Girlhood

Girlhood is a collection of silver gelatin archival photographs which focuses on growing up female. Navigating between Belfast, N. Ireland and Chicago, the work developed out of my interest in working within a community based context.  While a Visiting Artist at the School of the Art Institute,Chicago, and through a series of small Illinois Arts Council grants and artist's residencies, I developed community based photography projects that brought me into the neighborhoods of working class Chicago. Eventually, this work was supported by The Boys and Girls Club of Chicago, Chicago Women in Philanthropy,The Peace Museum, the Randolph Street Gallery, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, and The Kansas City Art Institute among others. This series was followed by a six month project working with teenage mothers at a homeless shelter  for abused women in Chicago culminating in the exhibition, At the Edge of Shelter (1992) curated by David Travis at the Art Institute of Chicago.  

1982-92