August 2019 Meet Our Artists: Isabelle Armand

Our Members, Fiscally Sponsored Artists, and other program participants represent a wide range of career stages and disciplines. We love them - and, as fellow artists, we're always inspired by them. With this monthly feature, we hope you'll feel the same way!

What inspires you?
Social issues and the human experience

What are your goals?
To tell stories which need telling and to create a record of anonymous people, who deserve recognition, and whose tales should be preserved for posterity.
My current project takes place in the poorest county of the Mississippi Delta. "Glendora: Sing About Me" is a multimedia project comprising a book of analog photography and in situ interviews, film and community projects. Its aim is twofold: to explore the connection between poverty and memory, and to record a town’s efforts to reclaim its lost heritage.

What are you proud of?
To give visibility, a face and a voice to people mostly vulnerable to silence and oblivion.

Do you have any advice for your fellow artists?
Art is a personal commitment and an inexorable need, it's your work every single day.

How does The Field help you?
More visibility and help to fund the projects I work on.

This selection of images is from my last book, Levon and Kennedy: Mississippi Innocence Project, powerHouse Books. Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer were wrongfully convicted of two separate crimes in rural Mississippi, and spent a combined 33 years in prison. They were exonerated with the help of the Innocence Project. This is their story and that of their families.

Cover photo from "Glendora: Sing About Me" 

Thumbnails from Levon and Kennedy: Mississippi Innocence Project

All photographs ©Isabelle Armand
www.isabellearmandphotography.com

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