by heartbeat
Kenneally's photo essay «Upstate Girls: What became of Collar City» documents the coming of age of a group of young women in Troy, New York. It is a honest view of poverty, dysfunction and teen pregnancy, but also the search for love and survival in lower working class America. Kenneally was born here, and the story she documents could have been her own.
- Growing up as a young girl in this surrounding, I think it is important to have a healthy amount of «fuck-you-ism». A certain arrogance without being disrespectful. Some people come to this world with the knowledge that there will always be a free seat for them. It was not my case. I always felt I had to struggle to deserve that seat, Kenneally said when visiting Oslo in February.
- But all humans are equal, why be afraid of shaking hands with other people? If you have the basic experience of equality, I guess you don't need that «fuck-you-ism», she adds.
Kenneally fled the Troy neighbourhood at 16, and settled in Florida where she found photography. Through her intimate long-term projects, Kenneally forces the viewer into a reality most people don't want to see. Social issues that intersect where the personal becomes political.
- I don't believe in the American Dream, but I am definitively a dreamer, Kenneally says.
Brenda Ann Kenneally has received numerous prestigeous awards for her work, including a Canon Female Photojournalist Award, a Getty Images Grant for Editorial Photography and a first prize for «Upstate Girls» in World Press Photo.
Her book and web publication MONEY, POWER, RESPECT; Pictures of My Neighbourhood also won numerous awards.
Through Kenneally's web publication The Raw File and Upstate Girls, you can see more of her great and important work, both pictures and movies.
