The Common Place Exhibition took place April 25 – August 19th, 2022 at Cafe Logan, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.

Common Place, Uncommon Space: Is Healthcare a White Space? grew out of a Gray Center Fellowship between illustrator Julia Kuo and University of Chicago physicians and researchers, Monica E. Peek and Elizabeth L. Tung of the Department of Medicine, for a project that considered how illustration might play a role in examining the barriers that distrust and difference  can form between patients and their doctors.

This exhibition featured the narratives of four Black Chicagoans as they navigated health and healthcare during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The topics at hand—Black maternal mortality, lack of access to prescription drugs, a higher burden of underlying medical conditions, and limited representation in the healthcare workforce—all existed before the pandemic began. But the pandemic exposed and complicated these issues, offering a glimpse into the intangible space between Black and White experiences of healthcare in the United States. Viewers were invited to contemplate, in particular, the juxtaposition between a common threat and uncommon burden.

Exhibition photos below by Tom Van Eynde.