During her Project Space residency, Hanna Smith Allen intends to expand her ongoing border project. After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, she began to visit Google Earth to study the wall that separates California from Mexico. She noticed that glitches in the mapping software allow users to slip through the wall into foreign territories, and immediately began recording her travels. Taking these digital aberrations of the collapsing wall as prophetic, she was inspired to make three physical trips to the U.S. Southern border. In total, Smith Allen has shot over 500 photographs along the physical border and extracted dozens of video stills from Google Earth. While in residence with VSW, she will create a non-traditional book and transform it into a sculptural object that mimics the length and movement of the border wall.

Hannah Smith Allen, is a Contemporary image-maker, 2007 Siskind Foundation IPF Grant recipient, a 2010 NYFA Artist Fellow in Photography, and a 2018 Lower East Side Printshop Resident Keyholder. Her work has been exhibited at venues nationwide, such as Phoenix Art Museum, Wave Hill Cultural Center, and SF Camerawork.

Hannah Smith Allen’s residency was cancelled due to Covid 19. VSW Press produced a book of the artist’s work called Borderlands in 2021.

Funds for this residency came from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; the Max and Marian Farash Foundation; and Joy of Giving Something.