Artist statement

Upon arriving from Germany to live and work in the United States almost two years ago, I was shocked at how the America of my imagination—a place where everyone is well-educated and privileged— proved instead a place with a great deal of poverty, and despair. My experiences here fueled my desire to sharpen public awareness of the need to further understand social inequity. Building on my long-term interest in social documentary photography, I set out to find a subject that allowed me to reflect on these issues.

The series Jennifer’s Family focuses on Jennifer, a second-generation Puerto Rican woman, her Native American life partner David, and their four children, who live in South Providence, Rhode Island. South Providence is an urban neighborhood with a large African-American and Hispanic population. Many families here live well below the poverty line. Unemployment is rampant and foreclosure rates are among the highest in the United States. My photographs and video, captured over more than a year, represent intimate moments in the everyday lives of Jennifer and her family. They illustrate how a twenty-five-year-old mother, in spite of difficult living conditions, poverty, desolation, and illness, manages to maintain an optimistic disposition while thoroughly caring for her children. Though on the margins of capitalist prosperity, she lives in pursuit of her American Dream, hosting birthday parties and maintaining hope that one day she will own a home and achieve a better, richer, and happier life.

With my personal photographs I intend that viewers will become engaged in what they see, questioning their stereotypes about poverty and disadvantaged families. As viewers discover the human side in Jennifer and her family, my hope is that they will finally internalize that investing in the poor is good for society as a whole, not just for the poor.