Thank you to our neighbors, friends, and supporters who stopped by over the course of the weekend for a final send-off before we start to make our move out of our home in Chicago for the past 11 years. During our closing event, we heard from Leslie Thomas, founder of ART WORKS Projects, alongside managing director Bora Un, in a conversation about AWP’s founding principles and our continued work to to engage audiences from the grassroots to policy levels to raise awareness and action on human rights. We also heard from long-time board member and sponsor, Howard Conant who saw the importance of providing AWP a space to deepen our research-based practice over a decade ago, and board chair Ivan Arenas offered closing remarks which included several calls to action for our in-person audience. The current funding landscape has been impacted by a divisive socio-political climate across the globe demanding that we all make adaptations in how we do our work in order to mobilize and create greater impact together. Our mission to advance global justice through high-impact visual storytelling remains steadfast. Over the course of this week, we will revisit past projects AWP has produced that continue to resonate today. We encourage you to consider what role you can play in continuing to amplify these important visual stories that can elicit new ideas and foster meaningful action. Visit www.artworksprojects/getinvolved for more ways to be a part of the change. Photo Credit: Nate Bieneman #HumanRights #Visual Storytelling #DocumentaryPhotography #ArtsInService #DocumentaryFilm (fb)

After 11 years of producing and presenting high-impact visual advocacy projects in our beloved Chicago office and gallery space located at 625 N Kingsbury Street, our team at AWP will be moving out on March 31.  To mark this occasion, we welcome back AWP’s founder, Leslie Thomas, who will be joining us for a special closing event featuring a conversation with managing director, Bora Un. During our time together, we will revisit some of AWP’s projects from across our 18 years producing documentary-based visual stories, and will share details about upcoming collaborations with Leslie’s film production studio, MIRA Studios/MIRA Europe. Guests will also have the opportunity to view a glimpse of Leslie’s latest feature length documentary film, “The Sharp Edge of Peace,” based on AWP’s 2012 project “Women Between Peace and War: Afghanistan.” This event will serve as the closing event for our open house taking place on Saturday, March 22 - Sunday, March 23 from 12:00 - 6pm each day as we invite our Chicago community to come see the space for a final time, and to help us find new homes for a number of our ready-to-go exhibition kits, books, limited edition prints, and a range of unused exhibition materials and supplies that will be for sale, or free for the taking!  Read more and let us know you’re coming by visiting: bit.ly/AWPMoves #DocumentaryPhotography #VisualStorytelling #ArtsInService #DocumentaryFilms #PhotographyExhibition #HumanRights #MovingSale (fb)