Learning Together: Art Education and Community Access

Applied to the wall is black vinyl text. Above three columns of text is a heading. The heading reads: Learning Together: Art Education and Community, in large bold and italic letters, then September 5- December 14, 2024 in small letters underneath. To the right of that, it reads curated by Ines-Arango-Guingue, Denny Mwaura, and Lorelei Stewart

The left column reads:

Art Resources in Teaching

Margaret Burroughs

Arthur Dixon Elementary School

Paulina Camacho Valencia and Nicole Maraquin

Chicago Commons

Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education

Chicago Public Art Group

Community TV Network

Edward Jenner Elementary

Academy of the Arts

Gallery 37

Keith haring

Jordan Knecht

Little Black Pearl

Faheem Majeed

Malu Ortega Guerro, Jimmy Longoria Oscar Moya, Marcos Rayas, and Salvador Vega

Pros Arts Studio

Diana Solis

Spiral Workshop

Stockyard Institute

YolloCalli Arts Reach

The middle column reads:

From when we are children into our adulthood, art education is a ground from which creativity is sparked, nurtured, and expanded. It’s a source of agency that taps cultural roots and builds community connections.

This exhibition centers the progressive art pedagogy of a diverse group of Chicago K-12 artist educators from the mid-1960s through the 2010s. The unique practices of educators working across Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods have fostered imagination, autonomy, cultural heritage, and organizing across Chicago Public Schools, alternative school networks, and community organizations. Learning Together, built from three years of research, including over 35 oral history interviews, is the first broad telling of this history. Although not comprehensive, this exhibition demonstrates how Chicago’s teachers and students have linked art education to movements for access, self-determination, and social justice.

The very right column, it continues and reads:

A companion exhibition to Learning Together is presented at UIC’s Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Radical Craft: Arts Education at Hull-House, 1889-1935 highlights craft’s centrality to the settlement house’s groundbreaking work in art education in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Learning Together is part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities. Learning Together is funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Additional support is provided by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; the School of Art & Art History; the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts; and the University of Illinois Chicago.

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Historical Approaches

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Many threads of history lie behind Chicago’s progressive art education in the latter 20th and early 21st centuries. Many educators created school and community art programs to address the disparities and opportunity gaps Chicago youth faced as a result of racism, segregation, and economic divestment. This introductory section highlights educators and organizations whose values and approaches set a precedent for the work of more recent artist educators.

In 1894, not far from here, Hull-House co-founder Ellen Gates Starr and a group of women from the Chicago Woman’s Club established the Chicago Public School Art Society (CPSAS), which provided reproductions and sculpture casts to schools in underserved communities. Over many decades, CPSAS brought art to schools, offered art appreciation lectures and curricula, led museum visits for school children, and awarded scholarships to art students. In 1984, CPSAS changed its name to Art Resources in Teaching (A.R.T.) to avoid confusion with the public school system. Later, in 2013, A.R.T. merged into Urban Gateways, a theater and music education organization dedicated to equitable access and the voices of the young. Today, Urban Gateways continues to offer programs to over 80,000 young people annually across Chicago.

Another influential force was Dr. Margaret Burroughs, an artist, poet, activist, educator, and institution builder who fostered Black-centered spaces and led institutions where Black youth and artists found respite in a system shaped by racism. At the age of 24, Burroughs co-founded the historic South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC) with Black artists in the city because they had few opportunities to exhibit. SSCAC artists shared their talents and art school knowledge with community members, teaching classes to the young and old. Burroughs taught art at Bronzeville’s DuSable High School from the mid-1940s to late-1960s. In 1961, she and her husband created in their home what is now The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, an institution that studies and preserves Black culture.

Verbal Description

Sectioned on the left side of the wall is a display of photographs and ephemera enclosed behind clear plexiglass. The photographs depict art classes at the South Side Community Art Center, the Chicago Public School Art Society events with young children, and Margaret Burroughs’ gifting her linocuts to schools and school children, among others. Printed documents include Art Resources in Teaching (A.R.T) materials, a map of fine art sites in Chicago, ways to incorporate art into other school subjects, and more.

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Participatory Approaches

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Funding structures often limit arts education. Significantly, during the 1970s budget crisis, Chicago Public Schools laid off almost all its art teachers. In the 1980s and 90s, private foundations led efforts to increase access to arts education, providing grant funds, studies, and plans according to their standards. In this evolving landscape and amid changing criteria, teachers devised diverse approaches to educating in the arts, often working to fill gaps left by the public standards, systems, and funding structures.

One significant approach included students as partners to promote the students’ agency and expression as a way to affirm their identities and community ties. Whether founded by community museums, groups of artists, or college art education professors, numerous Chicago organizations have collaboratively imagined alongside students, inviting their participation as partners, decision-makers, and co-creators.

Verbal Description

An installation of photos and paper ephemera enclosed under plexiglass. The images include children painting Chicago Transit Authority train stations and in domestic interiors, completed artworks, and posters for events. At the bottom right of the display is a collection of zines describing stories of children getting punished for wrongdoings and the lessons they learned. The center of the display includes lithographic prints created by students.

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Arts Integration

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Across the history of art education, the question of purpose and goals has been debated. Are the primary purposes of art education creative inquiry, critical thinking, self-discovery, confidence building, deeper social connections, improved outcomes in other subjects, and/or skill building for professional roles?

An approach that connects the arts to other school disciplines, arts integration has been explored in the US since the 1930s. Arts integration, which began to be more widely practiced in the 1970s and 80s, allows students to engage in the creative process to explore connections between an art form and another subject area to gain a greater understanding of both. Sculpture and science, for example, or drawing and literature are taught simultaneously, often in a collaboration between a teaching artist and a classroom teacher. Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) has been Chicago’s leader in arts integration since the 1990s. In addition to facilitating art integration programs across Chicago Public Schools and supporting educators in developing curricula and creative inquiries, CAPE supports significant research on social-emotional learning, academic success, and teacher growth resulting from arts integration.

Educators at CAPE were significantly influenced by the work of Chicago Commons, a Reggio Emilia studio for very young children. The Reggio Emilia approach emphasizes child-centered experiential learning that integrates touching, moving, listening, and observing. Documentation is also centered in this approach as a way for educators to understand how their student-peers are growing in their understanding of a particular subject. CAPE adopted documentation as a central practice, notably in student project exhibitions, among other formats.

