Colette at Stade Jean-Bouin, Paris, from the series Belonging, 2023 © Tonika Lewis Johnson

Tonika Lewis Johnson, b. 1979
Colette at Stade Jean-Bouin, Paris, from the series Belonging, 2023 © Tonika Lewis Johnson
When Ateliers Médicis invited Chicago-based artist and activist Tonika Lewis Johnson to participate in a residency in Clichy-sous-Bois over the summer of 2023, she seized an opportunity to expand her Belonging series, which she began in 2018, into a transatlantic dialogue about racial divisions in the urban landscape. Belonging captures the stories of 8 Black youth & 1 Latinx from Chicago about how they perceive themselves and that moment of rupture when they realize - regardless of whether they’re an artist, a gamer, a musician - that society has a different perception of them, into a transatlantic dialogue about racial divisions in the urban landscape.
This residency was facilitated by the Ateliers Médicis in Clichy-sous-Bois / Montfermeil (France) and the Chicago branch of Villa Albertine as part of Clichycago, a program which relies on exploratory visits, cross-residencies, intellectual and artistic dialogues to nurture exchanges between the two cities.