Context 2022

Filter Photo is pleased to present Context 2022, our annual survey exhibition of contemporary photography which draws artists from Chicago, the broader Midwest, and across the US. This edition was juried by Frances Jakubek, Director of Bruce Silverstein Gallery.

Juror's Statement

We are constantly navigating the division between psychological and physical acceptance. How do we react to trauma and exclusion, and how does our imagination transform or protect us from these things? How does our place on this Earth signal to our faith in something unknown? Why should we even trust our own thoughts?

With more questions than answers, the photographs in this exhibition meet in a place of belief. We may think about heaven and hell, but fail to consider the land we actively stand upon and claim as our own. The defense of this perceived ownership that we feel is a privilege and consistently abused. Our accountability to the natural world is tested by what we deem necessary in our material existence.

Safety may be felt in the arms of another or never in a lifetime. Grief is disguised as devotion, power camouflaged as progress, and class systems cloaked by history. The fear of exposing who we are, what we long for, and what we’re afraid of, keeps humans at a distance when we share many of these emotions that we consider secrets.

Our relationship to the cosmos seems naive at times of insurrection and we witness narratives shift with different generations of storytellers. What happens when we leave out the awful parts; does trying to protect the young ones serve them as history risks repeating? What happens if the person who knows the truth isn’t here to share it, and who will challenge a fragmented or fabricated memory?

Thank you to all the artists who submitted to this call and who are forging stronger relationships in their practice as seen between mind and body, fear and forgiveness, and acknowledging the violence of staying silent.

Featured Artists

Arda Asena

Kat Bawden

Trent Bozeman, Honorable Mention

Caleb Cole

Cathy Cone

Eli Craven

Austin Cullen

Andrés Mario de Varona

Yorgos Efthymiadis

Alison Erazmus

Atefeh Farajolahzadeh

Jon Feinstein

Marina Font

Judyta Grudzien

Kylee Isom

Brad Jones

Elise Kirk

T.J. Kirkpatrick

Kevin E Lyle

Sijia Ma

Anne Mortensen

Ania Moussawel

Greer Muldowney

Amir Saadiq

Tara Sellios

Crystal Tursich

Sandra Ullmann

Anne Vetter

Michael Young

Rana Young, Juror's Choice

About the Juror

Frances Jakubek is an image maker, independent curator and advocate for photography. She is the Director of Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City, co-founder of A Yellow Rose Project, and past Associate Curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts.

Recent curatorial appointments include Open Walls for the British Journal of Photography & Les Rencontres d’Arles, The RefridgeCurator, Photo District News’s The Curator Awards and Save Art Space. She has been a guest writer for Don’t Take Pictures, Diffusion Magazine and for artist publications including Serrah Russell’s recent monograph tears, tears. 

Jakubek has been a panelist for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Photography fellowships, speaker for SPE National, Washington & Lee University, and the School of Visual Arts’ Masters of Photography i3 Lecture Series. Personal works have been exhibited at The Southern Contemporary Art Gallery in Charleston, SC; Filter Space, Chicago; Camera Commons in Dover, NH; and The Hess Gallery at Pine Manor College, MA.

On View: April 1st - 30th, 2022

Location: Filter Space | 1821 W Hubbard St, Suite 207

This exhibition was partially sponsored by The Illinois Arts Council Agency.