Tonika Johnson's project was called the Folded Map Project. The idea behind Johnson's project was to take pictures of the people that lived at the North and South addresses of Chicago. She would find the people with the same address with the only difference being the cardinal direction and would take a picture of them together as well as take a picture of the two houses and put them side by side. This project was in 2018 between the months of July to October. https://www.foldedmapproject.com/ The change that the project created was showing others what life was like on the other side of town. These people wanted to get to know more about each other and connections were formed between people that may have never met or talked to each other in different circumstances.
I don't believe any controversy has occurred over their work but there has been some good from it. A lot of attention was brought to the disparities in urban living and showed people how segregated the city was. Critics seem to take very well to the project and love the idea of what it is doing for people, by bringing awareness to the struggles that some face.
Something that I learned that I was not expecting to learn was about how the growing population in Chicago made it harder for people of color to access resources. This sounds like something that would be self-explanatory, but it is something that I have never thought about before until reading about her project.
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| Tonika Johnson, Map Project, July-October 2018, https://www.foldedmapproject.com/ |
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| Tonika Johnson, Map Project, July-October 2018, https://www.foldedmapproject.com/ |
Folded Map Project, www.foldedmapproject.com/.
Steinkopf-Frank, Hannah. “The 'Folded Map' Project Bridges the Distance Between Chicago's Neighborhoods.” Atlas Obscura, Atlas Obscura, 23 Jan. 2019, www.atlasobscura.com/articles/chicago-folded-map-project.
This is a really interesting project. I love her ideas and intentions going into the making these photographs. I also didn't know about the growing populations in Chicago and the struggles people of color have. Great blog post!
ReplyDelete<3 Bridget Utley
ReplyDeleteI am glad you chose this artist, and you write well about her work. But what about the controversy with Alec Soth? What are your thoughts on this? I would love for you to explain that situation and then give your perspective on it.
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