Tone
Stockenström: Collaborative Projects
November 16, 2004–February 27, 2005
Kreps and Lyndhurst Galleries
Just Because I Live in
America
Begun in 1999, Just Because I Live in America is an intimate
journal of the members of the Casteneda-Torres family: Otilia and
her three children, Lissette, Diana, and German. Incorporating their
writings and their own photography with that of Stockenström,
this collaborative series of vignettes illuminates the immigrants'
experiences of living between two cultures, in limbo between the
past and the present. The exhibit documents one Mexican American
family's journey of immigration, divorce, and bicultural identity.
The Picolino Circus Project
For almost five years, Stockenström has been teaching photography
to, and working collaboratively with, twelve at-risk teenagers at
the Picolino Circus in Salvador, Brazil. In August 2004 she took
eight teens from the Logan Square Neighborhood Association in Chicago,
who had been working with her on a documentary photography project,
to meet their Brazilian counterparts. The two groups have been corresponding
for four years. The exhibit features the results of this unique
exchange.
Workshop with Tone Stockenström:
Tuesday, November 16, 6–9 p.m. Exploring Collaborative Documentary and Presentation Techniques
In this workshop, photographer Tone Stockenström will explore
different approaches to collaborative documentary work and show
techniques to extend subjects' voices into the presentation of work
through the compelling use of video, sound, text, and image. Stockenström
will discuss her own projects, and will talk about challenges involved
in her work on the two projects exhibited at CDS: Just Because
I Live in America and The Picolino Circus Project.
She will show video work by young people involved in her projects,
with additional examples of work that succeeds in extending the
voice of the subject into the work's presentation. Stockenström
will present specific strategies she has used in her work and discuss
some of the people who have influenced her, including Wendy Ewald
and Jim Goldberg. Time will also be dedicated to discussing projects
presented by workshop participants and to exploring ways that their
subjects' voices may emerge in both the documentary process and
product.
Opening Reception and Artist's
Talk:
Thursday, November 18, 6–9 p.m.
"As a documentary photographer I am committed to working on
socially conscious projects that actively involve collaboration
between the subject and the photographer. It is an exchange of voices
and points of view that most interests me and the process of transferring
this powerful experience to an audience. It is the weaving together
of many voices, experiences, and moments that challenges me to do
this type of work.'' —Tone Stockenström
An immigrant from Sweden, Stockenström focuses her collaborative
projects on the complexities of individual and social experience,
often in new environments and unfamiliar territory. She has a bachelor's
degree in Latin American-Iberian Studies and Spanish from the University
of Wisconsin in Madison and an MFA in photography from Columbia
College-Chicago. She has received numerous awards and fellowships,
and her work has been exhibited and published in a variety of places
but particularly in current home, Chicago.
Of her photographs, noted oral historian Studs Terkel says, "Tone
Stockenström's remarkable work reminds me of some of the masters
who capture the spirit of the Outsider. Her work in places as removed
as Latin America and her portraits of the Other Americas reveal
truths of the lives of those whom we must know better. Tone Stockenström
helps with her craft to make us better humans."
Stockenström's projects have been made possible by the Illinois
Arts Council, Jack Jaffe, Polaroid, Tamron, and the Puffin Foundation.
