This exhibition is part of a multi-site photographic project featuring recent series by ten French and American artists who engage with the historical and social dynamics at work in Chicago and Paris. The photographs, whether documentary or poetic, allow each artist to reflect with accuracy and subtlety the issues and identities specific to each city, as well as their differences, similarities, and the ongoing transformations.

The Chicago Cultural Center hosts the main exhibition, featuring the work of all ten photographers. The three other venues BUILD Chicago, Experimental Station, and 6018North exhibit a subset of the artists whose work resonates particularly with the neighborhoods in which these institutions are located and the communities they serve. Related events include screenings, workshops, and conversations.

Opening Passages: Photographers Respond to Chicago and Paris is part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities.

At 6018|North, the works of five of the ten photographers will be exhibited, exploring 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.

MARZENA ABRAHAMIK – Return
Born in 1978 in Tarnów, Poland; lives and works in Chicago.
Return is a visual research project that explores the ways in which the Polish diasporic identity continues to re-imagine itself and negotiates the racial landscape of the United States. Abrahamik’s images use symbols and icons associated with Polish life and traditions, such as red poppies, swans, and portraits of the Catholic Pope, to delve into the complex processes of cultural translation, where meanings are simultaneously stable and adaptable.

JONATHAN MICHAEL CASTILLO – Immigrant Owned
Born in 1982, lives and works in Chicago.
Throughout Chicago’s history, immigrants from all over the world have been a central part of the city’s social, cultural, and economic landscape. Since 2017, Jonathan Michael Castillo has been traversing Chicago and its suburbs, photographing the interiors of immigrant-owned shops and the people who run them. In recent years, Chicago’s status as a “sanctuary city” has made it a target for political attacks on the national stage. Castillo’s sensitive images counter these anti-immigrant narratives, presenting a dignified, multi-dimensional vision of immigrant labor in Chicago.

GILBERTO GÜIZA-ROJAS – Territoire-Travail
Born 1983 in Bogota, lives and works in the Greater Paris area.
The Territoire-Travail (Territory-Work) series examines the process of professional training for refugees in the Paris region. The photographic montages superimpose the original professions with those being learned, highlighting the immense work of adaptation necessary for those who go into exile to continue their life, in another country and another language.

MARION POUSSIER – On est là
Born in 1980 in Rennes, France; lives and works in Paris.
The various redevelopment programs of the banks of the Saint-Denis Canal in Paris have made this changing territory a difficult space to inhabit. However, in these spaces undergoing a process rationalization process, certain forms of life resist and oppose the uses to come. Bodies assert themselves and gestures persist, like a claim to ownership of the place. The title of the series On est là refers to the notion of “being there” that the artist wishes to capture.

REBECCA TOPAKIAN – (n = 6 – 9)
Born in 1989 in Vincennes, lives and works between Yerevan, Armenia, and Paris
Halfway between a scientific undertaking and a poetic reverie, Rebecca Topakian’s series (n=6-9) explores the Greater Paris area through exotic birds: the rose-ringed parakeets who escaped from Orly airport in 1974 and have multiplied to over eight thousand. Working with ethologists, the artist captures their flight using infrared photography and reproduces the images on large silk panels. On each of them, she prints phrases taken from various social networks, revealing how differences are perceived and the social inequalities this generates.

Read more about each artist, and explore the schedule of special events, here: Opening Passages.
https://villa-albertine.org/events/opening-passages-photographers-respond-to-chicago-and-paris/

Opening Passages: Artists Respond to Chicago and Paris is organized by Villa Albertine in Chicago, curated by Carl Fuldner in association with Pascal Beausse from the Centre national des arts plastiques and Clément Postec from the Ateliers Médicis. It is supported by the Terra Foundation for the American Arts, Albertine Foundation chapter in Chicago, the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Chicago, the Institut Français, the Alliance française de Chicago and the France Chicago Center at the University of Chicago.

Villa Albertine
Launched in 2021 by the French Embassy in the United States, Villa Albertine is an arts institution that supports cultural exchanges between the United States, France and beyond. Present in 10 American cities, Villa Albertine offers innovative programming nationwide, including 50+ residencies each year for artists, thinkers, and creators across all disciplines; a series of cross-cultural dialogues and events; grants, resources, and incubator programs for professionals in the cultural sphere; and a magazine “States”. Follow Villa Albertine on Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn – villa-albertine.org.

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Tags: 6018NORTH, Chicago, Edgewater, Gilberto Güiza-Rojas, Jonathan Michael Castillo, Marion Poussier, Marzena Abrahamik, Opening Passages: Photographers Respond to Chicago and Paris, Rebecca Topakian