Earlier this summer, I returned to France to continue working on my Hauts-de-France Mining Basin project and to present at a conference about resilience strategies. While there, I photographed throughout the region, including at high-profile coal mine redevelopment sites.

I was in Los Angeles for a couple of days last week to screen The Area at the Urban Affairs Association annual meeting and then prepare for our screening at the Echo Park Film Center. I didn’t have much time to make new work, but I was able to set aside a couple of hours to get out into the city.

The beginning of 2019 has been full of photographic and film events, but I'd like to pause and share details from my three exhibitions in Milwaukee, Indianapolis, and Chicago.

After years of steadily developing several long-term projects, 2018 was the year many of them dramatically changed. The Area is out in the world; my Hauts-de-France work is exhibiting; so many other projects are evolving. With those big changes in mind, here's a recap of my work on major projects in 2018, a few highlights from smaller projects, and a little looking ahead to 2019.

The American Sociological Association held its annual meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this year, and I was excited to return. I spent a lot of time in Philadelphia in the 1990s and early 2000s and was surprised to figure out that the last time I'd been in the city was 2009.

Belfast, Northern Irelands Troubles are discussed in the past tense. After all, 2018 is the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, and the open war that left more than 3,500 people dead has drawn to a close. But the peace building process is a long one, and commitment to peace is not universal.

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• On August 27, David will present with architects Mar Santamaria Varas and Pablo Martínez of 300.000 km/s at Espai Serrahima in Barcelona, Spain.
• At the end of June, David and The Area participated in the International Visual Sociology Association annual meeting at Skidmore College.
• On June 6th, David participated in the 47th meeting of the Ateliers Projet urbain at the Louvre-Lens Museum in Lens, France.
• Chicago Stories: Carlos Javier Ortiz and David Schalliol opened at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Illinois on April 11.
• Two exhibitions of David's recent work are currently on view. On January 18, Growing Place opened at the Grohmann Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Three Communities opened at the Tube Factory Artspace in Indianapolis, Indiana on February 1st.
• On January 20, David presented a talk at Kenyon College.
• The Area recently screened at Rush Medical Center, The University of Chicago, and St. Olaf College, and is starting to screen in communities around the country. Find public screenings or make a request for your own on the film's website.
• David was interviewed about The Area by the Chicago Reader and Chicago Public Radio.
• The Area had a special advance screening during the Black Harvest Film Festival on August 23rd followed by a two-week run at the theater from September 14 to 27.
• This August, during the American Sociological Association's annual meeting, David participated in the panel "Doing Sociology Beyond University Walls."
• In the last week of June, David contributed an exhibition and presentation to RDV avec la Ville in Valenciennes, France. Beforehand, he participated in screenings and discussions of The Area cosponsored by Labo CCP and the Centre régional de la photographie Hauts-de-France at Cinéma l'Univers in Lille and Cinéma L'Imaginaire in Douchy-les-Mines.
• On April 20, David participated in the Frontiers of Debt in the Caribbean & Afro-America conference at Columbia University.
• "Brutal Destruction," an exhibition documenting the ongoing ruination of significant works of concrete architecture, opened April 12 at over,under's Pinkcomma Gallery. David is showing his photographs of Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Women's Hospital. The exhibition has been covered by publications including Architectural Digest, Curbed, and Dezeen.
• The Area had its world premiere at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in April 2018.