The Power of Place

An Arts in Action Project Funded by Healing Illinois

Drawing on hope, community, fear, and exclusion, this exhibition explores the lived reality of DeKalb County today. With a focus on the county’s migrant history, it highlights community members who have established roots and become pillars within their neighborhoods, particularly along North Avenue in Sycamore and the Pleasant Street neighborhood in DeKalb. These spaces have been transformed from sites once marked by fear and exclusion into places of worship, commerce, and cultural exchange.

African American and Latinx communities have brought traditions and cultural practices that have shaped DeKalb County into a place of belonging within landscapes historically shaped by systemic racism and erasure. Through portraiture and architectural photography, this project questions whether these transformations still hold true today.

It also acknowledges the broader structural forces contributing to the ongoing dissolution of community, particularly within Latinx populations. Themes of fear and exclusion continue to permeate contemporary life, even within spaces of cultural resilience. Centered on personal narratives and community environments, this work seeks to hold space for both thrival and survival, revealing the layered truths embedded in place.