Archives: Exhibitions

“I buried my negatives in the ground in order that there should be some record of our tragedy.” — Henryk Ross Imprisoned in Europe’s second-largest ghetto in 1940, Ross was assigned to take official identification photographs for the Nazi-controlled Jewish Administration. The Nazis forbade him from taking any unofficial images, under penalty of death. Yet against… Read More

EXPERIENCE THE STORIES OF THOSE WHOSE LIVES WERE BOUGHT AND SOLD Purchased Lives: The American Slave Trade from 1808 to 1865 illustrates the pain and injustice of the American domestic slave trade, illuminating just how widespread the practice of slavery was in American life, as well as its impact on enslaved families across the country. This… Read More

CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO THROUGH THE LENS OF A CAMERA  “For me, there’s no difference between photographing a celebrity and a migrant worker. You’re always looking for a picture with emotion, design, and information.” – Steve Schapiro Activists and Icons: The Photographs of Steve Schapiro shows, through powerful documentary photography, that the issues of the civil… Read More

Description: While imprisoned in Camp de Gurs in unoccupied France in 1941, a young artist named Trudl Besag made an illustrated booklet and gave it to a fellow prisoner, Rosa Hirschbruch, for her 65th birthday. The booklet, entitled So ist es, aber, so soll’s sein (How it is, but how it should be), vividly illuminates the daily… Read More

Shanghai: Safe Haven During the Holocaust sheds light on a lesser-known moment in Holocaust history: European Jews who had been shut out of country after country while trying to escape Nazi persecution found a beacon of hope in an unlikely place: Shanghai, China. In 1946, American photojournalist Arthur Rothstein began a project documenting the lives of… Read More

The Last Goodbye is an award-winning virtual reality experience that transports viewers inside the Nazi death camp Majdanek in Poland with Pinchas Gutter, the only member of his family of four to survive the Holocaust. The fully immersive experience enables visitors to virtually walk with Gutter as he travels in life-sized projections of the camp,… Read More

WHEN YOU’VE LOST EVERYTHING, A SINGLE OBJECT CAN TAKE ON EXTRAORDINARY MEANING. Stories of Survival is a landmark exhibit that showcases more than 60 personal artifacts brought to America by Survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides, never before on display. Exploring the relationship between objects, their meaning to the original owner and subsequent significance, each… Read More

The 75th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising recognizes the largest and symbolically most important Jewish uprising in German-occupied Europe. The exhibition tells the stories of the leaders of the uprising and local survivors who lived through the heroic resistance. The exhibition pays tribute to the 750 Jewish fighters who led the largest resistance effort in… Read More

A boy without a bed.A girl afraid to close her eyes.A child who dreams of when bedtime didn’t bring terror. More than two million children have been forced from their homes by the war in Syria. Refugee children in neighbouring countries or making journeys through Europe show us where they sleep while they await an… Read More

SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER A Chicagoland Debut February 4 – June 24, 2018 Kerry Kennedy spent several years interviewing human rights defenders from around the world for the book Speak Truth to Power. The project has since grown into a multi-faceted campaign for advocacy. Experience the Midwest debut of the photographic exhibit that highlights over 40 human… Read More