Talking Back: Chicago Youth Respond

About the Exhibition

This 12th annual exhibition features
works made by teens who participate in Picture Me, an intensive afterschool
photography program sponsored
by the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago at three
Chicago high schools: Curie Metropolitan High School,
Juarez Community Academy, and Nicolas Senn High School. Co-taught by teams of
working artists, this program, which serves approximately 90 students each year,
cultivates teens as independent artists who gain a strong technical foundation
as they work toward developing their own artistic vision and style through
independent projects. Examining and discussing the work of professional artists
is integral to the program. The curriculum is further enhanced by field trips
to the MoCP and other cultural venues and contact with visiting artists.
Picture Me students and alumni have won numerous awards, scholarships, and
internships for their work and graduates of the program have gone on to study
art at institutions including Columbia College Chicago, the Art Institute of
Chicago, and the University of Illinois Chicago and Urbana-Champagne.

Education programs at the MoCP are  generously
supported by Columbia College Chicago, the Terra Foundation for American Art,
After School Matters, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.