In this episode, MoCP Executive Director, Natasha Egan, sits down with artist Christina Fernandez. The two discuss Christina’s decades-long career in pushing the boundaries of photography, blending her personal history as a Mexican American woman with broader cultural narratives about migration, labor, and gender. Natasha and Christina additionally discuss a piece in the MoCP permanent collection by Sidian Liu. Christina Fernandez has been featured in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of Art, th...
May 14, 2025•Season 1Ep. 22
In this episode, artists Meghann Riepenhoff and Penelope Umbrico chat with MoCP curator, Kristin Taylor. The two artists discuss their backgrounds and shared interests in experimenting and pushing the indexical qualities of photography, as well as the work of Alison Rossiter and Joanne Leonard. Meghann Riepenhoff is most well-known for her largescale cyanotype prints that she creates by collaborating with ocean waves, rain, ice, snow, and coastal shores. She places sheets of light-sensitized pap...
Oct 30, 2024•48 min•Season 1Ep. 21
This episode features Jay Wolke and Eli Giclas in conversation with MoCP Curator of Academic Programs and Collections, Kristin Taylor. Jay and Eli discuss their photographic approaches to depict the built environment as a reflection of patterns of human consumption and an imbalanced relationship with nature. They also discuss their appreciation of works by Stan Douglas and Dawn Kim in the MoCP permanent collection. Jay Wolke is an artist and educator based in Chicago, who is known for his decade...
Jul 10, 2024•52 min•Season 1Ep. 20
In this episode, MoCP Curator of Academic Programs and Collections, Kristin Taylor, chats with Susan Meiselas and Wendy Ewald about their new publication titled Collaboration: A Potential History of Photography. Made with Ariella Aïsha Azoulay , Leigh Raiford, and Laura Wexler, the book is a deep dive into current and historical photographic projects about human stories. It spotlights how the person depicted is often left out of the history as a co-maker of the images and asks us to imagine a wa...
Apr 24, 2024•45 min•Season 1Ep. 19
This episode of Focal Point features two exhibiting artists from LOVE: Still Not the Lesser (on view August 17 - December 23, 2023) in conversation with Asha Iman Veal, MoCP Associate Curator. Jorian Charlton (b. 1989 Canada) is an artist who focuses on her generation of peers within the Caribbean diaspora—authoring their canon of Black Canadian representation. Yuge Zhou 周雨歌 (b. 1985 China) applies her perspective of a Chinese diaspora immigration experience for the video series Love Letters (su...
Nov 30, 2023•40 min•Season 1Ep. 18
In this episode, MoCP Executive Director Natasha Egan leads a discussion with Chicago-based artists and educators Bob Thall and Cecil McDonald, Jr. Thall was an educator at Columbia College Chicago from 1978-2017, and both Egan and McDonald were once students in his classroom. Thall and McDonald discuss their mutually influential relationship to art-making and to teaching, and the legacies of photographic education in Chicago. They also discuss their thoughts on work by Kathryn Harrison and Jose...
Oct 30, 2023•53 min•Season 1Ep. 17
This episode of Focal Point features two exhibiting artists from LOVE: Still Not the Lesser (on view August 17 - December 23, 2023) in conversation with Asha Iman Veal, MoCP Associate Curator. Tom Merilion (England, b. 1967) and Alicia Bruce (Scotland, b. 1979) discuss their respective inspirations and artistic practices, as well as works by Joel Sternfeld, and David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson in the MoCP collection....
Sep 26, 2023•41 min•Season 1Ep. 16
In this episode, Shannon Bool (Berlin) and Tarrah Krajnak (Eugene, OR and Los Angeles, CA) are in conversation with Kristin Taylor, MoCP’s Curator of Academic Programs and Collections. The artists discuss topics including the role of modernism, the male gaze, and performance in their practice, as well as the work of Jan Groover and Harry Callahan ....
May 31, 2023•53 min•Season 1Ep. 15
In this episode, Abelardo Morel l is in conversation with MoCP chief curator and deputy director, Karen Irvine. The two discuss Abe’s many decades experimenting with photography and the camera obscura, painting, parenthood, and Berenice Abbott’s Science Pictures, among other topics. Instagram: @abelardomorell Twitter: @abelardomorell...
Nov 08, 2022•39 min•Season 1Ep. 14
This episode features a special live edition of Focal Point hosted by Asha Iman Veal, Associate Curator at the MoCP. She meets with author and photographer Xyza Cruz Bacani and photographer and artist Jason Reblando as a part of the PHotoESPAÑA festival. They share photos that impacted each other from the MoCP collection and discuss the Filipino diaspora, social injustice, and how photography can influence society. To view the photos discussed, click here and watch the full recording of Focal Po...
Aug 18, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 13
In this episode, Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist John H. White (Chicago) is in conversation with Ampersand/Photoworks Fellowship winner and Afropean author Johny Pitts (London). The two discuss love of community as a foundation for image making, as well as works in the MoCP’s collection by Gordon Parks and André Kertész. Works Discussed Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006), Drinking Fountains, Mobile, Alabama, 1956 André Kertész (Hungarian, 1894-1985), Martinique , 1972...
