Danna Singer

Bio: Danna Singer is an American photographer based in Philadelphia. She received her BFA from Pratt Institute and her MFA from Yale University School of Art. Singer is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for Photography in 2020. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and has been published by the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, and the ACLU.

If It Rained An Ocean

Statement: This work and series of photographs is an exploration of my relationship to my family and community. The subjects of my pictures are my immediate family members, friends and neighbors from the working-class neighborhood in New Jersey where I grew up.

There is a population in America that is forgotten about. They aren’t “free” in the way that countless Americans are. Many people take it for granted that they can “pick themselves up by their bootstraps” and better themselves; for this group of Americans, however, that just isn’t true. Many struggle to be seen, to make ends meet, to feel worthy of the comforts that others can easily (even thoughtlessly) afford.

Some of my images are documents—moments that unfolded before the camera. Others are created from memory or are reinvented fictions that strive for a different truth—one that is in conversation with the history of painting and photography. But all deal with the struggles of the working class, the cycle of addiction, deficits in education and an undercurrent of bigotry that defines the America in which I was raised.

Website: www.dannasinger.com