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If you know me, I appreciate a thoughtfully curated exhibition and other public displays of physical contemporary media. Recently, my partner and I visited the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) located on the Columbia Chicago College campus. Their current exhibition showcases works by Regina Agu: Shore|Lines. I’m only attaching a few pictures of it as taking photos on a phone camera doesn’t do the exhibition justice, and I decided to write this on a whim.
When you enter, you’ll see giant printed shorelines on vinyl called Edge, Bank, Shore. Right next to the door, you’ll find a stack of “field guide” catalogs that describe and elaborate on the exhibition. These texts can be read during or after experiencing it. I chose the latter as I was immersed in the labels created for each work. It’s a great piece of documentation and memorabilia for the experience. The room next to it houses another similar installation called Sea Change which is 80 feet in length to create a life-sized panorama wrapped around the walls as if the viewer is there in front of the shore. This installation defies aspects of the white cube format most museums have in which walls (or the dressing of them) themselves can be a medium. Upstairs visitors can find smaller-medium-scale photographs of other geographies from southern areas as well as Chicago’s views of the Great Lakes.
To elaborate on the installations, the labels seek deeper into the socio-geographical history of the landmarks. Regina Agu discusses the segregational history that Chicago once had that involved going to visit lakeshores. She also focuses on issues of climate change and ghost towns in Texas with Drape Panorama.
It left me wondering, how can communities be further reinforced on these landmarks and naturally made spaces? How does one redefine an ecosystem where individuals can congregate and coexist? How can we look back at violent conflictive history and recreate these spaces to ones of celebration of fruitful culture?
Regina Agu inspires one to connect with the spaces already available to us. To use them as congregational sites where individuals feel invited and welcomed. The destruction of exclusivity and the assembly of cultural connectivity.
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