Megan E. Doherty is a photographer and writer based in Chicago, IL. A recovering academic, she received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2010 and promptly exchanged metaphysics for the even less lucrative world of art. Her multi-year documentary project Back of the Yards won the 2016 Project Development Grant from CENTER, an arts organization that supports socially and environmentally engaged photographic projects. She was co-director of the Seminary Co-op Documentary Project, an independent documentary project on a local bookstore with global renown. More recently, she has reported stories about chronic illness, medical research, and disability. She was a 2021 fellow at Disability Lead—a leadership institute committed to cultivating a deeper bench of leaders with disabilities—and is a member of the Board of Directors of Eighth Blackbird Performing Arts Association.
An unabashed rabbit person, she recently adopted her second shelter bunny, Babar. She was thrown off a train in Greece, galloped a horse through El Valle de la Muerte, manned the controls of a single engine plane heading back to mainland Iceland from the Westman Islands, almost ran out of gas in the middle of the Atacama desert, hitchhiked in Andorra la Vella, slept on the deck of a boat from Bari to Igoumenitsa, and was nearly killed by a sauna in Finland.
She has survived by the grace of qigong, snacks, and the possibility of New Zealand.
Recognition:
First Place, Disability Communities Creative Grant, Getty Images - 2022
Finalist, Meitar Award for Excellence in Photography, PHOTO IS:RAEL - 2018
Finalist, Lange-Taylor Prize, Center for Documentary Studies - 2018
Individual Artist Support Grant, Illinois Arts Council Agency - 2018
Awesome Foundation Grant - 2017
Individual Artist Program Grant, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs - 2017
Finalist, Exhibition Competition, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center - 2016
Finalist, Diane Dammeyer Fellowship, Columbia College Chicago - 2016
Project Development Grant, CENTER - 2016
Finalist, Monograph Award, Critical Mass, Photolucida - 2016
Shortlist, Gomma Photography Grant - 2016
Shortlist, International Emerging Artist Awards, Dubai - 2015
Shortlist, Emerging Artist & Photo Taken Scholarships, Lucie Foundation - 2015
Finalist, Emerging Vision Award, The Documentary Project Fund - 2015
Top 50, Critical Mass, Photolucida - 2015
Finalist, Lange-Taylor Prize, Center for Documentary Studies - 2015
Finalist, Emerging Photographer Activist Award, Catchlight - 2014
Tuition & Travel Grants, National Press Photographers Association - 2014
Solo exhibitions:
Mirage Gallery, Kobe, Japan - 2017
Group exhibitions:
Head On, Sydney, Australia - 2019
PHOTO IS:RAEL, Tel Aviv, Israel - 2018
Call and Response: Art as Resistance, Strange Fire Collective, Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle, WA - 2018
The Curve, photo-eye Gallery, Santa FE, NM - 2016
Points of Entry, Fotofestiwal Łódź, Poland - 2016
LENS, Perspective Gallery, Evanston, IL - 2016