Photographer Stephen Kennedy visited the Main Branch and West Branch of the Belleville Public Library to as part of his ongoing project: Six One Eight Libraries which began August 2025. Prior to starting his work at the Belleville Public Library, we sat down with Mr. Kennedy to learn more about his work, his inspiration, and how his local start brought him where he is today.

Six One Eight Illinois Libraries is a unified series of documentary photo essays captured inside public libraries located in the 618 area code. The intent is to show what public libraries look and feel like at this very moment. As a long-ago student page at Hayner Public Library in Alton, and the son of a Librarian, I view Libraries as essential community assets. – StephenKennedy.com

What made you focus on the libraries specifically in the “618” area code?

Well, there is a famous contemporary artist named Ed Ruscha. who is based in Los Angeles and he was on the fringes of the pop art thing in the 60s. He published a piece called “26 Gasoline Stations”. That title is very important because thousands of other visual artists have riffed off that title. So, this is my riff.

And when you look at it, it says 618 Illinois libraries. But when you dig into it, it’s the 618 area code. It’s geographically limited. I have a feeling about art, that you must have constraints. People think that is counterintuitive, however, if you don’t have constraints, you can’t go deep.

So I had a broad project, which is the artist’s cross-country camera. Then I had a local project. which is STL 100. So STL 100 was my reaction to “I love doing these artists, but I have to get on a plane. Right. I have to go somewhere and that’s really expensive and super time consuming, but totally worth it. “ I ended up in the middle. Something in-between.

You mentioned you grew up in Alton and started with photojournalism. How did your start inspire your work today?

I did. I started when I was 15 as a- the word back then was “stringer”, but freelancer. I started in photography when I was 14. was mostly self-taught along with some other high school classmates. We all did as much together as we could.

One day after I chipped in at the library, I walked across the street and spoke to the photographer at the Weekly paper who in turn referred me to Patricia, their Sports Editor. She said, “Sure, why not? Because nobody’s doing any sports pictures.” She gave me a couple assignments right there. I was 15 when my friends were going to soccer practice and piano lessons and Mom was driving me to photo shoots.
I did that for a year and got to know the photographers of the Daily paper as well.

After a year with the Weekly paper, I went in to get my assignments and they said, “We’ve got some problems. We can’t afford to pay you anymore, but you can keep doing it for free.” That’s nice.

I was just absolutely shattered by that. I walked out. I sort of sat down, pulled myself up, and I walked five blocks up the street to the Daily paper. I went to where the photographers were. They said, “Hey, look! It’s Pat’s favorite photographer. What’s going on? Are you a spy?” I explained what happened, so they go over to the board and they said, “Okay, kid, you can do this one and you can do this one.” I did that for two years of high school, every day.

I went to Marquette Catholic School, and my dad would drop me off at the newspaper at 7 a.m. on his way to work. I would work in the darkroom for an hour and a half and then I’d run up the hill to school until two o’clock. Then, I’d run down the other hill to the library until five. If I had a nighttime gig, my dad would pick me up to take me there. I kept this going until I turned sixteen.

When you enter a library, what are you drawn to most?

I am an artist with digital tools, but I have an analog foundation. Everything I do is digital, but there is a limit to the digital tools that appeal to me. AI being a big looming cloud to some, but I just see it as another tool. With all this AI out there, to be a documentary photographer, it means something.

When you go to the library, every single one of these books has been – there is an author, there are countless editors, there are publishers and there is nothing that came out of thin air. As long as this paper lasts, every idea that exists in there will be available to people.

The library is the physical repository of all of that. That is an amazing resource that is so easy to take for granted. So that has a certain appeal to me.

How can people view your work?

While I would love to exhibit locally, currently you can view the Six One Eight Illinois Libraries project on my website, along with my other work, at StephenKennedy.com.