Leah Frances is the eye behind American Squares, an Instagram photography project that documents American cultural relics and iconography. Frances’ work has been featured in numerous print and online platforms including The New York Times Magazine, Us of America Magazine, frankie magazine, the SFMOMA blog, Subjectively Objective, Feature Shoot, PHROOM and more and has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She is currently an MFA student in Photography at The Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University in Philadelphia.
As a Canadian-born photographer raised on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, her early proximity to the United States along with a steady diet of mid-century American cinema instilled in her a fascination for commonly-held concepts of “Americanness.” Now living in Pennsylvania, Frances carries a deep interest in identity—its roots, and its perceptions within a culture and across time. Photography, as her vehicle through this exploration, allows her to focus on small, striking moments and to create images that carry a persistent, quiet optimism. Frances unearths a certain tenderness in our present by deconstructing idyllic notions of America’s past.
Her first photo book, “American Squares,” debuted in September 2019 at the New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1. It was quickly featured by T, The New York Times Style Magazine, in their “T Suggests: Things our Editors Like” column.
