Book Launch: Melissa Ann Pinney

Join us to celebrate the release of the SKYLARK Editions publication, In Their Own Light: Photographs from Chicago Public Schools by Melissa Ann Pinney. Melissa will be discussing her project and signing copies of the book, and poet T’Shareah Willingham will be joining us to read her poem that's in the book. Additional titles from the Filter Photo Book Store will be available for purchase. 

In Their Own Light: Photographs from Chicago Public Schools relates the story of Melissa Ann Pinney’s five-year artist residency in Chicago Public Schools, from a largely White elementary school to several mostly Black and Latinx high schools. When Pinney began this work in 2018, she had no idea of what was to come. Here, we see how the project evolved and shifted as Pinney found opportunities to deepen connections with students even through an ongoing global pandemic, escalating racial and gender inequities and continuing gun violence. Throughout, Pinney shows us an astonishing range of identities revealed amid friendships and school rituals.