Verbal Description

On the first wall of the long hallway is a display of ephemera and photos from Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) events and engagements, and the Keith Haring Chicago Mural. Photos include individuals with Keith Haring murals and paint supplies. Documents display correspondence with Chicago Public Schools, student painting schedules, and assessment forms, among other documents.

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Professional Development Approaches

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Multiple programs in Chicago support young people with paid mentorships in the arts, often with an entrepreneurial focus. To marry education and the fight against inequality, unemployment, and crime, these organizations have devised multiple ways to lead programs that support students’ professional futures. Paying teens a financial stipend to get involved in creative projects teaches youth the value of their time and lowers barriers to participation. Students are also offered safe environments, positive role models, arrays of skill development activities, and pathways to real-life applications of talent, interest, and skills.

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Museological Approaches

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Exhibition and display methods play a significant role in art education work. In Chicago, significant museums were founded as educational venues, most notably the National Museum of Mexican Art and The DuSable Black History Museum and Educational Center. In schools, students often organize their objects in exhibition formats for their classmates and families. Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education presents multiple year-end exhibitions where students, families, and educators not only experience the art made in their own schools, but also work created by other young people in the city’s schools. Spiral Workshop similarly created exhibitions as part of the learning process.

Two noteworthy forms of museum and exhibition-making that fostered curatorial and docent skills are shared here. One is a co-created memorial to the loss of a beloved school building (Edward Jenner Elementary Academy of the Arts). The other as a growing source of education, affirmation, and pride (Arthur Dixon Elementary School).

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Art Powers, Tonika Johnson and Joe “Cujo” Nelson

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Art Powers, Tonika Johnson and Joe “Cujo” Nelson

Art Powers, 2024

Inkjet prints

Courtesy the artists

Verbal Description

On the Van Buren Street side of the gallery, three exterior windows are covered in multicolored decals. Decal imagery includes smiling children, intersecting geometric shapes, and phrases like “Bold Futures,” “Act,” among others.

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Co-founders of Chicago’s Englewood Arts Collective artist Tonika Johnson and muralist Joe “Cujo” Nelson have collaborated on investing in their native Englewood neighborhood. In the South Side, they have transformed a vacant building into an artists’ studio and exhibition storefront, distributed grants to young Black and Brown creatives, beautified public spaces with murals, activated abandoned lots with pop-up art-related events to promote healing, and worked with neighbors on rehabilitating homes with new roofs and building wealth through home equity. Their social actions repair the disinvestments Black communities continue to face.

Art Powers reflects the role of art education programs such as Gallery 37, an organization that empowered Chicago’s youth in wide-ranging art experiences in tents on a vacant lot in the Loop during the 1990s. Johnson says: “Joe and I had to travel outside our neighborhood for arts programs and high school. We formed a friendship during those commutes that evolved into many creative and community-based collaborations as adults, shaping much of the work we do today. Those experiences highlighted how transformative arts programs were for us, inspiring us to co-found the Englewood Arts Collective with eight other creatives from Englewood. This work embodies the heart of our friendship and our mission with the Englewood Arts Collective: to build spaces where art empowers bold futures. We aim to ensure future generations of young creatives can grow and thrive without having to leave their neighborhoods, like we did.”

This artwork is presented as part of UIC Gallery 400’s exhibition Learning Together: Art Education and Community, on view through December 14, 2024.

Art Powers is funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Additional support is provided by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; the School of Art & Art History; the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts; and the University of Illinois Chicago.

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Documentation of artwork in the hallways of Arthur Dixon Elementary School, Arthur Dixon Elementary School

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Arthur Dixon Elementary School

Documentation of artwork in the hallways of Arthur Dixon Elementary School, 2024

Mural print, inkjet prints

Courtesy Natasha Moustache

Verbal Description

Six wood framed images of the interior of Dixon Elementary School. The photos are arranged with three horizontal images on top of three vertically formatted images, and they appear slightly off center of the wall. The yellow walls are lined with Black and African artworks including drawings, posters and prints, and Margaret Burroughs’ linocuts.

Large mural image of a hallway at Dixon Elementary School. The walls are yellow towards the top and then shift into tan tiling. On the yellow portion of the wall is a row of artworks with various dimensions. The tiled areas include cases full of trophies and art. Sculptures, benches, and a water fountain sit against the hallway’s wall. Fluorescent lights line the ceiling creating a reflective line at the center of the photograph.

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Since 2002, Arthur Dixon Elementary School in the Chatham neighborhood has collected and displayed in its hallways over 200 Afro-centric artworks donated by students, alumni, and national artists. Organized around historical and cultural contributions by African Americans, including sports, the arts, politics, and the sciences, the Dixon collection is stewarded by the school’s young students who act as its docents and, at the end of every year, hold a silent auction, with proceeds benefiting the arts program. The collection was founded by former Dixon principal Joan Dameron Crisler with the assistance of artist- educator Malika Jackson, who continues to cultivate this unique well of inspiration for students within the school.

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Margaret Burroughs

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Margaret Burroughs

Riding Together, 1998

Linocut, paper

Courtesy the South Side Community Art Center

Margaret Burroughs

My Birthday Party, 1957

Linocut, paper

Courtesy the DuSable Museum of African American History

Margaret Burroughs

Big Bill Broonzy—The Folk Singer, 1992

Linocut, paper

Courtesy the DuSable Museum of African American History

Margaret Burroughs

In School—Together, 1967

Linocut, paper

Courtesy the South Side Community Art Center

Margaret Burroughs

Children’s Art Classes, n.d

Ink and pencil on poster board

Courtesy the DuSable Museum of African American History

Books:

Black poetry booklet

Courtesy the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center

Minds Flowing Free. Original Poetry by ‘The Ladies’.

Women’s Cook County Department of Corrections, 1985-1986

Courtesy the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center

Africa, My Africa!, 1970

Courtesy the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center

What Shall I Tell My Children? An Addenda, 1975

Courtesy the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center

Poems for Children, 1983

Courtesy the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center

Verbal Description

Four black and white linocut prints hang on the left side of a large wall. Each one depicts a different interior scene; young people in a classroom, at a birthday party, on the bus, and playing music together. Long, straight lines create the scenes, they form interior walls and flooring, while more arched, and rounded lines create details; they form children’s hair, clothing, and facial features.

