In the LAND as they left it, Taylor Pate's photographs document the land of Chicago’s Washington Park and Lakefront Trail through a sympathetic yet critical lens. Chicago is rooted on the ancestral lands of numerous Indigenous tribes, including the Neshnabé, Myaamia, Wea, and Kickapoo. But the Lakefront, once home to much hope, was soon filled with terror as Indigenous people were pushed away from the water and their spiritual ties to it were severed for the sake of the colonizer’s capitalistic greed. People are still actively being pushed off their land, as we see in Hyde Park with the historic Black population and never-ending evictions, renovations, and inflation. As the Lakefront was and is taken over, the shoreline changed, with the evidence scattered across sand, pebbles, and grass.
The LAND we inhabit now is not only a memorial site to those Indigenous people and their legacy, but also a reflection of those who continue inhabit and destroy sacred land. It is the mundanity of what we walk past every day, as captured in the artist’s photographs, that reveals both who we are and who we are destined to be.
Artist Curator
Taylor Pate, AB‘26, is a Visual Arts major in the College, minoring in Education and Architectural Studies. Born and raised on the Southwest-side of Chicago, Pate’s work in photography and sculpture explores the intersection between land, body, and waste in Chicago. Pate has an extensive portfolio of music photography and has exhibited work in the FOTA Spring Festival (2025), Midway Studios (January 2025), Café Logan (2024), and the School of the Art Institute (2023).
Support
CWAC Exhibitions is organized by the Department of Art History’s Visual Resources Center. Additional support provided by Chicago Studies, the Department of Visual Arts, and the Architectural Studies program in the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago. Installation support, preparation, and fabrication provided by the artist, Noel Da, Libby Konjoyan, and Evan Da Yu Ling.
Accessibility
CWAC Exhibitions is committed to accessibility for all our exhibitions. To request an accommodation or alternative format, please email visualresources@uchicago.edu.
Related Programming
- Opening Celebration for the LAND as they left it, November 12, 2025 at 5pm