Panel Discussion: the Changing Chicago Project
Museum of Contemporary PhotographyAbout The Event
Moderated by Peter Bacon Hales Peter Bacon Hales leads a discussion contextualizing the Changing Chicago project, an archive of images held by the MoCP. For this 1987 project, 33 photographers documented life through Chicago’s diverse urban and suburban neighborhoods. Sponsored by the Focus/Infinity Fund, led by museum founding board member Jack Jaffe (1928-2010), the project was organized with the support of the MoCP and four other Chicago institutions who mounted concurrent exhibitions of this work in 1989. Jaffe donated this archive to the MoCP and published a book of the work. Jan Tichy and select Changing Chicago photographers will also participate in this conversation. Hales has written extensively on American spaces and landscapes, the history of photography and contemporary art. He is also a photographer who participated in the Changing Chicago project, documenting the rituals, events, and public displays of status among Chicago’s wealthy elite. Hales holds a BA in English and American Literature from Haverford College, and an MA and Ph.D. in American Civilization from the University of Texas at Austin and is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Art History at the University of Illinois Chicago.