“Unscripted Art Chat” with Zoe Strauss and Knight Foundation VP/Arts Dennis Scholl. Photo courtesy Nathan Valentine/WorldRedEye.com. In spite of the bombardment of images and information that have become a mainstay of life today, Zoe Strauss still believes in the power of that one single image that cements a moment in time and touches lives in unexpected ways.

Strauss, a 44-year-old self-taught photographer who first picked up a camera at age 30, was the focus of the third art chat sponsored this year by Bal Harbour Village’s “Unscripted Art Projects,” a public arts program started three years ago to bring arts to the community, commission works to make Bal Harbour a creative destination and to foster critical dialogue.

The Philadelphia native was interviewed Sept. 4 during the event at One Bal Harbour Resort & Spa by Dennis Scholl, vice president of arts for Knight Foundation and an art collector who, along with his wife Debra, knows Strauss’ work well.

Against a background of her photos, the unassuming and casually dressed Strauss spoke with Scholl about what motivates her, how her photography actually happens, about the reality that she wants to share through the lens of her camera and how what she photographs is related to a particular person or place or moment.

“There are very specific images that mark periods of time for people,” said Strauss, “where one can say, ‘This is where I was at this particular time,’ and invoke something very different from the constant barrage of images and videos that we are normally inundated with.”

People can refer to those images to evoke an emotion or feeling, or relive a particular chapter of their lives.

“Those individual images kind of help us place ourselves, and they are a keystone in our lives. Not only that, they help root us,” she said. “And they don’t necessarily mean the same for all of us.”

Indeed, Strauss, an installation artist as well, mentioned photos that have entered the collective consciousness, such as Alfred Eisenstaedt’s “V-J Day in Times Square,” or “The Falling Man” pictures from 9/11, which can be viewed as beautiful from one perspective, yet have terrible realities behind them.

Something similar could be said about the realities of the people she photographs, mostly from her neighborhood in Philadelphia or from other cities in the U.S. she’s traveled to, such as Las Vegas, and Gulfport and Biloxi, in Mississippi. Others might judge the subjects of these photos as disenfranchised or living on the outskirts of society, but Strauss, who identifies herself as a community advocate, sees them just as people—as other human beings.

Bruises, scars and tattoos abound in those pictures. Whether it’s a shot of a young woman with a black eye or a naked man who’s missing a limb lying on a bed, these photos mark a specific moment and meaning for these people as well.

And whether it’s her neighbors or strangers, derelict landscapes and buildings, or rundown signs, Strauss does not impose an agenda. The images are what they are: They attracted her in the first place, so she photographed them. It is up to the viewer to decide how to interpret them.

The impact of Strauss’ art

The power of Strauss’ art lies in its ability to make one feel, and this made Strauss the perfect subject to come speak to the community, said Claire Breukel, curator of the Bal Harbour creative project.

“Zoe is the first photographer [in the series],” said Breukel, who credits Scholl with suggesting Strauss. “The program deals specifically with art in public spaces, and she’s an artist who deals with that specific genre. There’s an undistilled honesty to her work, where I feel like there’s a very direct appeal with a sincerity that really comes through.”

That sincerity also comes through in her demeanor and her answers.

“Why do you make art?” Scholl asked Strauss, who is currently teaching at the University of Georgia in Athens, where she resides as the Lamar Dodd Chair during the 2014-2015 schoolyear.

“I’m compelled to do it,” was Strauss’ simple response. “I am genuinely compelled to do it, and that’s just the answer. I wish I had a better pat answer that was ‘I’m interested and engaged!’ No. It’s a part of self.”

That self was devoted for a decade to a project titled “Under I-95,” from which the pictures that flashed during the art chat were taken. From 2001 to 2010, Strauss took photos of her community and, once a year and for only a few hours, exhibited them on the columns under the highway. Then, to make art accessible, she sold copies of the prints for just $5.

All this work, including photos of signs or graffiti in an additional component called “The Billboard Project,” was the subject of a retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2012, “Zoe Strauss: 10 Years,” which in 2013 moved to the International Center of Photography in New York, where it was on exhibit until early 2014.

A new project

After the retrospective, Strauss began working on a new project, “Homesteading,” commissioned for the 2013 Carnegie International (The Carnegie International is the oldest collection of contemporary art from around the world in North America). She described it as something she will be involved with for several years.

“It’s a long-term project that’s based in Homestead, Pennsylvania,” she explained right before the conversation with Scholl took place. “And it’s both about Homestead, Pennsylvania, and about the many ways Homestead, Pennsylvania, has impacted the world.”

Homestead is a city near Pittsburgh that attracted Strauss for what she views as “its incredible history,” specifically “The Homestead Strike” of 1892, which she explained as one of the most important labor struggles in the United States and the second-deadliest confrontation in the labor movement. Photographer Zoe Strauss and Knight Foundation VP/Arts Dennis Scholl in conversation. Photo courtesy Nathan Valentine/WorldRedEye.com.  

“It’s a town that suffered greatly coming out of the strike,” stressed Strauss, “and then suffered greatly for different reasons.”

Different also were all the occasions when she photographed the people who have made up the bulk of her work, and that have earned her widespread recognition as well as numerous accolades and awards. In 2005, for example, she was a Pew Fellowship recipient; she participated in the 2006 Whitney Biennial; and in 2007 she was named a United States Artists Gund Fellow in the Visual Arts, winning a $50,000 grant from United States Artists.

“It varied across the board, from person to person,” she said of the process of approaching a person and negotiating the shooting of a picture. “It was always a moment that was very specific to someone, an interaction with an individual who’s a stranger, and so it was different every time.” Juan Carlos Pérez-Duthie is a South Florida freelance writer. Zoe Strauss’ work on display at the International Center for Photography in 2013. Photo by Flickr user Susan Sarmoneta.