Bikes, the Bean and Black Panthers in Chicago: Wembley to Soweto initiative 2025

The Guardian

05-06-2025

The backdrop of sport has been a constant in the Wembley to Soweto Foundation's projects, and the foundation has encouraged the young photographers to reflect how their communities are shaped by football, rugby, athletics, cricket, boxing and the like.
Since the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa, the charity has worked alongside the Premier League, the FA, the Olympic Games, the Cricket World Cup, the RFU and now the MLS in North America. Ultimately the US cohorts will be given the opportunity to photograph at the US Soccer World Cup in 2026 and the 2028 LA Olympics.
Over the past three years, the students from Los Angeles have had their work exhibited in the US and Europe and have been trained as teachers themselves. This is extraordinary given these young people are often from backgrounds of abject poverty, bypassed by formal education, employment opportunities, shelter and basic nourishment.
Having already taken responsibility for teaching new groups of students in South Central LA, the young photographers have now stepped out of their comfort zone and been responsible for running projects in Chicago, notably in the southern areas of the city where gang violence is an everyday occurrence. In Chicago the programmes are run in partnership with From the Streets to the Set and the Little Village Community and Boxing Center.
As part of a collaboration now in its fifth year, Leica Camera donated camera equipment to the Wembley to Soweto Foundation, which the cohort of students from Little Village, Chicago used during their training. The young students (whose work can be seen below) learned photography techniques from their LA contemporaries in a variety of locations across Chicago, from Millennium Park at the Loop to the National Museum of Mexican Art, from the Shameless House to Hampton House (home of the Black Panthers), from the streets of Cicero to the electric atmosphere of a downtown boxing gym and, of course, Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears. All these opportunities enabled the photographers to capture images and depict stories from their hometown Chicago landscape.
Quiet Reflection – The Bean, Millennium Park.
Lost Her Head – Midlothian, Illinois (above left), Preparing to Scramble – Cafe Urbano, N Elson Ave (above right).
Eyes Down – Urban Coffee House, N Elston Ave (above left), Chewing the Fat – Andersonville (above right), Happy Barista – Cafe Urbano, N Elston Ave (below).
Hanging in the Backstreets – Little Village.
Skullduggery – Notches on the Fanbelt (above).
Urban Art – Twisted Tattoo Studio, Elston Ave
Formation Wheelies – Michigan Avenue (above left), The Lone Ranger – Michigan Avenue (above right), Under the Bean – reflections of the sculpture in Millennium Park (below).
Melissa's Mural – Memorial at West 26th Street and South Keeler Avenue in Little Village, painted by the artist Milton Coronado to honour Melissa Ortega, eight, who was fatally shot when caught in a gang crossfire.
Fred Hampton Jr explaining the history of The Black Panthers (above), Off on Patrol – Cicero, Illinois (below).
Chillaxing – Little Village boxing gym.
Headlines – Little Village boxing gym.
City Light – Soldier Field (above), Amy the Matriarch – Little Village (below).
Silver Lining – Little Village (below).
Floral Tributes – Batchelor's Grove Cemetery
Straw Hat – National Museum of Mexican Art (above), Into The Blue – Downtown Chicago (below).
Start of the Thaw – Chicago River.
Comrades – Little Village community support (above).
Ricky the community leader – Little Village boxing gym (above left), Keeping Watch – Clubland, Cicero (above right), Toy Story gang-style – Little Village (below).
Catching Some Rays – Little Village (above), Pensive Panther – Fred Hampton House, Maywood (below).
Grazed Knuckles – Little Village
At the end of the project the students had the opportunity to exhibit their work in their own communities. They have already been invited to exhibit in Las Vegas and Frankfurt at IMEX conventions in November 2025 and May 2026 respectively.
A selection of the photographs shown here will also be on display at the Exchange Theatre, Twickenham on 4 and 5 July. As part of this event, the Academy Award nominee Stockard Channing's production of Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape will play simultaneously at the same venue, with all profits being donated to the Wembley to Soweto Foundation.
The funds from future exhibitions will be used to take disadvantaged young people from inner cities across the UK to work with their contemporaries from LA and Chicago at the 2026 World Cup.