CHICAGO, IL.- The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago opened re:collection, a celebration of the MoCP’s vast archive of photographs, and an exploration of how we perceive images. A stream of images runs through the galleries, spanning the history of photography and offering a diverse array of approaches. Each photograph speaks to its neighboring photograph in terms of content, form or other, more subtle, connecting factors waiting to be discovered. At certain junctures, groups of images pool related ideas to address some of the most pressing social issues of our time. Each installation of images starts with a camera-less photograph, a nod to the origins of the medium and its fundamental ability to record light and shadow. The gesture is also meant to underscore the unreliability of photographic representation, which is always a translation of reality rather than a direct copy. The exhibition includes works by Evan Baden, Dawoud Bey, Lynne Cohen, Kelli Connell, Kei Ito, Deborah Luster, Danny Lyon, Rachel Papo, Christian Patterson, Guillaume Simoneau, Angela Strassheim, Penelope Umbrico, James Welling, and many others.

re:collection has been organized by Columbia College Chicago graduate students Kalin Haydon, Carissa Meier, and Shawn Rowe, together with Sophie Haslinger, Collection Research Fellow, Karen Irvine, Deputy Director and Chief Curator and Kristin Taylor, Manager of Collections.

The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), a resident organization of Columbia College Chicago, is the only museum in the Midwest with an exclusive commitment to the medium of photography. By presenting projects and exhibitions that embrace a wide range of contemporary aesthetics and technologies, the MoCP strives to communicate the value and significance of photographic images as expressions of human thought, imagination, and creativity.