Brenda Ann Kenneally

‘Upstate Girl’ finds voice in photography

By Bob Goepfert The Record

Brenda Ann Kenneally has an addictive personality. That addiction has produced "Upstate Girls: What Became of the Collar City," which opens Saturday at the Sanctuary for Independent Media, 3361 Sixth Ave. in Lansingburgh. It is a photographic study of six young women living in North Troy. The images are stark, real and disturbing as they chronicle the lives of the powerless and disenfranchised. Though fraught with social, political and economic implications, the images are visually hypnotizing as they capture the lives of innocence lost.

Kenneally refers to herself as New York Times Magazine’s "photographer of choice when it comes to capturing images of kids living in poverty." Her first assignment for the magazine was in 2003 when she was asked to supply pictures for a series written by her friend Adrian Nicole Leblanc titled "Random Family." It was a work about neglected, unsupervised kids living on the streets of New York City. Her work was so successful, in 2006, the Times sent her to New Orleans to portray the plight of displaced children trying to survive after Katrina. An entire issue of the New York Times Magazine was devoted to that work.

Exhibit looks at women in poverty
By Sara Foss

TROY — A young woman named Dana Aftab wanders through a cramped hallway, gazing at blank white walls that will soon be covered with pictures. Dozens of photographs lie on the floor.

“Brenda, how can I help you?” Aftab asks.

Without hesitation, Brenda Ann Kenneally replies, “Hang up your photos.”

“Is there any specific order you want?” Aftab asks.

“However you want,” Kenneally tells her. “It’s your life.”

Aftab takes a plastic sleeve filled with photographs and begins tacking them to the wall. An Albany native who now lives in Brooklyn, Kenneally has spent the past five years photographing Aftab, her sisters and mother and other women who live in Troy. She has taken hundreds of pictures of birthday parties and births and homecomings from prison.

“Upstate Girls,” an exhibit featuring many of these photographs, will open Saturday in the Troy-based Sanctuary for Independent Media’s Underground Gallery; an opening reception will be held at 6 p.m. on Feb. 21.

“How Will They Know Us? Building a Culture of Peace”

Friday, March 27 and Saturday, March 28

Iraqi and American youth shared visions of a peaceful, just coexistence in this mural workshop. Guided by Claudia Lefko, director of the Iraqi Children’s Art Exchange, these murals will be exhibited in Egypt next year for the “UNESCO Decade of Peace and Non-violence Among Children of the World.”

Photo by Tyler Boudreau

“A Conversation About UPSTATE GIRLS”

Thursday, April 2

Teenage girls from throughout the Capital Region shared stories about the challenges in their lives, gathering with representatives of the institutions with which they are entwined—including the legal, educational, healthcare and penal systems—in response to award-winning photojournalist Brenda Ann Kenneally’s compelling work.

Funded in part by Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.