to understand human expression, what unfolds between people, and how emotions take form, in conversation as in image.
The inspiration for her photographic projects arises from everyday acts of care, from life's contradictions, and from a curiosity about how emotions can be translated into visual form. In works such as in the photobook Un Unfolded Collection, images and poetry intertwine in a quiet portrayal of women’s gestures of care.
Maria also offers courses, workshops, and creative consultations in photography and the creative process. Her pedagogical work rests on the psychology of creativity and invites reflection, dialogue, and experimentation with image, text, and feeling. Her vision is to let art and science meet in a practice where the human – rather than the perfect – is at the centre.
On Maria Sandgren Studio, she writes about photography, learning, creativity, and psychology – about creation as a way of living and as an exploration of what moves us.
Present professional activity
Photographer in fine art
Founder of Atelier Chroma, an online course platform for education in photography
Psychologist in private practice, educator, Psychological Forum, Stockholm
Research interests​ in psychological science
Work psychology, music psychology and political psychology
Education
Photography
2025 The technical basics of film in practice /on-going/, HDK Valand, University of Gothenburg
2025 New Views of Photography and its history, HDK Valand, University of Gothenburg
2024 Photographic Project Work, HDK Valand, University of Gothenburg
2024 Basic Photography Course, HDK Valand, University of Gothenburg
2024 Photographic Processes, Gamleby Folkhögskola
2023 Individual Artistic Project, HDK Valand, University of Gothenburg
2023 Photography Project Year, Forsa Folk High School
Psychology
2024 Judy Weiser's Phototherapy Technique, Photography in Therapy
2022 Advanced training ISTDP (2 years, affect-focused therapy)
2015 Cert ISTDP therapist (3 years, affect-focused therapy)
2005 PhD Psychology, Stockholm University
1997 Doctor of Psychology, Uppsala University
Other education
Various courses in French, German, drama/theatre/film, higher education pedagogy, group processes, photography etc. at university level
Group exhibitions
2025 Hasselblad Fotosalong 2025, Gothenburg
2025 The Exposed Eye, Alingsås Konsthall
2024 Examen of Photographic Processes Gamleby Folk High School, Studio Tabac, Stockholm
2024 Slideshow at industry days for Swedish Bildspel vid branschdagar, Swedish Association of Professional Photographers, Fotografiska, Stockholm
Presentations
2024 Panel discussion, The International Artist Managers' Association (IAMA)
2000-2019 A large number of presentations at international scientific conferences in music psychology and social psychology
Scientific publications
Music psychology
Grape, C., Sandgren, M., Hansson, L-O., Ericson, M., & Theorell, T. (2002). Does singing promote well-being?: An empirical study of professional and amateur singers during a singing lesson. Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science, 38, 65-74.
Sandgren, M. (2002). Voice, soma, and psyche: a qualitative and quantitative study of oper singers. Medical Problems of Performing Artists, 17, 11-21.
Cuypers, K.F., Knudtsen, M.S., Sandgren, M., Krokstad, S., Wikström, B.M., & Theorell, T. (2011). Cultural activities and public health: research in Norway and Sweden. An overview. Arts & Health: An International Journal for Research, Policy and Practice, 3, 6-26.
Napadow, M., Fischer, H., Sandgren, M., Magyar, M., Lénárd, Z., Harman, L., & de Manzano, Ö. (2025). Singing for memory: neural and cognitive effects of a choral intervention in older adults. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, Nov 19, 17, 1679873. DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2025.1679873
Sandgren, M. (2018). Exploring personality and musical self-perceptions among singers and instrumentalists at music colleges. Psychology of Music, 47, 465-482.
Sandgren, M. (2018). How modes of instrumental practice are distributed in three musical genres and among singers and instrumentalists at music colleges. Psychology of Music, 47, 767-778.
Political psychology
Dimdins, G., Montgomery, H., & Sandgren, M. (2023). Worldviews and Values as Bases for Political Orientations. International Review of Social Psychology. In press.
Dimdins, G., Sandgren, M., & Montgomery, H. (2016). Psychological Variables Underlying Political Orientations in an Old and a New Democracy: A Comparative Study between Sweden and Latvia. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 57, 437-445.
Hansson, K, Sveningsson, M., Ganetz, H., & Sandgren, M. (2020). Legitimising a feminist agenda: The #metoo petitions in Sweden 2017-2018. Nordic Journal of Media Studies, 2, 121-132.
Nilsson, A., Montgomery, H., Dimdins, G., Sandgren, M., Erlandsson, A., & Taleny, A. (2020). Beyond “liberals” and “conservatives”: Complexity in ideology, moral intuitions, and worldview among Swedish voters. (2020). European Journal of Personality, 34, 448-469.