Near one of the linocuts is a shelf lined with booklets. Each cover of the five booklets features a different Margaret Burroughs’ linocut and contains collections of poetry. From left to right, they are titled “WHAT SHALL I TELL MY CHILDREN? AN ADDENDA. By Margaret Goss Burroughs with a Letter from Ruwa Chiri.” “BLACK BLACK by Dr. Margaret Burroughs,” “POEMS FOR CHILDREN BY MARGARET T. BURROUGHS, THE DUSABLE MUSEUM CHICAGO,” “MINDS FLOWING FREE ORIGINAL POETRY BY “THE LADIES” WOMEN’S DIVISION OF COOK COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS 1985-1986 DR. MARGARET T. BURROUGHS, EDITOR,” “AFRICA, MY AFRICA! by Margaret T. G. Burroughs, The DuSable Museum Press 3806 South Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60653.”

Above the shelf of Margaret Burroughs’ written works is a poster advertising children’s art classes. The poster reads “SIGN UP NOW! FOR CHILDREN’S ART CLASSES SATURDAY DuSable Museum of African & American History 740 E. 56th.” On the right side of the image is a drawing of a paint brush, pencil, and etching tool.

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Dr. Burroughs reproduced and liberally gifted her linocut prints to educators, schools, and students across Chicago, demonstrating her belief that “art is communication.” Showing her deep involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, her prints and poetry are dedicated to portraying the Black experience. While some of her pieces highlight notable historical Black figures, others focus on quotidian situations where children of different skin tones are shown dancing, chatting, and learning together. The four prints in the exhibition are a selection of the latter, emphasizing her influence on children’s education in the South Side of Chicago.

Some of her work as a poet was compiled in small books, including poems written by incarcerated women with whom Burroughs worked and for whom she advocated throughout her career.

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Chicago Arts Partnership in Education (CAPE)

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Scott Sikkema

Introducing the CAPE Artist/Researcher, 2016

Booklet

Courtesy UIC Gallery 400 Archives

Margaret “Peggy” Rux (Teacher), Chuck Jones (Teaching Artist), 3rd-grade students of Louis Pasteur Elementary School

Monster Medley: Sets and Structures, 2024

Courtesy Chuck Jones

Arturo Barrera (classroom teacher), Chuck Jones (teaching artist), 3rd grade students of Louis Pasteur Elementary School

Many Mini Magazines: Words and Pictures for Your Pocket, 2024

Courtesy Chuck Jones

Verbal Description

Twenty children’s drawings are arranged from most flower-like to most monstrous. The pencil drawings include flowers, monster-like figures, distorted and smiling faces, and landscape scenes. Penciled writings on the wall indicate that the drawings at the left side of the top row are the most flower-like and the drawings at the bottom left are most monstrous.

Next to the arrangement of drawings is a shelf holding multiple zines created by children. These zines fold out like booklets and include drawings and annotations on each sheet.

On the opposite side of the wall, is a small blue booklet titled “Introducing the CAPE Artist/Researcher” resting on top of a small shelf.

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Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) addresses academic and artistic questions via collaborations between a classroom teacher and a teaching artist who works with students, experimenting with multiple strategies of engagement via inquiry questions. In his 2016 text, former CAPE Director of Education Scott Sikkema delineated the CAPE Learner and Artist/Researcher (A/R) as a reflective questioner, a critical collaborator, a role-shifter, an integrative innovator, and a social engager. Today, the A/R model, as it is now known, is used to drive inquiry, curriculum, and continued learning. The two projects co-led by CAPE teaching artist Chuck Jones at Louis Pasteur Elementary School are examples of the kind of inquiry-based learning fostered by CAPE. The project on the left, a collaboration with teacher Margaret “Peggy” Rux, responds to the inquiry question: “Can third-grade students draw monsters based upon recipes and then organize them into sets?” Similarly, Jones’ project with teacher Arturo Barrera, on the right, emerges from the question: “Can you make a cool book out of a single sheet of paper? And after that, can you make a better one and a better one? Could you teach a friend to make one?

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Exploring Hands — Chicago Commons New City: A PreSchool Classroom’s Study of Identity through Hands, Chicago Commons

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Chicago Commons

Exploring Hands — Chicago Commons New City: A PreSchool Classroom’s Study of Identity through Hands, 2000

Booklet, inkjet prints from digitized color slides

Courtesy Gigi Yu

Verbal Description

Three images hang on the wall side by side. Two of the images feature drawings of hands by children. The third image portrays a classroom with a shadow projection of common objects. To the right of the photos is a small shelf supporting a booklet titled “Exploring Hands, Chicago Commons New City, A PreSchool Classroom’s Study of Identity through Hands.”

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Founded in 1894 as one of Chicago’s original settlement houses, Chicago Commons is still a multi-site social service agency and one of the largest early childhood education providers. In 1993, the Reggio Emilia Approach, a social constructivist pedagogy originating in Northern Italy, was introduced to the organization, marking a critical juncture in the history of arts integration in classrooms with young learners throughout Chicago. The concept of the Hundred Languages, the collaborative role of the studio coordinator, and the incorporation of the atelier (studio) within the Chicago Commons child development agency were pivotal to developing innovative arts education programming for young children, infants to school age, early educators, and their families. An example of the Reggio Emilia Approach in practice is the Exploring Hands project, which documents ways of visually investigating the uniqueness of hands in a preschool setting. The project traces the progression of a classroom of young children’s understanding of themselves, their peers, teachers, parents, and community members’ identities through tracing, drawing, molding from clay, and discussing interpretations of this familiar subject.

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Chicago Public Art Group

John Pitman Weber, Bernard Williams, Lynn Edwards

Urban World at the Crossroads at Orr Academy High School, 1997

Mural print of Orr Academy High School

Image by Natasha Moustache

Courtesy Chicago Public Art Group

Moses X Ball, Damon Lamar Reed

Documentation of Changemakers mural in North Lawndale, 2005

Inkjet prints

Courtesy Chicago Public Art Group

Moses X Ball, Damon Lamar Reed

Students and artists in front of Urban World at the Crossroads mural, 1997

Inkjet print

Courtesy Chicago Public Art Group

Verbal Description

On the center wall of the exhibition room is a large print of a colorful mural. The mural has squared sections that include imagery like ladders, the globe with a bandage, and the word “Brother” encircled by linework, among others. The top of the mural has a school bus and Chicago Transit Authority bus placed side by side. To the left of the buses is a father holding his child whose eyes are closed as he rests against his father. The father looks off into the distance as his arms encircle the child. Below them are adinkra symbols. An outlined black truck intersects these sections.

