Renewing Your Creative Spirit in Tuscany
Dates: 6/18/2011 - 6/25/2011
Location: Tuscan Renaissance Center
Instructor: Gina Grillo
Price: $2,295 
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Gina Grillo
Gina J. Grillo is a photographic artist and teacher who has created innovative programs that explore photography as a means for understanding cultural diversity, and creativity as a positive force for social change. With an MFA from Columbia College Chicago, Grillo has served as Adjunct faculty in the Photography Department of Columbia College Chicago since 1997 and has designed photography courses for the University of Chicago’s Graham School and for the University of Illinois at Chicago’s International Center on Response to Catastrophes, Houses of Memory Refugee Project. To her credit she has also developed international photography programs for Columbia’s Florence Italy Program and for Loyola Universities’ John Felice Rome Center.
Widely published and exhibited, Grillo completed her first major documentary book and exhibition project exploring immigrant life in the United States, entitled “Between Cultures: Children of Immigrants in America,” published by the Center for American Places in 2004. “Between Cultures” went on to receive the International Sister Cities Multicultural Book Award in 2006. Solo exhibitions of “Between Cultures” include the Ellis Island Immigration History Museum and Statue of Liberty Monument in New York City, The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, The American Immigration Law Center in Washington D. C., inclusion in the collection of The Museum of Contemporary Photography’s Midwest Photographers Project, and a year long exhibition at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. “Between Cultures” is now scheduled to travel to France, Belgium and Luxembourg as part of an exhibition on ‘Migrations’ hosted by the European Union, and Grillo’s work is also represented in a number of private collections.
Grillo’s new major photographic project, entitled, “Passages,” is inspired by her love of maritime history and interest in pushing at the limitations of documentary practice in photography. “Passages” explores the places we all search for, a physical place or a voyage of the mind, the ancient practices of navigation and a human struggle to reconcile risk. This work has become a lyrical visual narrative, an exploration in visual time travel to recreate personal stories found in late Victorian era sea-faring society.
In addition to her personal creative projects, Grillo is a freelance photographer based in Chicago whose photographs have been featured in magazines and newspapers worldwide. Among her credits Grillo has worked as an assignment photographer for the Chicago Tribune and has published photo essays in The Chicago Tribune, Migration World, Family Support Magazine, Exito, Interiors and New World Publications. In addition to her vast array of freelance commissions, Grillo is dedicated to expanding opportunities for youth in communities underserved by the arts, like a recent program for refugee teens in Chicago where she taught photography as a means for dealing with catastrophic experience. Her design of arts education programs include; "Documenting the Classroom as Community" for The Terra Museum of American Art, "Picturing Your Community" Gallery 37 Master Apprentice Program, and photographic courses and workshops for Chicago`s Multi-Cultural Youth Project, the Bosnian Youth Center and The Cambodian Association of Illinois. Grillo has partnered with the Human Relations Commission of Illinois and the Field Museum`s Department of Cultural Understanding and Change to further photographic opportunities for youth in Chicago. Grillo`s work is "inspired by community" like her creation of a permanent photographic installation for the pediatrics wing of Trinity Chicago Hospital on Chicago’s South Side. Her photographic work on immigrant families was selected for a major photographic book and exhibition project, "The Spirit of Family," produced by Al and Tipper Gore and for the 2006 “Chicago Portfolio: Where Geography and Photography Meet.”
Grillo’s book “Between Cultures: Children of Immigrants in America,” published by the Center for American Places, was released in 2004 and selected for the 2006 International Sister Cities Multicultural Book Award.
Learn more about Gina from her web site: ginagrillo.com