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