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Join artists and educators Nicole Marroquin and Malika Jackson for a conversation on how art and community has empowered Chicago youth in social-political ways.

Exhibiting artist Nicole Marroquin’s practice examines the history of art and activism in Chicago’s student walkouts since the 1960s. Jackson has cultivated Dixon Elementary School’s unique Afro-centered collection with works from students and national artists. Since 2002, the Chatham-based school collection has celebrated cultural and historic contributions by African Americans in its hallway. Together they discuss how art education is a tool that facilitates self-determination and political expression.

Nicole Marroquin is an artist who explores spatial justice, belonging and Latinx history through projects that decenter dominant narratives to address displacement and erasure. Through research and creative practice, she aims to recover and re-present histories of Black and brown youth and women’s leadership in the struggle for justice. Recently she has presented projects at the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan, the Kochi Biennale, the Annual Conference of the American Association of Research Librarians, University of Maine, New York Archivist Round Table, Jane Addams Hull House Museum, DePaul Museum of Art, on WLPN Lumpen Radio, Gallery 400, Hyde Park Art Center and more. Her essays are included in the Visual Art Research Journal, Counter-Signals, the Chicago Social Practice History Series, Revista Contratiempo, Where the Future Came From, and Organize Your Own: The Politics and Poetics of Self-Determination Movements. She is a 2022 United States Artist Fellowship recipient and a member of the Justseeds and Chicago ACT collectives.

Malika Jackson has been exhibited in galleries, festivals, in group and solo shows. She received a SPARK Award-2020, a six-month residency at Hyde Park Art Center ‘THE CENTER PROGRAM’. Recently completed a solo show at the Hyde Park Art Center, showed with Sapphire and Crystals at Bridgeport Art Gallery, and the Addington Gallery. Received commissions for the Ronald McDonald Houses’ – the Ryder Cup Tournament; Solo exhibition at the Hyde Park Art Center, exhibited at the Howard Brown Center, Black Clay at Chicago State, Fast Forward, Rewind: Play, HPAC, ‘From the Earth-Woman Made Gallery, Gallery D’Estees, Noyes Gallery, Museum of Science and Industry, Artopolis at the Merchandise Mart, Cliff Dwellers, and numerous other venues. Awards include honorable mention, Museum of Science & Industry, Black Creativity; honored by the Diasporal Rhythms Art Association; art grant from the city of Chicago, design awards-Ann Brooks and Fur International Awards. Commissions for public artwork through the City of Chicago. Curator for Women’s Made Gallery and curator and coordinated ‘Cultural Connections African Art Bazaar for 25 yeas. Featured in ‘Curators of Dixon’; ‘Producing Local Color’ – Art Network in Ethnic Chicago’, by Diane Grams; ‘South Shore Current’.

Jackson has taught in the Chicago Public Schools, Charter School, Community Organizations and at the Hyde Park Art Center. MFA & BFA from the School of the Art Institute, and studied at Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois.


ACCESS INFORMATION: This program is free and open to the public. For questions and access accommodations, email gallery400engagement@gmail.com.