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About the Artist
Gina J. Grillo is a photographic artist and teacher who has created innovative programs that explore the fine art of documenting one's own community, photography as a means for understanding cultural diversity, and creativity as a positive force for social change. With an MFA from Columbia College Chicago, Grillo has served as Adjunct faculty in the Photography Department of Columbia College Chicago since 1997. As an Artist in Residence at Columbia College, she developed a public art program to increase exhibition and employment opportunities for her students. Recently, Grillo designed photography courses for the University of Chicago's Graham School, and for the University of Illinois at Chicago's International Center on Response to Catastrophes, Houses of Memory Refuge Project.
Widely published and exhibited, Grillo's personal photographic work has been a documentary exploration of immigrant life in the United States, entitled "Between Cultures: Children of Immigrants in America." Recent solo exhibitions include the Ellis Island Immigration History Museum and Statue of Liberty Monument in New York City, The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, a year long exhibition at OÕHare International Airport also in Chicago, and the Midwest Photographer's Project of The Museum of Contemporary Photography. "Between Cultures" is scheduled to travel on to a variety of International venues and Grillo's work is represented in a number of private collections.
In addition to her personal creative projects, Grillo is a freelance photographer based in Chicago whose photographs have been featured in magazines and newspapers worldwide. Among her credits Grillo has worked as an assignment photographer for the Chicago Tribune and has published photo essays in The Chicago Tribune, The Tribune Sunday Magazine, Migration World, Family Support Magazine, Exito, Interiors and New World Publications. Her vast array of freelance commissions include documentary projects for The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, The Family Resource Coalition of America, City 2000, WITS: Working in the Schools, Mayor DaleyÕs Citizenship Assistance Council, Chicago Public Schools and the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights. Her photographic work on immigrant families was recently selected for a major photographic book and exhibition project, "The Spirit of Family," produced by Al and Tipper Gore.
Gina Grillo is dedicated to expanding opportunities for youth in communities underserved by the arts, like a recent program for refugee teens in Chicago where she taught photography as a means for dealing with catastrophic experience. Her design of arts education programs include; "Documenting the Classroom as Community" for The Terra Museum of American Art, "Picturing Your Community" Gallery 37 Master Apprentice Program, and photographic courses and workshops for Chicago's Multi-Cultural Youth Project, the Bosnian Youth Center and The Cambodian Association of Illinois. Grillo has partnered with the Human Relations Commission of Illinois and the Field Museum's Department of Cultural Understanding and Change to further expand photographic opportunities for youth in Chicago. Grillo's work is "inspired by community" like her creation of a permanent photographic installation for the pediatrics wing of Trinity Chicago Hospital on Chicago's South Side.
Grillo's new book "Between Cultures: Children of Immigrants in America," published by the Center for American Places and distributed by University of Chicago Press was released in June 2004.
