Introducing The Chicago Project Artist, Lauren Wilkins!

Lauren Wilkins is a collage artist, analog photographer and vintage collector. She adores chemical photobooths, collection cameras and listening to her father’s turntable. Lauren earned a BA in photography from Columbia College Chicago in 2013.

I collect found photography, with a focus on traditional family photographs. In gathering new material I consider a series of questions: Why pick up the camera to capture that moment? Are these people still with us today? How far did these images travel before coming into my possession?

-Lauren Wilkins

In this series of photographic collages I am trying to better understand anxiety as a meaningfully destructive psychological condition. Anxiety can make it difficult to have close, enduring relationships. Through these strangers’ snapshots I see both romanticized ideals which are ultimately unattainable, and life choices I both fear and desire: marriage and motherhood, as well as all the responsibilities that would come with them.

-Lauren Wilkins

Select images by Lauren Wilkins are on view in our current exhibition, The Chicago Project VI: Selections from our Online Gallery running through August 29th.