A new photography exhibit, (In)Sights: Photovoice in the Chicago Resilient Communities, opens July 13 at Harold Washington Library Center. (In)Sights is a collaboration with the University of Chicago's Inclusive Economy Lab, showcasing IEL's work to evaluate the Chicago Resilient Communities guaranteed basic income pilot program. This pilot program provided 5,000 low-income Chicagoans with monthly payments of $500 to spend however they wanted.
As part of a mixed methods approach to understanding the effects of this program, the Inclusive Economy Lab incorporated PhotoVoice, a participatory research method that centers participants as photographers, interpreters, and creative analysts. For ten months, researchers provided various themes like worry, joy, fear, and stability and collected participants' images and captions to better understand the impact of guaranteed income. The goals of the project are to question existing narratives on the people guaranteed income is designed to assist, to challenge notions surrounding the real and perceived benefits of guaranteed income, and to amplify the voices of participants on their terms. This exhibit features a curated selection of these images, exploring how art and social science research can merge to generate unique real-world insights and inform policy.
(In)Sights: Photovoice in the Chicago Resilient Communities will be on display in the Ida B. Wells corridor on the first floor of Harold Washington Library Center from July 13 to September 1. An adapted version of the exhibit will be on display at Legler Regional library, Coleman branch, and Uptown branch from September 9 to October 7.