On a perpendicular wall are four prints of Chicago Public Art Group’s murals. The largest image depicts a mosaic with a Black man pouring water on himself. He wears a chunky gold chain with a cross at the end. Above his head, a golden section with a dove rests at the center. Green and blue tiled sections fill the background. Below him stands a live young Black man similarly dressed in a white shirt, looking downward.

The three other images show in-progress murals with young people posing in front of them, students placing mosaic tiles, and learning mosaic techniques.

Extended Label

Founded in 1972 by John Weber and William Walker, the Chicago Public Art Group (CPAG) has produced approximately a thousand public art pieces that amplify communities’ stories and needs through collaboration with artists, students, and community activists. CPAG artists work closely with communities, ofteninvolving them in the mural-making process, thus creating educational opportunities for all involved. Urban Worlds at the Crossroads and Changemakers exemplify CPAG collaboration with youth: The former was designed and produced alongside a team of Youth Service Project/Gallery 37 teens who used a cut- paper collage technique inspired by artist Romare Bearden’s work. Changemakers was created in collaboration with 15 students, grades 9-12, and entailed weeks of training in glass mosaic techniques. Visible in one of the photographs is a student posing with a representation of himself in the mural, showing North Lawndale’s residents’ desire for self-representation.

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Community TV Network

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Community TV Network

Ready or Not (excerpts), 1996

Video, 16:00 mins

Community TV Network

The Memory Museum, 2000

Video, 8:58 minutes

Verbal Description

Three framed images sit side by side on the left side of the wall. They are all black and white and depict the “behind the scenes” happenings of the Community TV Network. Individuals are depicted holding video cameras and microphones, and recording individuals in staged sets and outside.

In the middle of the wall is a large television playing a Community TV Network film titled “The Memory Museum.” On the right side of the screen is an arrangement of horizontal photographs depicting adults and children handling video cameras.

Extended Label

Community TV Network (CTVN) has an ongoing, fifty-year legacy utilizing media as a pedagogical tool to raise awareness of underserved youth across Chicago. Founded in 1974 by Denise Zaccardi as a unique project of the Alternative Schools Network, CTVN has partnered with numerous schools, empowering and uplifting the voices of young makers by providing professional development opportunities in the fields of digital media production and offering one of the first digital arts curricula in the city.

CTVN’s Ready or Not documented the First National Youth Convention during the August 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The video features vignettes, interviews, and on-the-ground reporting with teens, prominent politicians, and policymakers (U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson, and the late Congressman John Lewis, and Illinois Senator Paul Simon make an appearance) discussing issues around youth’s role and participation in politics, gun control, neighborhood violence, and the creation of political platforms.

Directed, shot, and edited by CTVN youth, The Memory Museum is poetic testimony of the experience of students of Cabrini Green’s Edward Jenner Elementary Academy of the Arts as their school building was being torn down and they were transferred into new facilities. While this film shows the issues that intersected with the demolition of the school—systemic racism and gentrification, among others—its personal and contemplative tone underscores the students’ hopes and fears when faced with change within a fraught neighborhood. The video takes its title from The Memory Museum project that utilized Jenner’s empty classrooms for installations memorializing the school’s history. In the next room are objects from Jenner and The Memory Museum

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Edward Jenner Elementary Academy of the Arts

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Edward Jenner Elementary Academy of the Arts

Memory Museum Shadowbox, 2000

Wooden box, glass, found materials

Courtesy the Ogden International School of Chicago

Edward Jenner Elementary Academy of the Arts

Classroom Letter Cards, mid-20th century

Color print posters

Courtesy Mathias “Spider” Schergen

Verbal Description

A layout of fifteen posters arranged with three rows and five columns. The posters teach children alphabet and letter associations, and include an image of a child related to the letter association. For example, the letter “b” poster includes a picture of a young smiling girl and the text reads “B is for beautiful.”

Installed in the corner is a square shadowbox with border text reading “The Old Jenner School Memory Museum Shadowbox. Established 1908, demolished 2000.” The interior of the box includes candy and snack wrappers, crayons, bricks from the school’s exterior, photos of the building, students, and teachers, student records, and jars of ephemera. Two letters from Mrs. Coretta Scott King, and her children Yolanda, Martin Luther King III, and Bernice express gratitude for the letters sent from students at the Jenner School upon the death of Martin Luther King.

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“We started talking about a museum, me and the kids. I didn’t have a clear idea, but I love installation. I feel like I need to be careful about contemporary art with kids until they’re grown enough to understand things. But installation is a kid’s medium. We build stuff, we make stuff, we tear it down. We build forts; we hide behind couches. The idea of creating a space for me with kids just seemed very natural to me.”—Mathias “Spider” Schergen

In the 1960s, Edward Jenner Elementary Academy of the Arts, located in the Cabrini-Green public housing projects, was a vibrant community hub serving over 2,500 students, making it the largest elementary school in the city. By the late 1990s, enrollment had dwindled to 625 students. As enrollment changed and the surrounding Cabrini Green homes were razed as a part of the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation, Jenner was slated for demolition and a new building. Following its move to the new facility in 2000, nearby schools Richard E. Byrd Academy and Schiller Elementary School, were closed and merged into Jenner in 2004 and 2009. This relocation led to increased violence as rival gangs from Byrd and Schiller schools found themselves sharing the same space.

When the old Jenner School closed in 2000, the building, abandoned by the Chicago Board of Education, presented itself as a limitless opportunity for arts educator Mathias “Spider” Schergen. Schergen, Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education artist Cynthia Weiss, and Jenner students scavenged the empty building, collecting an array of ‘artifacts’ like teachers’ shoes left in closets, 1940s student records books, and a letter from Coretta Scott King signed by her and her children. From this work, The Memory Museum took shape as an installation in a Jenner classroom, where students made decisions on how to exhibit the artifacts put on display and acted as docents for open house visitors.

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Documentation of sections of the mural and CPS students with Haring, Marcelino Y. Fahd

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Marcelino Y. Fahd

Documentation of sections of the mural and CPS students with Haring, 1989

Inkjet prints, mural print

Keith Haring

Copy of Wells High School mural sketch, 1989

Paper, ink, pencil

Courtesy Irving Zucker

Verbal Description

Three paneled image of one of Keith Haring’s Chicago murals. The multicolored mural features abstract human figures, dogs, and a variety of swirling figures. Text appears inside figures and reads “stop the violence,” “Weiis class of ‘91,” “CVS,” and “Lady A” among other texts.

