Our Origins

Chicago – The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago is proud to present the group exhibition Our Origins, which considers the human inclination to trace our beginnings beyond recorded history and explores our limited capacity to draw conclusive answers about the meaning of life from such efforts. The contemporary artists in this exhibition use photography, video, drawing and sculpture to reflect on natural history from a distinctly human point of view.

This approach emphasizes questions about the paradoxical nature of human intelligence in a Universe that cannot be altogether explained. Where did we come from? How is it that we have come to possess a consciousness and a psyche? What does the future hold? The exhibition does not provide explicit answers to the great mysterious questions of our Universe, but rather ponders the very idea that such questions are perhaps unanswerable.

The exhibitions, presentations, and related programs of the MoCP are sponsored in part by After School Matters; the Terra Foundation for American Art; the Lannan Foundation; the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation; the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; the National Endowment for the Arts; the David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, American Airlines, the official airline of the MoCP; and our members.

Our Origins

Künstler: Jenny Akerlund, Julia Büttelmann, Alison Carey, Eric William Carroll, Michelle Ceja, Ken Fandell, Jason Lazarus, Aspen Mays, Scott McFarland, Patricia Piccinini, Mark Ruwedel, Jennifer Ray, Alison Ruttan, Semiconductor , Rachel Sussman, Penelope Umbrico