Connecting two decades of work, Tonika Lewis Johnson’s first museum solo exhibition foregrounds photography as the foundation of her practice in community organizing and activism including key projects such as Everyday Englewood (2016), Folded Map (2018), Inequity for Sale (2021), UnBlocked Englewood (2024–ongoing), and an exhibition specific commissioned sculpture and model of speculative architecture, What Could Have Been (2027), produced in collaboration with BORDERLESS Studio. A Chicago native and lifelong resident of the south side Englewood neighborhood, Johnson draws on personal experience to examine a history of city planning policies and visualize the effects on the housing landscape and lived experiences of its residents. Curated by MoCP curator of exhibitions and public engagement Kristin Taylor, the exhibition traces Johnson’s evolving approach and her sustained commitment to research, dialogue, and visualizing histories of segregation, resistance, and repair.

Tonika Lewis Johnson received a bachelor’s in arts from Columbia College Chicago and an MBA from National Lewis University. She is chief executive officer of the Folded Map Project nonprofit and cofounder of Englewood Arts Collective. Her work has been exhibited at Loyola University Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; the National Public Housing Museum (Chicago); the Chicago Cultural Center; and the Gordon Parks Foundation Gallery (Pleasantville, NY), among other venues. Johnson is a 2025 MacArthur Fellow.

Kristin Taylor, curator of exhibitions and public engagement at MoCP, creates exhibitions and activates the collection through exhibitions and public programs. She holds a BFA in painting from the Kansas City Art Institute (2003) and an MA in visual arts management from Columbia College Chicago (2007). In spring 2025, she cocurated Collaboration: A Potential History of Photography in Dialogue with the MoCP Collection alongside guest curators Wendy Ewald, Susan Meiselas, and Laura Wexler. This exhibition engages collaborative processes in photography, expanding on the Thames & Hudson publication of the same name. Taylor’s earlier exhibitions include Beyond the Frame (2022), Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency (2021), and Chicago Stories (2019). She also hosts MoCP’s Focal Point podcast, where she has interviewed artists inlcuding Dawoud Bey, Teju Cole, Meghann Riepenhoff, Penelope Umbrico, Kenneth Josephson. She teaches graduate level courses at Columbia College Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Founded in 1976, the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago (MoCP) is a premier college art museum dedicated to photography. As an accredited art museum with the American Alliance of Museums, MoCP is a renowned photography specific institution whose mission is to generate ideas and provoke dialogue through groundbreaking exhibitions, innovative programs, and experiential events to cultivate a deeper understanding of the artistic, cultural, and political roles of photography in our world today.