To the right of the three images is a drawing mock-up of another Chicago based mural from Haring. This version includes adjoining human figures, a figure inside of a television screen, and a mock-up of the wall on which the mural will hang. On the right side of the wall is a large photo of Keith Haring and students in front of the mural. They wear matching white graphic t-shirts and hats.

Extended Label

From May 15 to 19, 1989, approximately 500 Chicago Public School (CPS) students from 63 area high schools worked with Keith Haring to paint a 480-foot mural in Grant Park. The students were given five colors—red, orange, sky blue, light green, and yellow—to paint on the outlines Haring had previously drawn. The artist’s mural sketch for Wells Community Academy High School in West Town was produced in a similar but slightly different fashion. For Wells, Haring sent the sketch to the students who, by proxy, painted the mural in their school’s hallway.

Behind these two murals is the work of Irving Zucker, a CPS English teacher and self-proclaimed “jazz freak” who stimulated kids’ writing abilities by integrating art—playing music in the classroom, visits to jazz clubs and concerts, and, ultimately, this enormous collaboration with Haring—into his curriculum. After years of seeing the results of integrating art into his curriculum, Zucker navigated multiple bureaucratic hoops to offer students from all over the city the opportunity to work with Haring. The project partly catalyzed the 1991 creation of Gallery 37, where Zucker worked as one of its first coordinators.

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Gallery 37 / After School Matters

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Gallery 37 / After School Matters

Untitled Photos, Gallery 37, 1991

Digital photographs

Courtesy After School Matters

Gallery 37 / After School Matters

“Scruffy Block Becomes ‘Zone for Minds’,” July 17, 1994

Los Angeles Times

Reproduced newspaper article

Courtesy After School Matters

Gallery 37 / After School Matters

“Daley says Chicago’s summer jobs really work,” June 8, 1995

Louisville Courier-Journal

Reproduced newspaper article

Courtesy After School Matters

Verbal Description

This wall includes an arrangement of images and newspaper clippings related to Gallery 37. On the right side of the arrangement is a photograph featuring an aerial view of downtown Chicago. At the center is a four-story building with a bright mural on the left side. Situated on a bright red wall, the mural depicts a colorful cartoon-like robot named “Plug Bug,” who has multiple legs and arms.

The next image is a black and white photo depicting kids at work at an outdoor pop-up art studio. A large white tent occupies the left side of the background and encloses people sitting and working underneath it.

Two images arranged in a top-down structure feature views of a sculpture garden. The sculptures vary between more totem-like imagery and abstracted animals and shapes. Square-shaped sections of grass are dispersed in between pebbled pathways.

On the left most side of the wall are two images of kids drawing self portraits. Rows of children hold flat wooden easels with drawn portraits.

Two newspaper articles detail stories related to Gallery 37. One with a heading reading “Success Story: Scruffy Block Becomes ‘Zone for Minds’ describes a downtown block that was previously vacant due to a recession being revitalized by Gallery 37, a project giving local high school students summer jobs and training in the arts. The second is titled “Daley says Chicago’s summer jobs really work, Middle-class youths come back to the city.” The article features an image of Mayor Richard M. Daley speaking at a luncheon at the Seelbach Hotel. He wears a black suit and patterned tie, and holds his hand outward as he speaks.

Extended Label

“The financial part, the money, the compensation, I think was small compared to the mentoring and the encouragement of: ‘you have developed the skill now, you can probably go on and start to practice as an artist or let me coach you till you get to this place.’ But that was the main takeaway: they got mentorship and community. They were able to start to be introduced and work with other artists in the city.”—Kofi Darku, former Gallery 37 educator

Since its 1991 origins as Gallery 37, After School Matters has empowered Chicago’s youth in wide-ranging art experiences.

Started by Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs’ Lois Weisberg and Maggie Daley, the summer arts program for teens held in tents on a vacant lot in the Loop quickly branched out to Chicago Public Schools, neighborhoods, and communities, eventually renaming itself to After School Matters. Today, it offers over 24,000 program opportunities annually at 338 sites across Chicago, providing hands-on learning experiences led by professionals who equip youth with skill sets in the arts, communications, leadership, sports, and STEM. Each mentee earns a financial stipend, reinforcing the value of their work and helping them develop a sense of responsibility and professionalism. Centered in a nucleus of artistic production, Gallery 37 placed students within expansive social networks to further support their outreach and development as professional artists.

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A la esperanza, Malú Ortega Guerrero, Oscar Moya, Jimmy Longoria, Marsoc Raya, Salvador Vega, Community TV Network

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Malú Ortega Guerrero, Oscar Moya, Jimmy Longoria, Marsoc Raya, Salvador Vega

A la esperanza, 1979

Detail photographs of mural in progress

Courtesy Malú Ortega Guerrero and the National Museum of Mexican Art

Community TV Network

La Esperanza, 1981

Video, 17:31 mins.

Courtesy Community TV Network and Denise Zaccardi

Verbal Description

Eight digital photographs frame a large TV with Community TV Network’s La Esperanza on view. The digital photographs depict an in-progress mural. The mural includes skeleton figures, various faces and bodies in motion, and linework details that frame larger subjects.

At center, a video plays and features documentation about the mural being made and interviews.

Extended Label

As relevant as the legacies of A.R.T. and Margaret Burroughs, the social movements surrounding the production of A La Esperanza mural in Pilsen capture the efforts and hopes of a community’s struggle for access to better teaching conditions, self-determination, and aspirations for educational reform, all within the legacy of Chicago’s Lower West Side student and community activism. Located on the east-facing wall of Benito Juárez Community Academy’s Athletic Center, the A la esperanza mural emerged from community advocacy for a new high school during the 1970s. The mural was spearheaded by the now- defunct social service agency and cultural center Casa Aztlán, which determined the mural’s location and design through collective voting. Produced by Community TV Network and Latino Youth Community High School students, the video narrates the communal efforts of the mural’s vision on the newly built Benito Juárez High School. Local artists and neighborhood leaders reflect on the voting process and pictorial representations of significant themes, including hope, resilience, and struggle.

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school material, Jordan Knecht

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Jordan Knecht

school material, 2024

School desk and thermal prints

Courtesy the artist

With the contributions by Teju Adesida, Rebecca Baruc, Rahila Coats, Ayako Kato, Jessica Mueller, David Sprecher, Leticia Pineda, SHENEQUA, Francesca Wessely, and Patty Whitehouse.

Verbal Description

An individual school desk sits in the gallery. A yellow button is attached to the top of the desk and when viewers press it, the desk prints a white piece of paper containing a suggestion for action or a question to ask yourself, someone else, or the universe.

