Margaret Olin

After completing a BA degree in English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago, Margaret Olin studied for a Masters degree at the Institute of Design in Chicago with the photographer Aaron Siskind. Later, she earned a PhD in History of Culture at the University of Chicago, and became a professor in the departments of Art History and Criticism, and Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Currently, she is a senior research scholar at Yale University. 

Olin is the author of several books, most recently Touching Photographs (University of Chicago, 2012). Over time, she has built a hybrid scholarly and photographic practice. Her photographs have been shown in Germany, Israel and the United States, and in 2012 at Yale University, she curated the multi-venue exhibition Shaping Community: Poetics and Politics of the Eruv. Her recent work includes a study of photography and imagination and several ongoing projects on visual culture and photographic practices in Israel and Palestine. Some of these projects can be followed on the blog and website touchingphotographs.com.

All photographs shown here were made in Dheisheh Refugee Camp and the South Hebron Hills.