TONIKA LEWIS JOHNSON

In March 2021, Notable fine art photographer Melissa Ann Pinney (http://www.melissaannpinney.com), presented this 20 minute video presentation about Tonika Lewis Johnson’s artistic practice and career as a Photographer/Social Justice Artist and life-long resident of the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago’s southside for a group of 400-500 women begun by the curator Helen Molesworth last spring. They are mostly white women from the art world who meet to interrogate systemic and individual racism and white supremacy. They gather as a white anti-racist community so that Black, Indigenous, and People of Color do not have to bear the burden of educating them. The presentation includes Johnson’s series, ‘Everyday Englewood’, the well-known ‘Folded Map Project’, and ‘Belonging: Place, Power & (Im)Possibilities’.