Tonika Lewis Johnson is a photographer, artist, activist, and life-long resident of Chicago’s South Side Englewood neighborhood. She is co-founder of two community-based organizations: Englewood Arts Collective and Resident Association of Greater Englewood, that seek to reframe the narrative of South Side communities and mobilize people and resources for positive change. A trained photojournalist, Johnson uses her artistic practice to explore urban segregation and the nuance and richness of the black community, countering pervasive media depictions of Chicago’s violence and crime. In 2017, she was recognized by Chicago Magazine as a Chicagoan of the Year. Her Folded Map project, which visually investigates disparities among Chicago residents who live on opposite ends of streets that span the city’s racial and economic divides, has been transformed into a non-profit advocacy and policy-influencing tool. Johnson was named one of Field Foundation’s Leaders for a New Chicago and most recently, she was appointed as a member of the Cultural Advisory Council of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events by the Chicago City Council. In 2021 she was also awarded the Public Humanities Award by Illinois Humanities.
https://www.tonijphotography.com/
https://www.foldedmapproject.com/
Amanda Williams is a visual artist who trained as an architect. Williams’s creative practice employs color as a way to draw attention to the complexities of race, place and value in cities. The landscapes in which she operates are the visual residue of the invisible policies and forces that have misshapen most inner cities. Williams’s installations, paintings and works on paper seek to inspire new ways of looking at the familiar and in the process, raise questions about the state of urban space and citizenship in America. Amanda has exhibited widely, including the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, a solo exhibition at the MCA Chicago, and a public project with the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis. She is a 2018 USA Ford Fellow, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors grantee, an Efroymson Family Arts Fellow, a Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow and a member of the multidisciplinary Museum Design team for the Obama Presidential Center. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Art Institute of Chicago. Williams lives and works in Chicago.
https://awstudioart.com/
Tonika Lewis Johnson is a photographer, artist, activist, and life-long resident of Chicago’s South Side Englewood neighborhood. She is co-founder of two community-based organizations: Englewood Arts Collective and Resident Association of Greater Englewood, that seek to reframe the narrative of South Side communities and mobilize people and resources for positive change. A trained photojournalist, Johnson uses her artistic practice to explore urban segregation and the nuance and richness of the black community, countering pervasive media depictions of Chicago’s violence and crime. In 2017, she was recognized by Chicago Magazine as a Chicagoan of the Year. Her Folded Map project, which visually investigates disparities among Chicago residents who live on opposite ends of streets that span the city’s racial and economic divides, has been transformed into a non-profit advocacy and policy-influencing tool. Johnson was named one of Field Foundation’s Leaders for a New Chicago and most recently, she was appointed as a member of the Cultural Advisory Council of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events by the Chicago City Council. In 2021 she was also awarded the Public Humanities Award by Illinois Humanities.
https://www.tonijphotography.com/
https://www.foldedmapproject.com/
Amanda Williams is a visual artist who trained as an architect. Williams’s creative practice employs color as a way to draw attention to the complexities of race, place and value in cities. The landscapes in which she operates are the visual residue of the invisible policies and forces that have misshapen most inner cities. Williams’s installations, paintings and works on paper seek to inspire new ways of looking at the familiar and in the process, raise questions about the state of urban space and citizenship in America. Amanda has exhibited widely, including the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, a solo exhibition at the MCA Chicago, and a public project with the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis. She is a 2018 USA Ford Fellow, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors grantee, an Efroymson Family Arts Fellow, a Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow and a member of the multidisciplinary Museum Design team for the Obama Presidential Center. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Art Institute of Chicago. Williams lives and works in Chicago.
https://awstudioart.com/