David Schalliol: Isolated Building Studies

David Schalliol is an associate professor of sociology at St. Olaf College who is interested in the relationship between community, social structure, and place. He exhibits widely, including in the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Centre Régional de la Photographie Hauts-de-France, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. His work has been supported by institutions including the Graham Foundation and the European Union and featured in publications including MAS Context, The New York Times, and Social Science Research. David is the author of Isolated Building Studies (UTAKATADO) and co-author, with Michael Carriere, of The City Creative (The University of Chicago Press). He additionally contributes to such films as Almost There and Highrise: Out My Window, which won an International Digital Emmy for Non-Fiction. His directorial debut, The Area, premiered at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in 2018.

Karen Irvine is Curator and Associate Director of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago. She has organized over forty exhibitions of contemporary photography at the MoCP and other institutions and written essays for numerous artist monographs and magazines. Irvine is a part-time instructor of photography at Columbia College Chicago. She received an MFA in photography from FAMU, Prague, Czech Republic, and an MA in art history from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Iker Gil is a founding partner at MAS Studio, editor in chief of the nonprofit MAS Context, and executive director of the SOM Foundation. Iker has edited or coedited several books including Radical Logic: On the Work of Ensamble Studio and Shanghai Transforming. He has curated multiple exhibitions including Nocturnal Landscapes, Poured Architecture: Sergio Prego on Miguel Fisac, and BOLD: Alternative Scenarios for Chicago, part of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial. He was Associate Curator of the US Pavilion for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale and cocurator of Exhibit Columbus 2020–2021. He was the 2024 Morgenstern Visiting Chairs at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and the Escola da Cidade (São Paulo).