Photo Exhibition Explores Social Dynamics in Chicago and Paris Through the Cities’ Residents

“Opening Passages” is on display at the Chicago Cultural Center and other locations in the city. (Credit: Julien Chatelin) “Opening Passages” is on display at the Chicago Cultural Center and other locations in the city. (Credit: Julien Chatelin)

As the Paris Olympics prepares to kick off on Friday, Chicagoans can explore the connections and contrasts between their city and the French capital in a multi-venue art exhibition.

“Opening Passages” explores the social dynamics of the two cities, and their connection to public spaces. With instillations at various points in the spring and summer at the Chicago Cultural Center and community sites in Edgewater, Austin and Woodlawn, photographers from both Chicago and Paris capture the cities’ similarities and differences in the exhibition presented by Art Design Chicago and organized by Villa Albertine.

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Two South Side-based artists, zakkiyyah najeebah dumas-o’neal and Tonika Lewis Johnson, are among the featured artists. Their photographs hang contrasted to work of the Paris transit system by Assia Labbas.

For Lewis Johnson, her focus was aimed at the experience teenagers of color face in spaces where they feel like they don’t belong. She evolved the concept into a series titled “Belonging” that further explores the dialogue around racial divisions in urban landscapes.

Labbas’ work follows the daily commuters on the line of a train that runs from Paris to the suburbs. With images taken through the windows of the train, Labbas captures what was described as “often striking” socio-economic disparities as the train traveled from affluent to less affluent neighborhoods. Her photos came to fruition after deciding to ride the train from one end to the other.

“I wanted to do something about meeting the people from the north and the south, because I feel like they don’t meet,” Labbas said.

“What’s interesting is the train goes through a southern region, where it’s quite wealthy,” Labbas said. “There’s so much greenery and it was really beautiful. Then you have Paris and all its touristy parts. And then I took the train to go north and it was ugly. Very gray, lots of factories. Not a wealthy area. It’s not that beautiful, it’s so gloomy.”

That contrast sparked an idea.

“To change the image that we see through the window,” Labbas said. “I loved how the form of the winds reminded me of the slides of a film. When you look at a film it’s very slow. And that was the idea, of slowing down the train and changing the images that we see through the windows.”

Their group work is currently on display in an outdoor instillation at the Experimental Station, 6100 S. Blackstone Ave.

“Before the project, I had never really thought about a connection between Chicago and Paris,” dumas-o’neal said.

“I think objectively people might not think there is a similarity between the two, but one thing I’m starting to notice is we all explore this idea of belonging. Not just where we belong within our work, but how we utilize photography to highlight spaces of belonging,” dumas-o’neal said.

Their work in the exhibition was focused on advancing the concept of Black autonomy and self-determination through pictures that capture bodies of water juxtaposed with generational family photos.

“What I’ve experienced with the shoreline and water in Chicago and kind of thinking through sort of how bodies of water sort of create this interconnectedness across the diaspora, whether you’re Black in America, or maybe you’re African and in France, or you’re Senegalese or Ghanaian and you’re from Benin,” dumas-o’neal continues. “I guess I sort of have thought about the project in that way.”

When the show first opened this summer, the artists were able to gather in person and see the work of their peers and meet one another.

It was during that visit that Labbas was able to relate to the interconnectedness of the exhibition dumas-o’neal speaks on.

“When I saw Tonika’s work, I was very surprised,” Labbas said. “I want to say shocked, because the fact that we don’t know each other, but we kind of have the same ideas, even if our work if kind of different.”

Those share ideas made sense after speaking with the participating artists.  

“You start to realize that a lot of us are dealing with a lot of the same issues, questions and concerns. It’s really political,” dumas-o’neal said. “But to a certain degree, I also find it to be very poetic and human and universal.” 

“Opening Passages: Photographers Respond to Chicago and Paris” is open at the Experimental Station through July 27 and at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Exhibit Hall on the fourth floor through Aug. 25. 


Funding for WTTW’s arts coverage as part of Art Design Chicagoa citywide collaboration highlighting the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities, is provided in part by the Terra Foundation for American Art.


Follow Angel Idowu on Twitter: @angelidowu3


Angel Idowu is the JCS Fund of the DuPage Foundation Arts Correspondent.


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