Jason Reblando

(b. 1973, resides Chicago, IL)

Baseball, archival inkjet print, 2006

Brenda’s Family, Archival inkjet print, 2006

Painted Bench, Archival inkjet print, 2006

Public housing is often associated with confinement, restriction, and discipline that the space imposes on its residents…[I] have chosen to create narrative portraits emphasizing the expansiveness of the public housing landscape and the complexity of its community.
— Jason Reblando

The Chicago Housing Authority’s “Plan for Transformation,” in which approximately 25,000 public housing units are rehabilitated in an effort to improve the appearance of neighborhoods and the overall quality of living, is the subject and inspiration for Jason Reblando’s series Seventeen Stories of Public Housing. Reblando examines the very idyllic notion that tearing down or retouching old homes for a shinier exterior will inherently “transform” the residents into better citizens. His portraits of select public housing residents under the transformation plan attempt to convey the complexities involved in such a project on the community as well as how the project affects the individuals living within these major development projects.

Jason Reblando has a BA in sociology from Boston College and is pursuing his MFA in photography at Columbia College Chicago. He has taught photography in the After School Matters educational outreach program and has worked on various Chicago Public Radio programs including Eight Forty-Eight and Chicago Matters. His photographs have been published in The Chicago Reporter, Catalyst-Chicago, The Journal of Ordinary Thought, Crain’s Chicago Business, Northwestern University Magazine, and The New England Journal of Medicine. He has exhibited his photographs at the Union League Club of Chicago, the Minnesota Center for Photography, The Peace Museum (audio and photo exhibit), the Chicago Community Trust Gallery, and the Association for Visual Artists Gallery in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

http://jasonreblando.com
http://www.thecha.org/transformplan/plan_summary.html