Please join us for our sixth installment of Common Ground, with Tonika Lewis Johnson, photographer, educator, and lifelong resident of Chicago’s South Side neighborhood of Englewood, whose seminal work Folded Map (2017–) visually investigates the legacy and lived reality of urban segregation and economic disparity in Chicago while offering us a blueprint for another way to live in community together. She will be joined by special guest Lee Bey, architecture critic, community historian, and author of the book Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side (Northwestern University Press, 2019), a monograph which pays witness to the unsung architectural wonders of South Side neighborhoods, documenting heritage features largely absent from arts discourse by nature of sitting in historically Black neighborhoods.

Tune in for a conversation on cultural life in the South Side of Chicago, how segregation is baked into our cities, and how the curative for systemic disinvestment is shifting value back onto your own block. They will also discuss Johnson’s response to Alec Soth’s photo essay commissioned by The New York Times, why this infringement is emblematic of a broader problem of racism in media journalism, and her new project, Belonging which highlights the experiences of teenagers growing up in a system of policing and containment designed to keep them from traversing their own city as full citizens, and who still persist in creating spaces of belonging and sustenance. This conversation will be moderated by Malvika Jolly, and will close with a reading from poet and music journalist I.S. Jones.

About this series

At the start of quarantine, the Brooklyn Rail asked how might we stay connected to each other in a time of self-isolation? Now we ask: How can we stay involved and engaged in upholding our civic responsibility to one another across communities? How can we deploy this community built through the New Social Environment—through hundreds of conversations and meals shared over the past six months—to mobilize daily action for grassroots movements, social justice and equity projects, and for the political good of our most marginalized communities across the nation? Tune in Thursdays at 1pm for Common Ground, a new lunchtime series featuring weekly conversations with social justice practitioners, changemakers, and activists on how we can mobilize our daily actions to radically reimagine our democracy.

Belonging: Power, Place, and (Im)Possibilities is on view virtually and in-person by appointment at Chicago Justice Gallery.