Announcing the Chicagoland Seen’s laureates

Villa Albertine, in collaboration with FACE Foundation, is pleased to announce a new grant commission program in support of photographers and other lens-based artists pursuing projects that explore unique aspects of Chicagoland.

The ambition of this commission is to create a group of sensitive and revealing perspectives on the complex and continually evolving region filtered through an artist’s lens.

Selected works by the grantees will be included in a series of installations throughout Chicago as part of a cross-cultural dialogue with works from Regards du Grand Paris, a French photographic commission administered annually since 2016 by Ateliers Médicis in partnership with the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP).

The Laureates

Marzena Abrahamik
Return

Return is a visual research project anchored in Chicago’s near west side that explores the ways in which the Polish diasporic identity continues to re-imagine itself and negotiates the racial landscape of the United States.

Jonathan Michaël Castillo
Immigrant Owned

This project seeks to both honor and highlight the contributions of the many Chicago businesses and the histories of the people that are integral to their operation and establishment. Through portraiture and photographs of interior spaces, my work renders an essential and often overlooked part of the American economy.

zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o’neal
In The Open, You Are Here

I desire to embark on an experimental and speculative landscape project incorporating photographic and moving images of Lake Michigan, Chicago Park District spaces, and greenspaces on the South Side of Chicago extending to additional Chicagoland area suburbs. My intention is that these images might serve as a reminder that access to spaces of retreat, beauty, greenery, and nature – within and outside of the city limits – is a human right, but also has the possibility to trigger a sense of peace, wonder, joy, and respite.

The Jury

Pascal Beausse
Curator, Responsible for the photography collection of the Centre national des arts plastiques (France).

Natasha Egan
Executive Director of the MoCP, Chicago

Carl Fuldner
Independent Curator

Clément Postec
Visual arts advisor and prospective at the Ateliers Médicis, France

Teresa Silva
Independant Curator, previously Executive and Artistic Director at Chicago Artists Coalition

Leslie Wilson
Associate Director, Academic Engagement and Research at the Art Institute, Chicago