Danielle Towers
Danielle Towers (Photojournalism B.F.A., ‘24) is a photographer based in Chicago and the recipient of the 2024 Distinguished Scholar award. Throughout her studies, Danielle served as Co-President of GW’s National Press Photographer Association (NPPA) chapter and worked for The GW Hatchet as a photo editor and photographer. She worked alongside photographers Clarissa Bonet and Jared Soares, and learned from photographer September Dawn Bottoms through NPPA’s mentorship program. Her documentary practice engages a mixture of literary references, historical research, and present day narratives to tell stories about age, memory, place and preservation. Her photos have been featured in publications by Stereogum and Bloomberg Businessweek and her work has been exhibited through Photoville (NYC) and at Touchstone Gallery (D.C.).
In her NEXT thesis work, Invisible City, Danielle chose the seemingly ordinary community of Greenbelt, Maryland as the focus of her work. Founded in 1937, the space constitutes one of three “Green Towns” formed under President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal; Greenbelt is the only among these to have resisted Congress’ attempts to sell its homes to private developers. Now, nearly 90 years later, Danielle explored how this resistance has paid off; how a place that originally represented the future of American living persists in the present, and how, despite the years gone by, traces of the old Greenbelt still echo through the cracks and influence the new. This work oscillates in the space between change and permanence, the ideal and the real, exploring Greenbelt's historical legacy as it moves through the veins of its community ultimately asking, how deep do the roots go? What would a city suited for our contemporary ideals look like? How long would it last?
