Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer were both wrongfully convicted
of two separate murders, which occurred 18 months apart. Their
trials involved incompetence and corruption. Levon was sentenced
to life and spent 18 years in prison. Kennedy was sentenced to
death and was imprisoned for 15 years. They were exonerated by
the Innocence Project in 2008 with the help of DNA testing, which
identified the one and only culprit of both crimes; the rapes and
murders of two 3 year-old girls.
My goal was to visually tell their incredible story in an intimate
fashion and to reveal the faces of the victims of wrongful
conviction. The two men, their families and friends, are
individuals mostly invisible and silenced into oblivion in this rural
area of Mississippi, where communities are often isolated and
living in poverty. This project brings to light this environment, and
gives a voice to my subjects with short interviews.
Isabelle Armand is a French born American photographer whose work concentrates on documentaries. Using B &W film and 6 x 7 and 6 x 6 formats, she created several ongoing photographic series. Her latest book focusing on wrongful conviction, Levon and Kennedy: Mississippi Innocence Project, has been widely acclaimed. Armand is currently exploring the relationship between poverty and memory in the town of Glendora in the Mississippi Delta, the poorest area in the nation.
Awards FONDATION CUVELIER- Grant Recipient 2019 & 2020
PARIS PHOTO PRIZE 2018, Curator Selection, The State Of The World, Espace Beaurepaire, Paris, July 2018.
SHOEN FOUNDATION- Grant Recipient 2017
PX3 2015 - Honorable Mention - Category
Collections- Brooklyn Museum- Akron Art Museum- Portland Museum Of Art.
Private Collections in US, Great Britain and France
Press-Art In America- FStop Magazine-National Press Photographers Magazine.- The Economist- Connaissance des Arts- Vogue Brazil- Acne Paper- The Eye of Photography – Slate- Everyday Incarceration - Innocence Project News-Lifeforce Magazine- The Clarion-Ledger-Issue Magazine- Monovisions- The Daily Beast-The Intercept- The New York Times.
Publisher PowerHouse Books
Book Release March 27, 2018- "Levon and Kennedy: Mississippi Innocence Project" by Isabelle Armand
