MOCP — Focal Point

May 14

May 14 Episode 22: Christina Fernandez

In this episode, MoCP Executive Director, Natasha Egan, sits down with artist Christina Fernandez. The two discuss Christina’s decades-long career in pushing the boundaries of photography, blending her personal history as a Mexican American woman with broader cultural narratives about migration, labor, and gender. Natasha and Christina additionally discuss a piece in the MoCP permanent collection by Sidian Liu.

Christina Fernandez has been featured in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Aart, the Getty, and MoMA New York, just to name a few. Ferndandez is a 2021 Latinx Artist Fellowship honoree. She is also an influential educator, currently serving as an associate professor at Cerritos College in Norwalk, California where she has been on faculty since 2001. Fernandez’s exhibition Multiple Exposures, is on view at the DePaul Art Museum in Chicago from March 20 - August 3, 2025, and it the first major museum survey of her work and has traveled to institutions across the county for the last three years.

Oct 30

Oct 30 Episode 21: Meghann Riepenhoff and Penelope Umbrico

Max Hatlem

In this episode, artists Meghann Riepenhoff and Penelope Umbrico chat with MoCP curator, Kristin Taylor. The two artists discuss their backgrounds and shared interests in experimenting and pushing the indexical qualities of photography, as well as the work of Alison Rossiter and Joanne Leonard.

Jul 10

Jul 10 Episode 20: Jay Wolke and Eli Giclas

Max Hatlem

This episode features Jay Wolke and Eli Giclas in conversation with MoCP Curator of Academic Programs and Collections, Kristin Taylor. Jay and Eli discuss their photographic approaches to depict the built environment as a reflection of patterns of human consumption and an imbalanced relationship with nature. They also discuss their appreciation of works by Stan Douglas and Dawn Kim in the MoCP permanent collection.

Nov 30

Nov 30 Episode 18: Yuge Zhou and Jorian Charlton

Max Hatlem

This episode of Focal Point features two exhibiting artists from LOVE: Still Not the Lesser (on view August 17 - December 23, 2023) in conversation with Asha Iman Veal, MoCP Associate Curator. Jorian Charlton (b. 1989 Canada) is an artist who focuses on her generation of peers within the Caribbean diaspora—authoring their canon of Black Canadian representation. Yuge Zhou 周雨歌 (b. 1985 China) applies her perspective of a Chinese diaspora immigration experience for the video series Love Letters (summer) and Love Letters (winter) 2021. Together, they discuss their respective inspirations and artistic practices, as well as works by Carrie Mae Weems and Dylan Vitone in the MoCP collection.

Oct 30

Oct 30 Episode 17: Bob Thall and Cecil McDonald Jr.

Max Hatlem

In this episode, MoCP Executive Director Natasha Egan leads a discussion with Chicago-based artists and educators Bob Thall and Cecil McDonald, Jr.

Thall was an educator at Columbia College Chicago from 1978-2017, and both Egan and McDonald were once students in his classroom. Thall and McDonald discuss their mutually influential relationship to art-making and to teaching, and the legacies of photographic education in Chicago. They also discuss their thoughts on work by Kathryn Harrison and Joseph Jachna in the MoCP permanent collection.

Sep 26

Sep 26 Episode 16: Alicia Bruce and Tom Merilion

Max Hatlem

This episode of Focal Point features two exhibiting artists from LOVE: Still Not the Lesser (on view August 17 - December 23, 2023) in conversation with Asha Iman Veal, MoCP Associate Curator. Tom Merilion (England, b. 1967) and Alicia Bruce (Scotland, b. 1979) discuss their respective inspirations and artistic practices, as well as works by Joel Sternfeld, and David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson in the MoCP collection.

May 31

May 31 Episode 15: Shannon Bool and Tarrah Krajnak

Max Hatlem

In this episode, Shannon Bool (Berlin) and Tarrah Krajnak (Eugene, OR and Los Angeles, CA) are in conversation with Kristin Taylor, MoCP’s Curator of Academic Programs and Collections. The artists discuss topics including the role of modernism, the male gaze, and performance in their practice, as well as the work of Jan Groover and Harry Callahan.

Nov 8

Nov 8 Episode 14: Abelardo Morell

Jake Allonar

In this episode, Abelardo Morell is in conversation with MoCP chief curator and deputy director, Karen Irvine. The two discuss Abe’s many decades experimenting with photography and the camera obscura, painting, parenthood, and Berenice Abbott’s Science Pictures, among other topics.