The Photography at Columbia College Chicago oral history project documents the program taught at the college from the perspective of faculty and alumni. Conducted as part of a larger Columbia College Chicago oral history project focused on capturing oral histories from people who shaped the modern Columbia, these interviews offer personal narrative insights into the evolution and history of the college photography program. Students in the Oral History: The Art of the Interview class taught by Dr. Erin McCarthy, conducted the interviews during two semesters: Fall 2024 and Spring 2025.
The interviews utilized the Columbia College Chicago Oral History Model. While traditional oral history focuses on the individual interviewer and narrator, this model relies on collaboration between oral history faculty and the College Archives and Special Collections. Key components include core interview questions, a digital interview portfolio, and a method to access the oral histories with greater wide access and use by researchers.
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Interview with Cecil McDonald, Jr.
Naluwa Adeyooye
Cecil McDonald, Jr. is a photographer and educator. He studied fashion, house music, and dance club culture before earning a BA and MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago, where he currently serves as adjust professor. He also serves as lecturer at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. A focus of his work is the idea that people and their histories can both inform and free each other, particularly at the intersection with masculinity, family, and Black culture. McDonald’s work employs interdisciplinary elements such as sound, video, performance, and installation. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is present in the permanent collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Chicago Bank of American LaSalle Collection, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. Length: 63:33. Transcript: 12 pages.
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Interview with Gregory Foster-Rice
Millea Erell
Gregory Foster-Rice (he/him) is a historian and educator. He was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois and moved around the country in his formative years, including Houston, Texas where he earned his MA in Art History at Rice University. He returned home to Chicago to earn his PhD in Art History at Northwestern University. He became an assistant professor in photography at Columbia College Chicago, and currently is an associate professor and Associate Provost for Student Retention Initiatives at Columbia. He has curated several exhibits, such as The City Lost and Found: Capturing New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, 1960-1980 at the Art Institute of Chicago and Princeton University Art Museum, an exhibition which received the Philip Johnson Award from the Society of Architectural Historians, and the exhibit The Many Hats of Ralph Arnold: Art, Identity & Politics, which first opened at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in 2018 and was moved to DePauw University in 2022. Length: 87:23. Transcript: 29 pages.
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Interview with Gregory Harris
Sarah Wicks
Gregory J. Harris is a photographer, curator, art historian, and exhibitor who currently serves as the High Museum of Art's Donald and Marilyn Keough Family Curator of Photography in Atlanta, Georgia. He earned a BFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago and an MA in Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He specializes in contemporary photography with a particular interest in documentary practice. He has held curatorial positions at the Art Institute of Chicago, served as assistant curator at the DePaul Art Museum in Chicago, and interned for the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago. Recent curatorial projects at the High Museum of Art include: Amy Elkins: Black is the Day, Black is the Night, Look Again: 45 Years of Collecting Photography, and his collaborative projects include Way Out There: The Art of Southern Backroads, a joint exhibition with the High’s folk and self-taught art department. Length: 87:23. Transcript: 29 pages.
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Interview with Margaret Denny
Jeremiah Groff
Margaret Denny is a teacher and art curator. Raised in Ottawa, Illinois, she worked as a buyer for Marshall Fields before pursuing an undergraduate degree and master’s degree in art history from University of Illinois Chicago. She earned a Ph.D. in art history from UIC in 2010, completing her dissertation, From Commerce to Art: American Women Photographers 1850-1900. She has spent a large part of her career researching and documenting early female photographers, with a research concentration on women in commercial photography in America and Great Britain. Margaret Denny has been a photography adjunct faculty member at Columbia College Chicago since 2002 and has taught courses in art history and the history of photography at other Chicago colleges and universities and lectures locally and nationally about women photographers. Length: 83:04. Transcript: 17 pages.
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Interview with Paul D'Amato
Yemima Kebede
Paul D’Amato was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned a BA in Art from Reed College, and an MFA in photography from Yale School of Art. In the 1980s, he served as a part-time faculty in the Photography department at Columbia College Chicago. From 1988 - 2001, he served as a full-time faculty member for the Photography department at Maine College of Art and in 2001, he returned to Columbia College Chicago as a professor. His work is in the permanent collections of several museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. D’Amato’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions across the nation and he has received several awards and grants, including Illinois Arts Council Grant in 1989, 2005, and 2019. His latest exhibit, Midway, highlights communities and the moments of everyday life often overlooked. Length 104:52. Transcript: 39 pages.