Join us for “Expanded Conceptions of Collage,” a panel discussion with artists Aimée Beaubien, Sonja Thomsen and Lucy Wood Baird that will explore how the unique materials and processes of collage inform their installation and sculpture based practices.

About the panel:

Lucy Wood Baird lives and works in Chicago, IL. Baird’s work has been included in exhibitions both nationally and internationally including Filter, Chicago, IL (2015); Aperture Foundation, New York, NY (2016); and Aviary Gallery, Boston, MA (2016), Harvey Meadows Gallery, Aspen, CO (2017), Soil Gallery, Seattle, WA (2018), Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles, CA (solo, 2022), Goldfinch Gallery, Chicago, IL (2023) and SCOTTY, Berlin, Germany (2023). Her work is included in private collections nationally. She has been an artist in residence at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, (2016, 2022) and Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, CO (2017) and Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts (2020) and Virginia Center for the Arts (2023). She holds a BA from Harvard University (2010) and an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2016).

Aimée Beaubien reorganizes photographic experience, creating immersive installations, collages, and artists’ books that map networks of meaning between the real and the ideal. Her work has been featured in national and international exhibitions, including SF Camerawork (San Francisco), Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), Newport Art Museum (Rhode Island), Houston Center for Photography (Texas), UCR Museum of Photography (Riverside, CA), Gallery UNO Projektraum (Berlin), and Virus Art Gallery (Rome). Beaubien is Professor of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she has taught since 1997.

awakening &, 2025, Latex Print on Vinyl, Variable dimensions

Sonja Thomsen’s art practice harnesses light as both medium and metaphor, creating immersive installations that blur the boundaries between photography, sculpture, and light installation. Working at the intersection of feminist theory and scientific inquiry, Thomsen choreographs space for wonder. Her installations often incorporate images, video, glass, and metallic materials that shift with viewers’ movement, creating dynamic environments that resist fixed interpretation. She has exhibited at the Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin; the Reykjavik Museum of Photography; Fonderia 20.9 Gallery, Verona; the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe; Higher Pictures, New York; the DePaul Art Museum; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan; the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art; and The Suburban, Milwaukee, among others. Her work resides in collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library at Yale University, the MoMA Library, and the Milwaukee Art Museum. A recipient of the Ruth Arts Mary L. Nohl Alumni Award and the Hermitage Artist Fellowship, she was recently invited to the Active Archive Residency at the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. Thomsen is the recipient of the Josef Breitenbach Research Fellowship at the Center for Creative photography for 2025-26. She is currently Full Professor, Adjunct in Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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Tags: Aimee Beaubien, Chicago, Expanded Conceptions of Collage, Latitude Chicago, Loop, Lucy Wood Baird, Sonja Thomsen.