From August 19th to October 22nd 2023, the Center for Photography at Woodstock held one of their most powerful shows yet: Upstate Girls to Grown Upstate: Unraveling Collar City 2004-23 by Brenda Ann Kenneally. It features the photographer’s documentation of the disparity of communities of Troy, New York, and the families growing up within it. It’s a deeply moving show that spares no detail regarding teenage pregnancy, the failings of the public school system, and oppressive financial crises. Stories were told through an overwhelming display of pictures lining the walls. A vast array of raw emotions were documented, families and communities recorded through highs and lows. Jarring images of children holding weapons are interspersed and keep attention among other unfiltered sights.
As I mentioned in my post about IRIDESCENCE, capturing memories is my personal favorite application of photography. Upstate Girls stands as a penultimate practice of recording memories. Pictures span over decades in massive amounts, to the point where all these different points in time are difficult to distinguish from each other. One of the most moving portions of the exhibition that exemplifies this idea the most is the documentation of Tony Stocklas. Kenneally was there to photograph his birth, and has been there to document his upbringing even to his nineteenth birthday last April. A through line between the display of Tony’s life is multiple pictures of Tony on his birthday standing over his cake. The viewer was able to see how he grew each year, the people he was with, and often another picture or two of the kinds of things he was doing that year. It was a surreal glimpse into the progression of an entire upbringing.
This daunting display comes with an endearing ending. At the tail end of Kenneally’s documentation, she had been thinking about how dreams are a class privilege. Inspired, she decided to take Tony and other youths from Troy on an adventure to America’s West. Through Kenneally’s photography we see vast landscapes both dry and wet and dazzling monuments both natural and manmade. The uplifting finale to this melancholic exhibition endowed the entire viewing experience with a sense of hope.
I appreciate exhibitions such as Upstate Girls that pull no punches and show as many images as they can fit. The amount of perspectives and scenes was tremendous and I’ll never forget it. Even though it is no longer on display, I encourage you to keep up with Brenda Ann Kenneally as well as the CPW to see what they have to show.
