Lucie Talks with Brenda Ann Kenneally

“ She Was Born… Things Happened… She Died…

Then All The People Who Knew Her Died Too.”

A quote from the last surviving soul who could remember Brenda A. Kenneally

I have lived like a rat in a maze with love at the end. Photography has been a companion as I walked with my sisters and brothers, along some of the many ways to the same end. The pictures that I make will become memory and the messy business of living will be ashes. Photographs are the remains of the souls that have taught me how to be human.

From the beginning, calling myself a photographer felt like I was deepening the separation that I was trying to dissolve by making pictures. I was conflicted about making the good image because it took time away from being with the people and places in it. My own origin story drew me to kindred spirits with shared devastations. I could never photograph anyone I didn’t love. Photography became a way to focus love into action and has led to intimate relationships, holding a mirror to my own interior growth. The spiritual paradox of photography for me is that it has everything and nothing to do with the pictures.

Bio: Brenda Ann Kenneally is a mother, multi- platform documentary worker, Guggenheim Fellow, retired carnival snake charmer and former waitress on the graveyard shift at Howard Johnson’s. Kenneally’s lived experiences of poverty and incarceration continue to shape her life and work. Described by The Library of Congress and The New York Times as The Dorthea Lang of our time, Kenneally has lived among kindred spirits in some of most vulnerable populations across The United States. Kenneally’s focus on intergenerational families, has produced a record of systemic inequity as it deepens the divide between The Country’s haves from have nots. Kenneally has documented much of the disappeared American cultural Landscape Including Carnival Sideshows, High Society Balls, The last Penny slot players in Las Vegas and 90’s Gangster Rap in Brooklyn. Kenneally’s books Money Power Respect: Pictures of My Neighborhood Chanel Photographic 2004 and Upstate Girls: Unraveling Collar City Regan Arts, 2018 became the foundation for an array of participatory public art projects that have continued over the past twenty years. Kenneally has had major commissions from The New York Times Magazine. Her projects have received support from The New York State Council For The Arts, Mother Jones, The Soros Foundation, The United States Library of Congress, The Warhol Foundation, The NEA, Getty Editorial Fund, Canon, Nikon and World Press. It has been exhibited both internationally and hyper- locally. In 2017 Kenneally founded A Little Creative Class Inc. a 501c3 with mission to support young people from low status communities on their journey to discover artistic voice and authentic self. Kenneally is a member of The VII Photo Foundation and The New York Institute For The Humanities and Skid Row Studio 526.

Doors open at 3:00 PM

Talk will begin at 4:00 PM

The talk will be in the Blue Room on the 4th floor of the REEF

Refreshments will be available for purchase, limited seating.

Thank you to our partners The REEF, SHOW LA and The Center on Four for hosting us.