Centro Romero

A group of people wearing face masks stand in front of a storefront with photographs in the window.
Participants mark the opening of the storefront exhibition, Daily Life and Dreams in the Pandemic.

Thirteen people pose for a group portrait in front of a storefront. They are wearing face masks, t-shirts and light jackets in tans, blues, reds, and grey. The storefront windows behind the group displays multiple color photographs taped to the glass and is framed in wood. Inside there are rows of fluorescent bulbs glowing with a yellow hue.

Photo by Ali Stanton

For over 35 years, Centro Romero has been a community-based organization that serves the refugee immigrant population on the northeast side of Chicago.

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Outdoor installation open to the public

Daily Life and Dreams in the Pandemic: A Project with the Centro Romero Youth Program
Fall 2021

In the summers of 2020 and 2021, Centro Romero offered an arts program for youth focused on photography. Working with MacArthur Fellow Wendy Ewald and teaching artists from the Smart Museum and Diane Dammeyer Initiative, the students created photographs and writings that express their inner-lives, dreams, and concerns about contemporary immigration. The resulting collaborative photo-and-text works are presented in a storefront exhibition visible from the sidewalk at Centro Romero, a community-based organization on the northeast side of Chicago, and are also displayed as part of the Toward Common Cause exhibition at Weinberg/Newton Gallery.

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Headshot portrait of Wendy Ewald

Wendy Ewald

Wendy Ewald is an artist defined by collaboration. Over a 50-year career she has distributed cameras to children and adults, teaching them rudimentary photography skills and asking them to photograph their lives—the quotidian and extraordinary, what happens during their days and their dreams. When asked which aspects of her work are too often omitted from…

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Project partners at Centro Romero

A Conversation with Jason De León, Wendy Ewald, Daysi Funes, and Susana Salgado

January 12, 2021 12:00-1:00pm

Through scholarly research, collaborative artmaking, and community organizing Jason De León, Wendy Ewald, and Daysi Funes address critical immigration, migration, and human rights issues. Join these panelists for a virtual conversation as they reflect on recent projects including Ewald’s current Toward Common Cause initiative, Daily Life and Dreams in the Pandemic: Photographs by Youth in Rogers Park organized at…

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