Focal Point
20 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 12 ratingsFocal Point is a podcast exploring the artists, themes, and processes that define—and sometimes disrupt—the world of contemporary photography. Each episode engages two people in conversation around a photograph of their choice from the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s permanent collection. Join us as we explore contemporary photography in Chicago and beyond, through topics like the constructed image, portraiture and the human subject, the photographic archive, and more.
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Episodes
Episode 19: Susan Meiselas and Wendy Ewald
April 24, 2024 18:21 - 44 minutes - 102 MBIn 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...
Episode 18: Yuge Zhou and Jorian Charlton
November 30, 2023 11:00 - 39 minutes - 90.9 MBThis 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...
Episode 17: Bob Thall and Cecil McDonald Jr.
October 30, 2023 10:00 - 53 minutes - 122 MBIn 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...
Episode 16: Alicia Bruce and Tom Merilion
September 26, 2023 17:00 - 40 minutes - 93.2 MBThis 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.
Episode 15: Shannon Bool and Tarrah Krajnak
May 31, 2023 11:00 - 52 minutes - 121 MBIn 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.
Episode 14: Abelardo Morell
November 08, 2022 11:00 - 39 minutes - 35.9 MBIn this episode, Abelardo Morell 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
Episode 13: Xyza Cruz Bacani and Jason Reblando
August 18, 2022 16:53 - 36 minutes - 49.5 MBThis 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 Fo...
Episode 12: John H. White and Johny Pitts
March 25, 2022 12:00 - 40 minutes - 55.1 MBIn 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.
Episode 11: Stephen Tourlentes and Steph Foster
December 04, 2021 03:04 - 46 minutes - 86 MBSteph 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.
Episode 10: Cog•nate Collective and Işıl Eğrikavuk
July 22, 2021 19:04 - 42 minutes - 77.2 MBIn 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 ...
Episode 9: Laia Abril and Elinor Carucci
April 02, 2021 00:43 - 43 minutes - 69.7 MBMoCP 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.
EPISODE 8: JESS T. DUGAN AND RAFAEL SOLDI
December 22, 2020 15:03 - 41 minutes - 76.4 MBIn 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, thi...
Episode 8: Jess T. Dugan and Rafael Solid
December 22, 2020 15:03 - 41 minutes - 76.4 MBIn 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, thi...
Episode 7: Kenneth Josephson and Marilyn Zimmerwoman
June 20, 2020 14:33 - 35 minutes - 49.2 MBIn 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.
Episode 6: Kelli Connell and Kiba Jacobson
April 03, 2020 16:55 - 47.6 MBIn 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, an...
Episode 5: Joanne Leonard and Melissa Ann Pinney
February 03, 2020 16:56 - 47.4 MBIn 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.
Episode 4: Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa and Leslie Wilson
December 06, 2019 16:23 - 37 minutes - 68.7 MBStanley Wolukau-Wanambwa and Leslie Wilson, in conversation with MoCP’s Curatorial Assistant, Lindley Warren Mickunas, discuss their thoughts on photographers’ relationships to the place and distinctions between color and black and white photography.
Episode 3: Dawoud Bey and Teju Cole
August 07, 2019 17:00 - 57 minutes - 78.6 MBIn 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.
Episode 2: Lisa Lindvay and Natalie Krick
July 02, 2019 16:05 - 34 minutes - 46.7 MBIn 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.
Episode 1: David Schalliol and Carlos Javier Ortiz
May 07, 2019 17:44 - 35 minutes - 47.8 MBIn this episode, photographers and activists David Schalliol and Carlos Javier Ortiz join the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago’s Curator of Academic Programs and Collections, Kristin Taylor, to discuss activism in documentary photography.