Back Home: Polish Chicago
An Exhibition Review
So, just a few days ago I popped down to the dear old Chicago History Museum (CHM) to see their new exhibition, Back Home: Polish Chicago. In developing this exhibition, the CHM partnered with The Polish History Museum in Warsaw (Poland), the Polish Museum of America (Chicago), and Loyola University’s Polish Studies Program (Chicago). This exhibition, as one can glean from the title, focuses on the experience of Polish immigrants and their descendants who have made their homes in Chicago, a city with a Polish population second only to Warsaw and heavily leverages oral histories aimed at capturing the experiences of Polish immigrants and their families. Thus, it makes complete sense for the CHM to curate an exhibition that tells this rich history. And I must say that this is a perfectly nice exhibition.
In terms of organization, the audience are moved through a quick history of Poland and explanations of what drove Poles to leave their homeland over several different periods of time. After that, the exhibition goes on to explore various aspects of Polish life in their adopted home. After the first introductory gallery, the exhibit eschews both chronology and theme and instead treats us to a broad survey of the Polish experience. Among those highlighted are labour, religion, sport, military service, etc. Needless to say, the Solidarity movement features prominently throughout. And here I would like to make a small suggestion to the curatorial team at CHM. I think this could have been a much stronger show if they had, instead of casting a wide net, chosen a few, maybe three or four themes, and then done a deep dive on each of them. I think that would have made for a much more interesting discussion and a less scattershot exhibition.
Overall, I found the didactics to be pretty good. The exhibition is not unpleasantly text heavy, probably because all the text and object labels are rendered in English, Polish, and Spanish. Gallery space is, after all, finite. And, unlike several of CHM’s more recent exhibitions, the didactics are written for people who read at grade level. That being said, I do need to point out one small weakness in the presentation. The lighting levels in several of the galleries is very low. This is not, in itself, a problem. Considering that the exhibition features many works on paper and textiles low light is pretty much unavoidable. However, too many of the labels are placed inside of the vitrines housing the various objects. The combination of low light and trying to read through Perspex (especially when it is set at an angle) makes many of the labels tough to decipher.
In addition to the exhibition text and object labels, the CHM have also deployed a judicious amount of technology to enhance the experience. There are, for example, several QR codes that on can scan to receive additional information. The first one of these, located at the start of the exhibition lets one download a Polish pronunciation guide. Further, there are several large touch screens that allow visitors to explore topics like oral history interviews and traditional Polish music. The interactive moments they have created really do hit a nice middle ground- they are there but not intrusive.
So, in the end what can we say about Back Home: Polish Chicago? All in all, it is a very good exhibition. Is it perfect? Of course not. Are there some different choices that I would have made if I were curating the show? Absolutely. But, the flaws are small compared to the overall quality of the effort. If you are someone who has an interest in Poland, migration history, or the history of Chicago I can strongly recommend going to see this. And don’t worry, you have time. The exhibition runs until 8 June of next year.