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about martha grenon

Martha Grenon grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and knew from an early age that she wanted to be an artist. She graduated with a degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute in New York, and has worked as a photographer and graphic designer since then.

During the early 1970s she lived within swimming distance of Albania ­ in Corfu, Greece ­ but at that time Albania was closed off from the rest of the world. When she was finally able to visit in 1992 she became determined to photograph the many changes experienced by that country during the transition from communism to democracy. The project was later expanded laterally to include the Albanians of Kosova and Macedonia.

She has received three grants from ArtsLink Collaborative Projects to work in Eastern Europe. Two of these grants were to work with a group of young Kosovars, to whom she gave cameras and film and sent out to record their lives after the war in 1999. The results were seen in exhibits in Austin, Texas, where she has lived for the past 30 years, and Prishtina, Kosova. For more information about these projects, visit the website at marthagrenon.com/Kosova2000.

She next hopes to publish a book of photographs about the Albanian people.