Strauss’ I-95 project is a ten year long endeavor for which Strauss displayed her photographs by affixing them to the pilasters supporting the overpass of Interstate-95 in South Philadelphia. For a single day each May (from 2001-2010), Strauss revitalized and transformed a derelict and unused public space into a site for art, facilitating community and social interaction through her installation. At the end of the exhibit, the laminated installation photographs were free for the taking. As an artist, Strauss prioritizes accessibility and she enthusiastically promotes discourse regarding her work and artistic process via her well-known and widely followed blog. She describes her work as an effort to create an “epic narrative that reflects the beauty and struggle of everyday life.” While her chosen subjects and scenes of the American urban landscape can seem unflattering, troubling or blighted, they reflect the artist’s interest in confronting and depicting life in America—not in a manner of pure social journalism, but as a method of exploring her interests in visual abstraction as well as the self-reflexive nature of the medium.
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