Extended Label

school material is a collection of responses and prompts gathered from the experiences of teaching artists and educators working within public school classrooms in and around Chicago.

The artist invites you to press the button to receive a suggestion for action, an idea and inquiry to ask yourself, a question to ask someone else, or a question to ask the universe. Ask aloud. Ponder on or perform an action. Evoke an intrusion. Summon the joys, frustrations, curiosities, and banalities of classroom experiences into this exhibition space.

Be patient while your school material prints. Sometimes, the machine can be slow, shy, or just glitchy. If your material doesn’t print within thirty seconds, try again.

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Little Black Pearl

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Little Black Pearl

Little Black Pearl CTA BUS Project Design Sketch, 1997

Drawing on paper

Courtesy Little Black Pearl

Little Black Pearl

Jordan X Little Black Pearl Shoe Design, 2018

Jordan Nike sneaker shoes

Courtesy Little Black Pearl

Verbal Description

A framed sketch of the Little Black Pearl bus collaboration with the Chicago Transit Authority appears to the left of the center of the wall. The bus features text reading “Little Black Pearl Workshop” on the top border. Beneath the windows, a yellow section includes drawings of children facing forward as if they were seated on the bus. The sketch includes views of the front, back, and two sides of the bus.

Atop a podium sits white Air Jordan and Little Black Pearl collaborative sneakers. The sneakers feature images drawn by children including stick figures, brown hands, Chicago emblems, and cityscapes. The shoes have green accents along the soles, in between white laces, and paneled on the sides.

Extended Label

Since 1994, Little Black Pearl founder Monica Haslip has provided professional opportunities in the arts for youth in the Bronzeville neighborhood. Determined to change the hopelessness she perceived in Bronzeville youth in the 1990s and focusing on what she calls the business of art, the curriculum and philosophy behind Little Black Pearl are geared towards providing hands-on experience in public-facing creative projects such as civic murals and the design of commercial products like shoes and apparel. Little Black Pearl has partnered with institutions and brands such as Footlocker, Nike, Adidas, and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). In these projects, kids have had a tangible impact on the design and creative development of both commercial products and public artwork.

In collaboration with the CTA, Little Black Pearl students hand-painted a city bus that was circulated in the city. The project sought to challenge the notion that economically challenged youth could not achieve artistic excellence by launching their work into a hyper-public platform, the city’s public transit. Made possible by the partnership between Little Black Pearl and the Jordan Wings Foundation, the limited-edition Air Jordan 5 shoe design is a result of the collaboration between students enrolled in Little Black Pearl and the design and product development teams at Nike. In this collaboration, the Foundation has awarded 21 scholarships to Little Black Pearl students who want to pursue higher education. Haslip says: “I started asking kids ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ The answers were heartbreaking to me. There was not a lot of optimism. So, I started talking to them about how they can make a living as artists and that the notion of being a starving artist is not necessarily how you have to live.”

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What Shall I Tell the Children series, Faheem Majeed

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Faheem Majeed

What Shall I Tell the Children: William H. Ryder Math & Science Specialty Elementary School, 2019

Inkjet prints

Courtesy the artist

Faheem Majeed

What Shall I Tell the Children: Jean Baptiste Point DuSable High School 2, 2019

Inkjet prints

Courtesy the artist

Faheem Majeed

What Shall I Tell the Children: Wendell Phillips Academy High School 2, 2019

Inkjet prints

Courtesy the artist

Verbal Description

The left hanging framed photo is a horizontal photograph of the auditorium at Wendell Phillips Academy High School. Rows of wooden theater chairs line the foreground. A woman wearing a zebra print shirt sits and gazes downward. A large wall occupying most of the image includes several multi-colored framed artworks between large sconces. Margaret Burrough linocuts are dispersed throughout the wall display. As the light fades to dark towards the back of the image, refracted light pops up unsystematically, illuminating parts of the theater chairs and back wall.

Three large photo prints hang on this wall. At center, a photo depicts a classroom at Jean Baptiste Point DuSable High School. At the entrance of the room is a marginal view of a tiled hallway. In the room, floor and wall panels are lined with burgundy carpeting and dark-colored wood trim molding. The back wall of the room is a trophy case with various sized trophies shelved in cabinets while others overflow to sit on top of the cabinetry. The foreground includes two tables sitting in front of the trophy case, long enough to seat two chairs. Hanging directly above the chairs is a Margaret Burroughs’ linocut print depicting a Black woman looking downward. Her gaze is direct and her clothing forms a road leading to a scene of island foliage.

The framed photo on the right is an image of the exterior of William H. Ryder Math & Science Speciality Elementary School taken near sunset. The blue in the sky is fading to gray, and light pinks are scattered throughout the upper left corner of the image. In the foreground, a court with painted geometric lines marks boundaries. The school building is a series of rectangular shapes with evenly arranged rectangular windows. The windows preview rows of hallways lit in a yellow glow. Through the view of the windows, Margaret Burroughs’ linocut prints appear hung at eye level.

Extended Label

For the What Shall I Tell the Children series, artist Majeed documented reproductions of Dr. Margaret Burroughs’ linocut prints that now hang in various Chicago Public Schools, including Jean Baptiste Point DuSable High School, where she taught for over 20 years. The work developed when Burroughs asked Majeed—referencing her 1963 poem What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black (Reflections of an African-American Mother)— “What will you tell the children? What is the legacy that you will leave?” This photographic series responds to her questions by underscoring the ordinary yet ubiquitous presence of Burroughs’ educational prints and her lasting legacy within Chicago’s education system.

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Paulina Camacho Valenica, Nicole Marroquin, Benito Juarez High School Art Students

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Paulina Camacho Valencia, Nicole Marroquin, Benito Juárez High School Art Students

Recovering the Legacy of Student Uprisings on the Lower West Side, 2015-2017

Printed 2024

Organza

Courtesy the artists

Nicole Marroquin

Syllabus (in-progress), 2024

Inkjet prints

Courtesy the artist

Verbal Description

Nicole Marroquin’s Syllabus is a collection of images printed on a thin, sheer, see-through hanging piece of fabric. The photographs include building exteriors, collaged building shapes intersecting one another, groups of people of color posing for photos, playing sports, and engaging in classroom activities, and abstracted shapes, lines, and forms.

