Chicago Works: Deborah Stratman is centered on the artist’s celebrated film The Illinois Parables, which chronicles the history of the region through 11 chapters addressing everything from the ‘resettlement’ of the Cherokee people, to the invention of the nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago, to the deadly police raid of Chicago’s Black Panther headquarters. In the film, Stratman travels to the charged locations where these events occurred and discovers the ways that belief, force, technology, and government mark the land, and how the landscape in turn marks those who call it home.

This exhibition includes a special chapter 12: a re-creation of Stud Terkels's WFMT featuring audio from his interviews.

The exhibition is organized by Jack Schneider, Curatorial Assistant. It is presented in the Dr. Paul and Dorie Sternberg Family Gallery and Ed and Jackie Rabin Gallery on the museum’s third floor.

Image: Deborah Stratman, Still from The Illinois Parables, 2016. 16 mm film or DCP. 60 min. Image courtesy of the artist