Work In Context:
The Cliff Dwellers Sessions
is a new interview podcast series celebrating Chicago creatives — their histories, work, methodologies, principles, ambitions, and more. Hosted by Chicago author Richard Reeder, each episode features a different Chicago-based creative ready to share the lessons they've learned and the ideas they've cultivated. Conversations take place by the fireplace at The Cliff Dwellers, a club for members engaged in or supportive of the arts, located in downtown Chicago.
Cristal Sabbagh
Movement and Interdisciplinary Artist
Cristal Sabbagh’s interdisciplinary practice includes traditional portraiture, ceramics, and performance. While movement is the spine of her practice and the core that all her other work emanates from, intentional spontaneity, reverence, and bliss are threads woven throughout. Sabbagh’s performance practice, rooted in improvisation and Butoh, walks a line between the everyday, the divine, the personal, and the political. In embodying in her art transformational memories while simultaneously celebrating pop culture and the experimental, she challenges power structures and awakens viewers’ senses. In 2021 Cristal was awarded a 3Arts / Make a Wave Artist grant, and in 2023 she was awarded an Individual Artists Program grant from DCASE. In January of 2025 Cristal was included in New City’s Top 50 Players issue: People Who Really Perform in Chicago, in their Dance category. She is currently curating and performing in Freedom From and Freedom To.
Will Quam
Architectural Photographer / Historian
Will Quam is an architecture photographer and historian. He has been described as “Chicago’s premiere brick expert” by Geoffrey Baer of PBS Chicago and through his project Brick of Chicago he has led more than 10,000 Chicagoans and tourists on brick walking tours of the city. His tours have been voted the second best tour in Chicago by the Chicago Reader, and his work has been featured in such outlets as the Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg CityLab, NPR’s Marketplace, Block Club Chicago, Preservation Magazine, and more. His book Fire and Clay: How Brick Reveals the Hidden History of Chicago was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2026.
COMING SOON
Lee Bey
Architecture Critic and Photographer
Lee Bey is an architecture critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. He is also author of the much-praised book Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side (Northwestern University Press, 2019), which showcases his architectural photography and social commentary. Bey's photography is also featured in the book, Who is the City For? Architecture, Equity, and the Public Realm in Chicago (University of Chicago Press, 2022) by former Chicago Tribune Architecture Critic Blair Kamin. Bey was also the host of the public television special, Building Blocks: The Architecture of Chicago’s South Side, which aired on WTTW in 2023, earning him a 2023 Midwest Emmy nomination. He is the 2021 recipient of Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award. Bey is currently working on a book that documents the architecture of Chicago’s West Side.