Two new photojournalism exhibitions have opened on Navy Pier that showcase unique aspects of life in Chicago and the work of award-winning photographers from WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times.
The exhibition titled “The First 12 Weeks” is based on a WBEZ series about the first 12 weeks of a mother’s life postpartum and features intimate portraits of mothers and babies, photographed by WBEZ’s Manuel Martinez. It hangs near the entrance to Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
Further east on the pier, “Murals and Mosaics” displays more than three dozen eye-catching examples of public art from four years of coverage by journalists at the Chicago Sun-Times.
Each exhibition includes multiple images labeled with QR codes that visitors can scan with their mobile devices to read or hear more. “The First 12 Weeks” exhibit also encourages viewers to submit their own experiences and ideas for future reporting.
Nestled among the restaurants, T-shirt shops and tourist attractions on Navy Pier, the exhibitions offer a view of people and places in Chicago. And they spotlight the award-winning photojournalism and storytelling produced by WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR member station at 91.5 FM, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Together under the banner of Chicago Public Media, WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times reach more than 2 million people a day in the Chicago area across broadcast, print and digital platforms. Chicago Public Media is headquartered on Navy Pier.
“There are these universalities around women and birth, but we were also able to tell very individual stories,” said Martinez, who worked alongside WBEZ contributor Elly Fishman for months to document the experiences of three new mothers during a particularly vulnerable time. “This show gives people another way to experience the photographs and the stories that we told, and to see that journalism can be multidimensional and exist in different spaces.”
Robert Herguth, the Chicago Sun-Times reporter who created the weekly Murals and Mosaic series for the newspaper, said that the motivation for turning the stories into a photographic exhibition was to share an underappreciated Chicago art form with a broader audience.
“A lot of these artists are young people who are from neighborhoods in the city who wouldn’t get a lot of coverage otherwise,” he said. “There’s obviously very negative parts of our streets — violence and poverty — but there’s also a lot of beauty in our streets, and I wanted to highlight that for people who come downtown for the day.”
Cassie Walker Burke is WBEZ’s external editor and was the project editor for the First 12 Weeks series. Follow her @cassiechicago.
If you go: “The First 12 Weeks” can be viewed on the walls near the entrance to Chicago Shakespeare Theater through Nov. 30, 2023. “Murals and Mosaics” will be on display on the east end of Navy Pier near Door 8 until August 2024.
