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MAS Context Spring Talks 2016

Photography and Place

March 24, 2016 at 6PM

Panel discussion with Richard Cahan, Karen Irvine, and David Schalliol about photography and place. The event took place at Perkins+Will in their new office at The Wrigley Building.

Contributors

While explored from different disciplines and points of view, photography and place are aspects closely associated with the work of all three presenters. In each case, photography is used for different goals, from preservation of the built environment to documenting a vanishing community or the relationship between architecture and symbolism.

Author Richard Cahan’s latest book, Richard Nickel Dangerous Years: What He Saw and What He Wrote shares the photographs and writings left behind by the late photographer considered the father of Chicago’s historic preservation movement.

Curator Karen Irvine’s latest exhibition Grace of Intention looks at the links between architecture and photography through the lens of the idea of the monument, and included works by international artists such as Basim Magdy, Iman Issa, and Jan Kempenaers. During the event, Karen also discusses her most recent essay for artists Joachim Brohm and Valentina Seidel on the newly-opened Saint Trinitatis Church in Leipzig designed by the architects Schulz und Schulz.

Sociologist and photographer David Schalliol’s work explores the relationship between urban communities and the built environment, especially on the South Side of Chicago and Northwest Indiana. In addition to his photographic work, David is filming The Area, a feature-length documentary about Chicago’s Englewood community being displaced by the Norfolk Southern’s 47th Street Terminal expansion.

Video shot and edited by Matthew Goetz of Lucid Creative Agency.

Thanks to graphic designer Larry Mayorga for the teaser film and Perkins+Will for the photography.

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Richard Cahan, Photography and Place, Chicago, 2016. © Perkins+Will.

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Photography and Place, Chicago, 2016. © Perkins+Will.

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Karen Irvine, Photography and Place, Chicago, 2016. © Perkins+Will.

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Photography and Place, Chicago, 2016. © Perkins+Will.

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David Schalliol, Photography and Place, Chicago, 2016. © Perkins+Will.

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Photography and Place, Chicago, 2016. © Perkins+Will.

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Photography and Place, Chicago, 2016. © Perkins+Will.

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Photography and Place, Chicago, 2016. © Perkins+Will.

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Photography and Place, Chicago, 2016. © Perkins+Will.

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Photography and Place, Chicago, 2016. © Perkins+Will.

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Photography and Place, Chicago, 2016. © Perkins+Will.

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Photography and Place, Chicago, 2016. © Perkins+Will.

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Contributor Bios

Contributor

Bio

Contact

Richard Cahan

Richard Cahan is an author and co-owner of the Chicago-based publishing company CityFiles Press. He has published several critically acclaimed books, including Edgar Miller and the Handmade Home, Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows, and most recently Richard Nickel Dangerous Years: What He Saw and What He Wrote. Richard was the director of CITY 2000 and worked as the picture editor at the Chicago Sun-Times.

Karen Irvine

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.

David Schalliol

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.