Jon Tonks & Roman Franc | Groups Collective: Bloomington Indiana
June 18, 2025
The Fourth and Rogers block party this summer was bustling with local music, food and artisans. It was a perfect setting for the opening reception of “Groups Collective,” which features portraits of various groups in Bloomington. This project was a culmination of an intensive project that photographers Jon Tonks and Roman Franc brought to fruition in 7 weeks.
We loved having people who participated in the group portraits come by the gallery to celebrate with us. We had limestone craftsman, Czech Ambassadors, young dancers, IU basketball players and more. And whether you were in a photo, helped facilitate introductions, opened your space to Jon and Roman, or just engaged with us about this project in some way– all of these contributions were all essential. We truly appreciate the openness and generosity of our city.
What happens when people come together for a group portrait? Individuals form into a clump or a line; they hold still, look into the eye of the lens, and then break formation. When people consciously gather, stop, and take stock of their togetherness, the act of making a photograph marks and magnifies the group’s significance.
Jon Tonks and Roman Franc have been carting a large format camera all over Bloomington to make group portraits. Cumbersome and slow, the camera yields only a few frames at a time, and single sheets of film must be developed by hand. Yet the care taken to plan and produce each image lends gravity to the act of making a portrait. It’s very different from a finger on an iphone, and everyone involved feels the difference.
In this project, the formality of the process is tempered by a sense of humor. People in the pictures are straight-faced by instruction but are meanwhile engaged in small outrageous acts, like wearing their skates on their hands, or cramming eighteen people together into a canoe. Humor is a distinctive part of the work, but it’s not at the expense of the subjects. Instead, it’s harnessed to build subtle vulnerability between the people in the portraits and those viewing them. People let their guard down, just a little bit, to be playful. That’s disarming, and it helps cut through dividing lines. The humor is collective; if there’s a joke, everyone in the picture is in on it, and the viewer can be too.
Anyone from Bloomington will have groups come to mind that are not on the walls. The project could go on for years and still not be exhaustive. But what’s here reminds us that a town is made of many parts, and these are pieces of a larger whole.
The photographers are not from Bloomington, and they bring an alternate perspective from outside of town. Why might we want to look at that? It can be a constructive and rewarding exercise to view something you know well, through a different set of eyes. As non-American artists, Tonks and Franc did not set out to make a definitive portrait of Bloomington, but rather to reflect back their delight in the town and its people.
- Mia + Lisa
See more of Jon + Roman’s work HERE
