In the Schools

A Commitment to the Community

Photo: Joel Wanek

The Museum of Contemporary Photography aims to promote a greater understanding and appreciation of the artistic, cultural and political implication of the photographic image in our world today. To better extend this mission into the urban community that we serve, the MoCP hosts intensive after school photography programs in three Chicago high schools that share the vast educational resources of the museum and Columbia College with Chicago teens.

Picture Me

Teens participating in the museum’s Picture Me program master digital and analogue photography techniques that enable them to examine their lives and communities, express themselves creatively and gain real skills that help them further their career and education goals. Led by teaching teams drawn from Columbia College’s photography department, students also take field trips to the MoCP, meet with professional artists working in the field and exhibit their work in the community.

Group project by Juarez Community School Picture Me program students.

Graduates of the Picture Me program have gone on to study art at institutions including Columbia College Chicago; the Art Institute of Chicago; University of Illinois; Pratt College of Art, New York; and Richmond University, London UK among others.

Chicago Public School Teachers participate in an MoCP workshop on integrating photography into their academic curriculum.

Photo: Joel Wanek

Talkin’ Back: Chicago Youth Respond

Artwork by Picture Me student artist Jonas Wheeler, Uplift Community School.

This annual exhibition, now in its sixth year, features works created by over 200 Chicago youth who combine words and images to express their creative voices in programs led by photographers and writers sponsored by the Museum of Contemporary Photography and Project AIM at the Center for Community Arts Partnerships, Columbia College Chicago. Each year, participating students express the pride they feel in seeing their work professionally hung on the walls of a museum.

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Pulaski Elementary students view their work in the museum’s Talkin’ Back: Chicago Youth Respond exhibition.

Curie High School Picture Me Program students stand in front pf their work on view in the MoCP’s Talkin’ Back youth exhibition.