Akito Tsuda Welcomed as Porch On TAP Artist In Residence
Akito Tsuda is a photographer from Osaka, Japan who spent time in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago in the early 1990s photographing the people and places of the neighborhood. He was welcomed with open arms at the time and, in recent years residents past and present are lifting up his photographs as a celebrated portrayal people and place in Pilsen.
After sharing dozens of never before seen photographs on Facebook in 2014-2015 with the help of organizers and activists he was able to reconnect with his subjects as they reconnect with their past and with each other. Eagerly Akito engaged for months answering questions and searching his archive to find lost photos of relatives and spaces that are no longer around. Tsuda has since published several limited run volumes of his Pilsen photographs that people can purchase to have in their homes.
Akito is joining us from Osaka as a resident artist at The Alley Project. The respect he has shown in his processes and the holistic perspective his visual story employs to tell stories about Pilsen, per residents of the community, is why he has been invited to the Porch on TAP artists residency. He is helping us inaugurate our new home on Avis and Elsmere as we transform our front porch to a setting for artistic exchange during our artist residency program, the Porch On TAP!!