Tonika Lewis Johnson isn’t just repairing the South Side Chicago neighborhood of Englewood through her art — her distinctive style extends all the way north to reparations work in Evanston.
Johnson, an Englewood photographer known for her social justice art, received a “Genius Grant” through the MacArthur Foundation Oct. 8. The award recognizes creatives for their talent and ingenuity with a fund of $800,000.
Johnson goes beyond her photography background to create multimedia pieces that document stories confronting the history of segregation in Chicago neighborhoods.
In one exhibition on display in Evanston and other parts of Chicago, called the “Folded Map Project,” photos of real estate connect North and South Side Chicagoans with matching addresses to reckon with the city’s history of racial segregation.
“Sometimes you have to learn the boundaries of your medium, and photography was just not a big enough medium to help me create these different entry points for people to learn and listen about this history and how it affects us today,” she told The Daily. “I wanted to have people engage with the issue as specifically and emotionally intimate as possible.”
With the MacArthur Grant, Johnson said, she plans to continue working on her most recent project, “UnBlocked Englewood.” The endeavor helps restore homes throughout the neighborhood, she added.
Johnson said she anticipates home repairs and improvements to take place over the next three years. She plans to focus on staging more exhibitions after that, with periods of rest and reading to supplement her artistic practice in the winter months.
Johnson is heavily involved in advocacy work in Evanston, where she serves on the board of FirstRepair, a nonprofit that supports local reparations policies across the country.
The organization’s founder, former Ald. Robin Rue Simmons (5th) said she was inspired by Johnson’s “Folded Map Project” and recruited her to be on the board.
“Every year, I write sort of immediate and long-term goals, and one of my goals was to work with Tonika Lewis Johnson,” Rue Simmons said. “I didn’t know in what way, but I knew that I was very inspired by her work and the fresh approach that she brought to reparations using her art expertise.”
Johnson’s work has also made it to Northwestern — nine of her photographs were featured in the Block Museum of Art’s collection. In one of the museum’s 2021 exhibitions, titled “Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts,” Johnson’s work sparked conversations about the historical significance of land, said one of the exhibition’s curators, Essi Rönkkö.
Rönkkö, associate curator of collections and academic programming at the Block, said they bought six photographs from the “Folded Map Project,” and Johnson gifted the museum an additional three works from the series.
Johnson’s photographs are often borrowed to use in class, for students to develop an understanding of the lasting impacts of racial inequities in Chicago, Rönkkö said.
Johnson visited campus in January to discuss her book, “Don’t Go: Stories of Segregation and How to Disrupt It,” which she co-wrote with University of Illinois Chicago Sociology Prof. Maria Krysan. Through individual anecdotes, the book reflects on the narrative that certain Chicago neighborhoods are too dangerous to visit.
Johnson said the book was inspired by a discussion with NU students. When she asked students if they’ve ever been told not to go to the South or West Sides of Chicago, almost everyone raised their hands, Johnson said.
For Johnson, that moment was a reminder of how segregation is perpetuated.
“That was the first time I had asked a group of young people who were transplants to Chicago that question, and for them to just be like, ‘Oh, yeah,’ I was like, ‘This is what we need,’” Johnson said. “We need people to be honest, and these kids were honest. We were able to have a really great conversation about who told them and about whether they thought that was true.”
Evanston’s proximity to Chicago allows both communities to learn from each other, she said. Rue Simmons and Johnson see parallels between Evanston’s history of segregation and the issues Johnson tackles in her work. Black citizens in both areas faced discriminatory zoning practices that stripped them of their wealth through over-assessed property taxes and predatory lending, Rue Simmons said.
Because of these similarities, Johnson also lends her expertise from FirstRepair to Chicago’s Reparations Task Force, which fights for reparations on a bigger scale.
“I think Chicago, having such close proximity to Evanston, given what it achieved with reparations, is a really great resource,” she said. “Evanston, unlike other cities in the country, understands our dramatic situation. Chicago’s similar enough to Evanston that we can literally adopt a lot of the same processes.”
Johnson said she brings an “outsider lens” to FirstRepair’s approach. Her background allows her to ask questions and share information that hadn’t been considered, which helps the nonprofit incorporate the arts into local education on reparations, she said. One of Johnson’s exhibitions — titled “Reparations are Due!” — was on display at FirstRepair’s headquarters on 1900 Asbury Ave.
Rue Simmons said she and Johnson are in discussion about displaying more of her work through FirstRepair in 2026.
“She’s such a creative and so inspiring, and her presentation is just beautiful and engaging. It really invites you in in a way that might be more comfortable for others,” Rue Simmons said. “The work is complicated, and it is emotional. There comes a lot of guilt and pain and shame, and she has a way of making it relatable and tangible.”
Email: [email protected]
Related Stories:
