Brooklyn / honolulu

Sarahlburke@gmail.com

Instagram



Sarah Burke is an independent editor, producer, and strategist specializing in documentary and digital storytelling on LGBTQ+ movements and culture. Known for her GLAAD- and Peabody-winning work as editor-in-chief of Them and special projects editor at VICE, she tells stories that matter in ways that grab audiences.



During her three-plus years leading Condé Nast’s LGBTQ+ publication Them, Sarah redefined and relaunched the brand, doubling its following and establishing it as a singular authority and innovator within queer media. At VICE News, she co-created and served as supervising producer for the Peabody and GLAAD Media Award-winning documentary series Transnational, about trans rights around the world. She also led many of VICE’s most ambitious multimedia projects, including The Gender Spectrum Collection, a widely used stock photo library featuring trans and nonbinary models, and Climate Uprise, a first-of-its-kind initiative uniting all VICE Media Group brands to amplify youth climate activists from across the globe. She also wrote and hosted the podcast Queerly Beloved, an AAJA General Excellence Award winner and ASME finalist. In 2021, she was honored by Gold House as one of 100 Asian Pacific leaders who most impacted culture and society.  

Sarah has spoken at institutions including UC Berkeley, Stanford, and NYU, as well as conferences and festivals like ONA, NLGJA, AAWW, Culture Con, Podcast Movement, and On Air Fest. As a writer, her work has been featured in New York Times Magazine, WIRED, The Washington Post, Them, VICE, KQED, The Creative Independent, Momus, The Believer, SFMOMA Open Space and elsewhere. 

Sarah is queer, Filipina, and splits her time between Brooklyn and Honolulu, where she was born and raised. In past lives, she has been the managing editor of an alt-weekly, the co-curator of an art + tech salon series, and a respected Bay Area art critic.



SELECTED WORKS
FILTER: all, projects, video, editing, writing, curating, events, audio

QUEERS BUILT THIS

Creator and project lead
VICE
2020
 
QUEERS BUILT THIS was an interactive, multimedia project about the many ways in which queerness inspires us to invent. Queer people—particularly queer people of color—have long been expressing identities without blueprints, finding resources and family where there were none, and building platforms when no one would listen. QBT looked back on queer people's history of DIY initiative, highlighting the LGBTQ+ people who have changed the ways we live and think today, and inviting us all to envision the future we want.

Via a custom-built microsite, QUEERS BUILT THIS featured an interactive archive of little-known LGBTQ+ DIY ephemera, original downloadable zines and posters from queer artists, live-streamed conversations and workshops, and more than a dozen reported features. 

*This project was brought to life on a custom microsite that was disabled when VICE changed ownership in 2024.

 

editing, projects