Photojournalist Brenda Ann Kenneally has spent 10 years documenting the lives of women living in Troy, NY below the poverty line. In the process she has gathered 13 terabytes of video documentation, thousands of photos, hundreds of letters written from prison, and historical documents related to social and political forces that have shaped the issues around poverty in the US. With the support of students and faculty at RIT and staff and students at VSW, the long-term project is to build an interactive online documentary and series of books. “Upstate Girl” is an in-progress look at Keneally’s process and her direct involvement with the women documented in her project.

Brenda Ann Kenneally is a mother, documentarian and interdisciplinary artist living in Brooklyn. Kenneally’s obsession with capturing a core truth of the people she photographs earned her The W. Eugene Smith Award in 2000 for photographers who work in the tradition of the legendary Life Magazine photographer. She is the recipient of a Soros Criminal Justice Fellowship, The Mother Jones Award and a National Press Photographers Association Award. Her multimedia work commissioned by The New York Times for the first Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and received a Webb Award.