Near Syllabus is Recovering the Legacy of Student Uprisings on the Lower West Side, an installation of a series of newspaper clippings, prints, and images related to the student walkouts and sit-ins at the former Froebel and Harrison High Schools in Pilsen. Newspaper clippings have headlines like “Walkout To Go On At Harrison High,” “Black History and the Schools,” “Harrison Students Return, Still Seek Teacher’s Removal,” and “Westside Makes Demands.”Photographs depict student walkouts, police at protests, students participating in class workshops, student leaders, and more.

Extended Label

From 2015 to 2018, at the Benito Juárez Community Academy, artist-educators Nicole Marroquin and Paulina Camacho Valencia collaboratively taught a curriculum centered on the 1968-74 student walkouts and sit-ins at the former Froebel and Harrison High Schools in Pilsen. Juárez students creatively engaged with archival documents, photographs, and dissertations recounting the overlooked stories of former Black and Latinx students who demanded educational equity, including building repairs and integrating ethnic studies within a culturally relevant curriculum. Camacho Valencia and Marroquin’s curriculum focused on ensuring that this history would not be forgotten again. Marroquin says, “Throughout our initial forays into the content, we did not shy away from the unknowns, and we led with questions: What did [the students] think their community would be like had those students not taken a stand? What is the role of youth in protecting and enriching our democracy?”

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Documentation of the Mini-Zone Festival in Pilsen, Pros Arts Studio

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Pros Arts Studio

Documentation of the Mini-Zone Festival in Pilsen, 1992

Wallpaper

Courtesy Diana Solís and Pros Arts Studio

Verbal Description

A large black and white image of a group of children hangs near the front door of the Art and Exhibition Hall. The kids have different face paint designs on them and smile widely at the camera. A sign in the background reads, “ProsArts Studio Benefit Party. Saturday, November 14 at El Centro de la Causa. Music, Dance, and Fun!”

Extended Label

Established in 1978, the Pilsen-based ensemble Pros Arts Studio has offered free, diverse artistic workshops and entertainment to Chicago’s communities across streets, parks, community centers, and local schools. Pros Arts Studio members include Lionel Bottari, Douglas Grew, Rosalie Mancera, Elvia Rodriguez Ochoa, and Jean Parisi. They are puppeteers, clowns, and performing artists committed to highlighting the role artists have in enriching the lives of the communities in which they live. For over 40 years, they have integrated art within curriculums of public schools, initiated the first Día de Los Muertos Parade in Pilsen, and hosted Hotline 21, a Chicago Access Network Television call-in-show that amplified student voices on social issues. This photograph of the Mini-Zone Festival held on 19th Street in the Pilsen neighborhood was captured by Chicago-based photographer Diana Solís, a frequent collaborator of Pros Arts Studio.

View more of Pros Arts Studios and Diana Solís’ work in Learning Together: Art Education and Community, the current UIC Gallery 400 exhibition centering the progressive art pedagogy of a diverse group of Chicago artist educators from the mid-1960s through the 2010s.

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Pros Arts Studio

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Pros Arts Studio

Pro-art and Pro-community, 2024

Installation by Elvia Rodriguez Ochoa, Douglas Grew, Jean Parisi, Rosalie Mancera, Lionel Bottari

Paper, suitcases, objects from program archives

Courtesy Pros Arts Studio

Looped videos:

WGN TV, Interview with Pros Arts member Elvia Ochoa, 2007

Video, 2:58 min.

Courtesy Pros Arts Studio

Día de los Muertos Kidz Circus Performance, 2005

Video, 2:10 min.

Courtesy Pros Arts Studio

Día de los Muertos Kidz Street Procession, 2006

Video, 1:10 min.

Courtesy Pros Arts Studio

Hotline 21 Show, 1991-98

Video 8:30 min.

Courtesy Pros Arts Studio

CPS Right Now, Clip on Pros Arts’ in-school residencies, 2007

Video, 7:33 min.

Courtesy Pros Arts Studio

Verbal Description

This installation is in a cornered area and has many objects. A large yellow banner that reads “ProsArts Studio: Kidz Circus.” hangs from the ceiling. On the wall is a display of multicolored posters advertising ProsArts shows and events. Near the wall of posters is a circular artwork with a stick emerging from the bottom. The black and white circular artwork includes a tribal face mask and bordering ornamentation appearing similar to a flower. Sitting below the wall art is a life-sized paper mache calavera (Day of Dead skeleton figure) wearing a sombrero and flower, and holding a guitar. He also holds another smaller calavera figure and they both sit atop a foldable shopping cart. On an adjacent wall is another calavera. Sitting on the floor and atop tables, multiple suitcases hold ephemera and posters. One suitcase area invites viewers to interact by creating their own puppet show. Nearby, a TV plays Pros Arts Studio videos featuring student and teacher performances

Extended Label

Beginning in 1977 on Allport Street, a collective of artists offered arts workshops free to their Pilsen community on the streets, in parks, community centers, and local schools. In 1978, Pros

Arts Studio became non-profit, enabling it to build partnerships with all the schools and centers in Pilsen, as well as others in Little Village and Back of the Yards. Pros Arts often blurred the line between neighborhood and school activities, highlighting how artists living in a community can impact what happens in both. Incorporating fliers and additional objects from Pros Arts’ archives, this installation brings together material from nearly forty years’ worth of activities—parades, Payasos/Clown shows, arts workshops, artistic interventions, a Readers Theater, the Dia de Los Muertos/Day of the Dead procession of calaveras, and more to display the breadth and depth of Pros Arts’ programming.

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Impromptu Manifesto, Mathias “Spider” Schergen

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Mathias “Spider” Schergen

Impromptu Manifesto, 2013

Acrylic, paper

Courtesy the artist

Verbal Description

Purple poster with yellow text reading, “I have questions. Why are we hurting each other? Why are we hurting ourselves? When will we stop? I think the 8th graders are having anxiety about leaving and going to high school. The 7th graders think nobody loves or cares about them. The 6th graders are afraid of growing up and becoming adults. The fifth graders think they are supposed to act goofy because everyone else is. 8th graders, how do you want to be remembered? 7th graders, what is your truth? 6th graders, what do you want to become? 5th graders, what do you need? I love Jenner School. I love the students, I love the teachers. I love the security guards, the maintenance crew, lunchroom staff, the leadership, and I really love the parents. I am asking God to keep us in his holy hands and bless us with peace and LOVE! Amen.”