Mar 25, 2022•40 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Steph Foster and Steven Tourlentes discuss their projects in photography and film that shed light on some of the many stories and systems surrounding mass incarceration in the United States that are largely concealed from public view. Additionally, Steph and Steven discuss works in the MoCP’s permanent collection by Kris Graves and Zora J Murff.
Dec 04, 2021•47 min•Season 1Ep. 11
In this episode, MoCP Curatorial Fellow, Asha Iman Veal, is in conversation with artist Işıl Eğrikavuk and artist duo Cognate Collective (Amy Sanchez-Arteaga and Misael Diaz). Together they discuss their thoughts on nationality, identity, creative influences and their works included the MoCP exhibition, Beautiful Diaspora: You Are Not The Lesser Part. The artists also share their thoughts on other works in the museum’s collection by Laia Abril, Doretha Lange and David Taylor. To help stop the sp...
Jul 22, 2021•42 min•Season 1Ep. 10
MoCP Curator, Kristin Taylor, is in conversation with artists Laia Abril and Elinor Carucci. They discuss depictions of the female body and their works in the MoCP exhibition, Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency.
Apr 02, 2021•43 min•Season 1Ep. 9
In this episode, MoCP Chief Curator and Deputy Director, Karen Irvine, sits down with artists Jess T. Dugan and Rafael Soldi of the Strange Fire Collective to discuss the founding of Strange Fire and its mission to showcase works made by women, people of color, and queer and trans artists. Dugan and Soldi also speak about their own practice as working artists, and their thoughts on the work of Harry Callahan and Diane Arbus in the museum’s collection. To help stop the spread of Covid-19, this ep...
Dec 22, 2020•42 min•Season 1Ep. 8
In this episode, renowned photographers Kenneth Josephson and Marilyn Zimmerwoman are in conversation with Museum of Contemporary Photography’s curator of academic programs and collections, Kristin Taylor. The artists discuss several works made over Josephson’s decades-long career as well as topics ranging from composition and perspective to the male gaze and Marilyn Monroe. Chicago Josephson, Ken 1964 Matthew Josephson, Ken 1965 Chicago Josephson, Ken 1973 Chicago Josephson, Ken 2009 MZ Josephs...
Jun 20, 2020•36 min•Season 1Ep. 7
In this episode, Chicago-based photographer Kelli Connell is in conversation with her long-term model and muse, Kiba Jacobson, along with Museum of Contemporary Photography’s curator of academic programs and collections, Kristin Taylor. Connell and Jacobson discuss topics of portraiture, relationships, and the performance of gender and identity within Connell’s series, Double Life (2002-ongoing). Additionally, they discuss works in the MoCP’s collection by Peter Cochrane, Zackary Drucker, and Rh...
Apr 03, 2020•Season 1Ep. 6
In this episode, mixed media artist Joanne Leonard and photographer Melissa Pinney are in conversation with MoCP’s curator of academic programs and collections, Kristin Taylor. Leonard and Pinney discuss works in the MoCP’s permanent collection by Elinor Carucci and Ruth Thorne-Thomsen as well as their thoughts on photographing the lives of their daughters, feminism, and how they navigate depicting both personal and political subjects.
Feb 03, 2020•Season 1Ep. 5
In this episode, photographer and writer Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa joins scholar and curator Leslie Wilson in conversation with MoCP’s Curatorial Assistant, Lindley Warren Mickunas. Wolukau-Wanambwa and Wilson discuss works in the MoCP’s permanent collection by Rosalind Fox Solomon and LaToya Ruby Frazier as well as their thoughts on photographers’ relationships to the places they photograph, and distinctions between color and black and white photography. Rosalind Solomon, Pillarama, Indonesia, 1...
Dec 06, 2019•38 min•Season 1Ep. 4
In this special extended episode, photographer Dawoud Bey and writer, critic, and photographer Teju Cole are in conversation with MoCP’s curator of academic programs and collections, Kristin Taylor. Bey and Cole discuss works in the MoCP’s permanent collection by Roy DeCarava and Melissa Ann Pinney as well as their thoughts on seeing, understanding, and creating images in the world today. Works discussed in the podcast: Roy DeCarava, Man in Window, 1978 Melissa Ann Pinney, Selan’s Beauty School,...
Aug 07, 2019•57 min•Season 1Ep. 3
In this episode, photographers Natalie Krick and Lisa Lindvay join Karen Irvine, MoCP's chief curator and deputy director, to discuss works by Andy Warhol and Kathe Kowalski in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago. In the process, the two artists also discuss their own work and themes of photographing family, intimacy, and vulnerability. Works discussed in the podcast: Kathe Kowalski (American, 1945-2006) I Wake, from the "Get me some pil...
Jul 02, 2019•34 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Carlos Javier Ortiz (left) and David Schalliol (right) In this episode, photographers and activists David Schalliol and Carlos Javier Ortiz join Kristin Taylor, MoCP's curator of academic programs and collections, to discuss activism in documentary photography. Their work focuses on the demolition of homes and communities and the tragedies that proceed this destruction on the south side of Chicago. David and Carlos explain ethical obligations to communities and landscape as well as what it means...
May 07, 2019•35 min•Season 1Ep. 1
