Dapogny, David

For the Changing Chicago documentary project in the late 1980s, David Dapogny photographed at the McDonald's Christmas Parade on the first Sunday after Thanksgiving. While looking at both the parade's participants and bystanders, Dapogny makes photographs that attempt to articulate the relationship of spectator to public spectacle and the spectacle to the cityscape around it.

One of the largest documentary photography projects ever organized in an American city, Changing Chicago commissioned thirty-three photographers to document life throughout Chicago's diverse urban and suburban neighborhoods. The project was launched in 1987 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the invention of photography and the 50th anniversary of the Farm Security Administration documentary project, which provides its inspirational model. Changing Chicago honors the tradition of the FSA project, but it moved away from its predecessor's ambition of inspiring social change towards the more general goal of providing a nuanced description of the human experience in a particular geographic area. Sponsored by the Focus/Infinity Fund of Chicago, the project was organized with the support of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Chicago Historical Society, and the Chicago Office of Fine Arts, Chicago Public Library Cultural Center. In the spring of 1989, the five institutions mounted concurrent exhibitions devoted to the project.

Dapogny completed an BA in English at the University of Illinois (1967) and an MFA in Photography at the Rhode Island School of Design (1976). Beginning in 1986, Dapogny worked at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, for nearly twenty years, most recently as the Head of Media Services at the university's library.