Michael Serra is an artist and photographer from North Central Pennsylvania. He studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology. His work explores the intersections between social history, metafiction, the documentary-style, place, and cultural identity. His work, Description Without Place: Searching for Centralia (2009-2025), is a meditation on the problem of representing the former borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, a small former anthracite mining town in the Anthracite Coal Region of Pennsylvania, under which a mine fire has been burning, unabated, since 1962. Residing in Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania since 2012, his work The Road to 69th Street Station (2023-present), is a meditation on residents, laborers, and people in transit in Upper Darby, PA, encountered between his home and 69th Street Transportation Center, three miles from his home. His series, Island of California, refers to the myth of California as an island amongst 17th and 18th century cartographers. It is a reflection on the alien nature of the landscape in the state of California, from the perspective of an outsider (2021-present).