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

“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.”

—Frances Jakubek

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Participating Artists: Arda Asena, Kat Bawden, Trent Bozeman, 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