The Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago is currently showcasing an exhibition called "not all realisms: photography, Africa, and the long 1960s."

The exhibit delves into photography during Africa's 1960s era of various movements and life within several of the continent's countries, a release from the Smart Museum said. It opened Feb. 23 and will run through June 4.

"I am grateful to Leslie [Wilson] and the team for realizing an impactful and thoughtful project that will stand as the Smart’s first self-organized exhibition focusing on material from Africa," Vanja Malloy, the Smart Museum's Dana Feitler director, said in the release. "In addition to serving as a catalyst for expanding the collection and providing opportunities for student research, not all realisms pushes the boundaries of disciplines to engage scholars and build relationships through courses in Art History, Political Science, Anthropology, English, and History across the University, Chicago, and beyond."

The exhibit presents an array of materials, such as images and books, that were utilized to document and communicate the relationship between photography and life in Africa during the 1960s; the release said. With a focus on Ghana, Mali and South Africa, it comprises nearly 200 items, including works by renowned photographers such as Ernest Cole and James Barnor. Most of the items are sourced from collections in Chicago.

“In this exhibition, the 1960s is an idea that’s loose, expansive, hiccupping, looping," Leslie M. Wilson, guest curator and associate director of Academic Engagement and Research at the Art Institute of Chicago, said in the release. "not all realisms poses questions about photography’s relationship to time, place, individual experience, and collective continuities, breaks, and transformations. Through a diverse body of material—ranging from studio portraits and magazine photo essays to book-length photographic studies and government pamphlets—the exhibition examines photography’s capacity to construct and convey what happened across Africa during the 1960s. In turn, it challenges us to consider our own relationships with photography and our hopes for what photographs can be and do."

1960 marked a significant time in African history, as 17 nations gained their independence, a recent ARTnews report said. Throughout the rest of the 1960's, more than a dozen other African nations also became independent. But the struggle for self-determination was not universal, as South Africa's Black population resisted against racial segregation and discrimination.