Focal Point

On May 29, 2025, MoCP presented a series of conversations exploring authorship, representation, and the dissemination of information as they relate to the past, present, and future of photography. This special edition of Focal Point Extras captures a discussion between photographer Susan Meiselas and writer, critic, and photographer Teju Cole on the topic “What Does It Mean to Look at These Photographs?” The two consider three bodies of work by Meiselas spanning several decades to examine the politics of looking at photographs—especially when those images depict stories of human struggle, suffering, and conflict.

Reshaping the Authorial Position This special edition of Focal Point Extras captures a live conversation between artists Eric Gottesman and Wendy Ewald on the topic of “Reshaping the Authorial Position.” The two explored the ways artists place collaboration with the photographed person at the forefront of their process, and how they convey their partnership using text, staging techniques, or experimental exhibition platforms.

In this episode, MoCP Executive Director, Natasha Egan, sits down with artist Christina Fernandez. The two discuss Christina’s decades-long career in pushing the boundaries of photography, blending her personal history as a Mexican American woman with broader cultural narratives about migration, labor, and gender. Natasha and Christina additionally discuss a piece in the MoCP permanent collection by Sidian Liu. Christina Fernandez has been featured in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Aart, the Getty, and MoMA New York, just to name a few. Ferndandez is a 2021 Latinx Artist Fellowship honoree. She is also an influential educator, currently serving as an associate professor at Cerritos College in Norwalk, California where she has been on faculty since 2001. Fernandez’s exhibition Multiple Exposures, is on view at the DePaul Art Museum in Chicago from March 20 - August 3, 2025, and it the first major museum survey of her work and has traveled to institutions across the county for the last three years.

This episode features Jay Wolke and Eli Giclas in conversation with MoCP Curator of Academic Programs and Collections, Kristin Taylor. Jay and Eli discuss their photographic approaches to depict the built environment as a reflection of patterns of human consumption and an imbalanced relationship with nature. They also discuss their appreciation of works by Stan Douglas and Dawn Kim in the MoCP permanent collection.

This 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 (summer) and Love Letters (winter) 2021. Together, they discuss their respective inspirations and artistic practices, as well as works by Carrie Mae Weems and Dylan Vitone in the MoCP collection. View Charlton's work – https://joriancharlton.com/ and Zhou’s work – https://yugezhou.com/.

This 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.

In 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.

In 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.

In 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 the spread of Covid-19, this episode was recorded over Zoom and not in the WCRX studios.

In 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, this episode was recorded live in front of an audience over Zoom and not in the WCRX studios.

Kristin Taylor sits down to have a conversation with Chicago photographer Kelli Connell and her long-term model, Kiba Jacobson.

Stanley 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.

In 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.