FEATURED IN THE NEW YORKER: The Faces of Americans Living in Debt
Finalist for the Dorothea Lange/Paul Taylor Prize in Documentary.
Featured on Politico, in the Washington Post, the Daily Mail, and the Huffington Post, USA Today, Business Insider, Refinery29, and Fast Company.
Based on the popular online photo series and now published in print for the first time, The Debt Project collects 99 portraits of debt across the United States, featuring people of all different backgrounds and stories, to recontextualize an often stigmatized experience.
In 2013, Brittany Powell made the difficult decision to file for bankruptcy for her photography business. In the years following the 2008 economic collapse, she found herself in a significant amount of debt, a position many Americans across the country still share, a common yet isolating and private experience often steeped in shame.
Her personal experience, bolstered by the We Are the 99% slogan that came out of the Occupy movement, brought her to start The Debt Project, an exploration of the role debt and finance plays in our personal identity and social structure. This book presents an intimate look into 99 different lives: each shares an arrestingly honest portrait in the person’s home, surrounded by all their belongings, accompanied by a handwritten note of the amount of debt that person is in and the story behind the numbers.
The Debt Project, with a foreword by writer and filmmaker Astra Taylor plus resources at the back of the book to support people in debt, examines the social and personal hold financial debt has on us and invites others into a private world, while at the same empowering people to share their stories and overcome the shame they may feel.
Brittany M. Powell is a documentary filmmaker and fine art photographer. She earned her MFA at San Francisco State University and is an adjunct professor of photography and video at Napa Valley College. Brittany has exhibited at SF Camerawork, Flux Factory New York, Smack Mellon, Root Division, and SOMArts. Her work has been published in The Washington Post, Slate Magazine, Fast Company, USA Today, The Huffington Post, National Geographic, San Francisco Chronicle, and more. In 2015, she was a finalist for the Dorothea Lange/Paul Taylor prize in documentary, and was awarded fellowships from both the Vermont Studio Center and the Headlands Center for the Arts. The Debt Project was born from her own personal experience and her interest in how debt plays a role in shaping and understanding our identity and how we relate to the world.
Interviews
"In 2012, after struggling with a significant loss of income from my photography business following the 2008 economic decline, my debt had skyrocketed, and I made the difficult decision to file for bankruptcy. Inspired by this experience, I began the Debt Project as a way to open the conversation about debt, and remove some of the stigma it carries.
Debt is publicly enforced and highly stigmatized, but is almost always privately experienced. It is in many ways an abstract form without material weight or structure, yet with heavy physicality and burden in a person’s everyday life.
My goal was to photograph across the US, in order to bring people together in a common community to re-contextualize an abstract, often shamed experience. It is my hope that by having a platform to discuss this issue, it will encourage the viewer and participants to question and reframe our perception of Debt and how we contribute to its power and role in our social structure."
