Zoe Strauss

A community-based artist, the majority of photographer Zoe Strauss’ work is inspired by her hometown of Philadelphia. Influenced by documentary photographers such as Walker Evans, William Eggleston, and Nan Goldin, Strauss’ portraits, documentation of signage, mundane objects and urban sprawl focus on the allure of overlooked realities.

In a project that spanned ten years, from 2001 to 2010, Strauss set up an installation of her work once a year in an empty lot underneath the 1-95 highway overpass in South Philadelphia. Visitors to these one-day exhibitions could purchase photocopied prints of the photographs for five dollars apiece. This project was the subject of a 2014 exhibition entitled Zoe Strauss: 10 Years at the International Center of Photography in New York.

Strauss has received numerous awards including a Seedling Award in photography from the Leeway Foundation (2002), and a Pew Fellowship (2005). She has had a solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2006) and been included in a variety of group exhibitions including the Centraal Museum in Utrecht (2006), the Art Institute of Chicago (2009) and the 2006 Whitney Biennial. Strauss is also the founder of the Philadelphia Public Art Project.