Tonika Lewis Johnson: Segregation and How to Disrupt It
Join us on April 15 for a conversation with social justice artist and recent MacArthur “Genius Grant” winner Tonika Lewis Johnson and Hyperallergic Senior Editor Valentina Di Liscia.
Join us for a hopeful conversation with social justice artist and recent MacArthur "Genius Grant" winner Tonika Lewis Johnson, a native and current resident of Chicago's South Side Englewood neighborhood whose work is a powerfully poetic challenge to the devastating logic of racial segregation.
You’ll hear Johnson talk about her emblematic "Folded Map Project," which connects people living at mirror addresses on the city's North and South sides, and other works at the intersection of art and participatory, community-driven action.
We will begin with live readings of testimonies from the artist’s 2024 book Don’t Go: Stories of Segregation and How to Disrupt It, which inspired the title of this event, inviting the audience to inhabit different perspectives and question deep-seated stereotypes.
This event is free for Hyperallergic paid members.
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Tonika Lewis Johnson: Segregation and How to Disrupt It
Wednesday April 15, 3–4pm (ET), Online
Tonika Lewis Johnson is a photographer, social justice artist, and 2025 MacArthur Fellow whose participatory art projects illuminate how systemic disinvestment and segregation shape and impact our lives and neighborhoods while empowering residents to confront and disrupt these inequities. Her seminal project, Folded Map, visually and physically brings together residents—known as “map twins”—who live on the same street name but miles apart on Chicago’s racially and economically divided North and South Sides, creating space for in-person conversations that reveal both structural inequality and personal commonality. Johnson’s multidisciplinary practice spans photography, mapping, multimedia storytelling, and public art, and includes public installations such as Inequity for Sale and reparative, resident-driven initiatives like UnBlocked Englewood. Her work has been exhibited at major cultural institutions nationwide. She holds a BA from Columbia College Chicago and an MBA from National-Lewis University and is a co-founder of the Englewood Arts Collective.
Valentina Di Liscia is a Senior Editor at Hyperallergic.
