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A new view

A cultural exchange with Chicago brings a compelling photo exhibit

By Frank Kuznik
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 6th, 2007 issue

Revealing Chicago

When: Through Aug. 19
Where: Clam-Gallas Palace, Husova 20, Prague 1–Old Town

COURTESY PHOTO
American photographer Terry Evans offers a bird's-eye view of urban development in photographs such as this one of sailboats and skyscrapers.
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COURTESY PHOTO
The Chicago River banks bristle with development.
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Everything looks better from up in the air. The noise and grime recede and the landscape becomes an orderly grid, or a patchwork of farmland and forest, all in brilliant blocks of color. Even city smog takes on the ambience of a soft-hued cloud.
To a critical eye, aerial views show something else: land-use patterns, in particular how urban sprawl devours open land and urban infrastructure overwhelms vast tracts of a city. Just as photos of the Earth taken from outer space dramatically show the beauty and fragility of the planet, shots from helicopters or airplanes reveal hidden dimensions to our everyday environment, and raise questions about planning and development decisions.
All this is clear about 30 seconds after you walk into “Revealing Chicago: An Aerial Portrait,” a photo exhibit currently on display at Clam-Gallas Palace in Old Town. Chicago is one of Prague’s sister cities, and the U.S. Embassy has been working for two years to bring the exhibit here with the thought that Chicago and Prague — dramatically different in almost every other respect — might have some growing pains in common.
“We’ve gone through a lot of the development questions that Prague is facing,” says Gerald Adelmann, executive director of Openlands, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving open space in northeastern Illinois. “Hopefully we can offer some of the lessons we’ve learned.”
The Revealing Chicago project started in 2003, when American photographer Terry Evans took on the task of doing an aerial portrait of the city, supported by Openlands and other organizations interested in the future of the area. Working over two years, she captured a wealth of images that are both artistic and utilitarian, riveting studies in composition and color that also show the impact of development on the environment.
There are moments of pure beauty in the exhibit, but mostly it’s thought-provoking. Rail lines snake through huge swaths of land, skyscrapers jut up like an advancing army, leisure activities like running and boating happen hard by commercial and industrial complexes.
The photographs were a sensation when they went on display in Chicago’s new Millennium Park in 2005, in a much more dramatic context than they are here. The photographs currently on display in Prague are about one-sixth the size of the originals, which were 150 inches (3.8 meters) on a side. The Chicago exhibit also included a great deal of text about the subjects and the settings. What really stopped visitors, though, were the maps.
“We had comparative maps of the region from 1830, 1900, 1950 and 2000,” Adelmann says. “The growth was like a cancer that had eaten up all the prairies and wetlands.”
The numbers accompanying the growth were just as startling. From 1970 to 1990, according to Adelmann, the population in the Chicago area increased 4 percent — but the amount of developed land increased 40 percent. Neither number has slowed, traffic has become nightmarish, and planning remains a piecemeal affair, governed by many small communities.
Those are much larger problems than a set of photographs can solve, but Adelmann says the exhibit accomplished its purpose. “We wanted to inspire debate, to get people talking,” he says. “We also wanted people to realize that we’re all in this together.”
Compared with Chicago, Prague may seem little more than an overgrown village that quickly dissipates into the countryside. But with the city becoming increasingly encircled by high-rise office buildings, suburban malls and upscale housing developments, this seems a good time to ask where it’s all going.
“My impression is that this region will have to face some of the same issues we are about being car-dependent and developing open space,” says Adelmann, who was in Prague to open the exhibit May 30. “I’ve only been here two days, but it’s obvious that people in Prague really love their city. So there’re a lot of positive things to build on.”
Meanwhile, Prague is returning the favor by shipping a ton of talent to Chicago for a month-long festival in June. “Prague Days” will include seminars, art exhibits, films, a gala dinner and performances by the likes of the Robert Balzar Trio, Silvie Hessová and Daniel Wiesner, Lenka Dusilová and Ondřej Havelka and his Melody Makers. In a party town like Chicago, that should make for a rip-roaring good time.
But in terms of long-term impact, Prague is getting the best of the bargain.

Frank Kuznik can be reached at fkuznik@praguepost.com


Other articles in Tempo (6/06/2007):

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