Presented at 6018North in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood, this exhibition is part of Opening Passages: Photographers Respond to Chicago and Paris, It features the works of the five photographers who explore notions of frontier, immigration, and diasporic identity. Jonathan Michael Castillo and Gilberto Güiza-Rojas focus on the notion of work, Rebecca Topakian and Marion Poussier question the border or margin, and Marzena Abrahamik takes an interest in the Polish community in Chicago. Each of them, in their own way, highlights multiple, fragmented, or superimposed life trajectories. These works find a particular echo in the Edgewater neighborhood, which is characterized by the cohabitation of communities of very diverse origins.
In her series Return, Marzena Abrahamik (Chicago) chronicles stories of migration in reverse. After decades of building a life in Chicago, some Polish immigrants are returning to Poland in retirement to access lower costs of living and a public healthcare system.
Since 2017, Jonathan Castillo (Chicago) has been photographing immigrant-owned shops across Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. The series resists the classifying impulse of a documentary survey, instead offering an eclectic mix of the people and places he encounters in his exploration of the city.
In Gilberto Güiza-Rojas’ (Greater Paris) series Territoire-Travail (Territory-Work), workers perform an idealized vision of manual labor superimposed against remote urban backdrops. The artist staged these tableaus in and around centers that retrain newly arrived immigrants to France for new jobs, which are typically lower ranking compared to their former roles. Individuals re-enact gestures tied to their former occupations against transformed settings, hinting at the vestiges of their former lives.
Marion Poussier’s (Paris) work as a photographer was interrupted by Covid-19 lockdowns in France, limiting her to a one-kilometer radius around her home. Working within this constraint, she explored areas near the Canal Saint-Denis, capturing people and daily life along the water in Aubervilliers, a rapidly changing area of Paris.
Originating from Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, rose-ringed parakeets first entered Paris in the 1970s through a cargo accident at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport. Artist Rebecca Topakian (Yerevan, Armenia and Paris) has created an installation around these parakeets that combines photographs of found feathers arranged as a grid paired with images of birds captured mid-flight.
Produced by Villa Albertine, Opening Passages is a city-wide, multi-site photographic exhibition featuring recent works by ten American and French artists who are interested in the dynamic social landscapes of Chicago and Paris. Selections from all participating artists are currently on view together downtown at the Chicago Cultural Center, while site-specific installations like this one highlight intersections between artists whose work resonates with similar themes or particular areas within each city.
Sign up for our newsletter to stay current on new events, stories,
and updates from Art Design Chicago.
An initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art in partnership with artists and organizations across the city, Art Design Chicago is a series of events and exhibitions that highlight the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities.