Extended Label

Impromptu Manifesto is an example of art educator Matthias Schergen’s pedagogical strategy to resolve conflict and create a sense of community through artmaking. After the shuttered Richard E. Byrd Academy and Schiller Elementary School were integrated into Edward Jenner Elementary Academy of the Arts, the rival gang tensions in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood, the surrounding police presence, and systemic changes imposed by the Chicago Board of Education were affecting students.

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Documentation of Pros Arts Studio Performances, Diana Solís

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Diana Solís

Documentation of Pros Arts Studio Performances, c. 1985—1995

Inkjet prints

Courtesy Diana Solís and Pros Arts Studio

Verbal Description

Across from the ProArts installation is an arrangement of five by three black and white photos depicting a Día de los Muertos parade and ProsArts call-in show. Photos include kids in costumes, masks, and face paint, theater scenes, and children playing.

Extended Label

Educator and photographer Diana Solís has documented community life in Pilsen for over forty years, capturing some of the events, protests, and festivals fundamental to Latinx communities’ history in Chicago. Taken across a decade, this selection of photographs demonstrates Pros Arts Studios’ commitment to promoting reading, playfulness, and access to art for Pilsen Youth, as well as Solis’ close relationship with the collective. The images depict an array of Pros Arts programs and performances, such as their Día de los Muertos Procession, the Mini-Zone Street festival in Pilsen, and their call-in show, Hotline 21 Show, that broadcasted readings and student voices on social issues on Chicago Access Network Television, among others.

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Spiral Workshop

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Olivia Gude

Spiral Workshop Manifesto, 2024

Courtesy Olivia Gude

Spiral Workshop Liminality Group (Robert Anderson, Olivia Gude, Bridget Morawski, Alex Sutphen

Liminality Manifesto and Social Situations Lesson Plan, 2010

Courtesy Olivia Gude

Spiral Workshop Liminality Group (Robert Anderson, Olivia Gude, Bridget Morawski, Alex Sutphen

“Whose Rules?” Project Planner, 2010

Courtesy Olivia Gude

Spiral Workshop Liminality Group (Robert Anderson, Olivia Gude, Bridget Morawski, Alex Sutphen

Selection of Spiral Workshop Curriculum Binders, 2002—2010

Courtesy Olivia Gude

Verbal Description

At the top of this installation display is a black banner that reads “Spiral Workshop” in white lettering. Beneath the banner are posters that include quotes about Spiral Workshop’s impact, a description of the program, and lesson plans. Photos rest in between the large posters. A series of three photos depict students interacting with each other. On the opposite side are two images featuring individual students with text overlaid. The first overlay reads “If your ass still lives with me then your ASS does what I say,” and the second states, “NO I wasn’t asking for it.” Below the wall hangings is a thick shelf supporting 35 Spiral Workshop lesson plan binders. Adjacent to the shelf are interactive documents on social situations. Viewers are invited to take an interactive document and peruse the biners.

Extended Label

Serving youth aged 13 to 19 on Saturdays, Spiral Workshop ran from 1995 to 2012 at the University of Illinois Chicago’s School of Art and Design. Rooted in founding director Olivia Gude’s conviction that teaching students media techniques and elements and principles of art are not sufficient to introduce the complex aims and methods of artists, Spiral’s curriculum championed teaching contemporary artmaking practices and modeled complex metaphorical ways of thinking.

Gude says: “As we develop the curriculum…we keep in mind the Principles of Possibility, a list that articulates important components of a comprehensive art education experience: Playing, Forming Self, Investigating Community Themes, Encountering Difference, Attentive Living, Empowered

Experiencing, Empowered Making, Deconstructing Culture, Reconstructing Social Spaces, Not Knowing…we begin our work with an affirmation of the creative capacity of each participant.” An example of Spiral curriculum’s metaphorical approach is the 2010 group “Liminality: Alternative Practices” in which the theme of liminality (a state of transition between one stage and the next), was paired with performative and conceptual practices

of the 1960s-70s Fluxus movement and the use of staged photography as an artmaking medium. Presented here are project plans, worksheets, and samples of student work from this group, which was designed and taught by UIC student teachers Robert Anderson, Bridget Morawski, and Alex Sutphen with Olivia Gude.

You are invited to explore Spiral’s emphasis on subverting traditional curriculum through the binder collection of project plans, worksheets, and student work from groups across the years.

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Jim Duignan, Stockyard Institute

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Jim Duignan in collaboration with Dr. Rachel Harper

cup phone (prototype #1 cast bronze), 2024

Cast bronze, steel wire

Courtesy the artists

Jim Duignan in collaboration with Max Winkelstein

mobile library seat (class pack/catalog storage), 2024

Recycled materials

Courtesy the artists

Verbal Description

Cup phone features two brass cups sitting upside down atop a clear shelf. The cup on the left side is slightly smaller than the one on the right. The two cups are connected by a yellow string which is corralled in a circular fashion on the wall.

A small wooden box on wheels reads “Stockyard Institute Library.” The wood appears worn and marked with scribblings and indents. On the side of the rolling seat are gray books detailing the history of the Stockyard Institute.

Extended Label
Originally rooted in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood and subsequently expanding all over the city, Jim Duignan’s work with Stockyard Institute is shaped by youth’s needs. Stockyard’s work, which started in 1995, is far-reaching and includes radio stations, publications, curriculum, architecture, performance, and public programming. By developing projects that stem from the student collaborators’ interests, Duignan has used democratic pedagogical practices influenced by the work of Jane Addams, John Dewey, Paulo Freire, and the city itself. While formulating these projects, Duignan understood the practice of trust and communication as central to his work.

About the cup phone, Duignan says: “Stockyard Institute began from my relationship with works like this one, vessels that promoted a connection with another. A current that activated ideas with whatever was available. The objects were simple and confounding, centered on a curiosity of invention and a struggle to voice my needs.” A testament to his kinship with aspects of social practice and conceptual art, the mobile library seat (class pack/catalog storage) synthesizes his minimal aesthetics, publication practice, and interest in functional artwork.

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Yollocalli Arts Reach

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Yollocalli Arts Reach

Cake-themed photobooth props and furniture, garlands, letterboard, pegboard

Courtesy Yollocalli Arts Reach

Brithany Arias

Trip, 2019

Acrylic on wood panel

Courtesy Yollocalli Arts Reach

Tais Torres

Stay Hydrated, c. 2019

Acrylic on wood panel

Courtesy Yollocalli Arts Reach

Verbal Description

At the center of a large wall is a pink cork board framing a 3D photo backdrop. The installation includes two tables, two columns of stacked cakes, and wall art. At the top of the installation are two fringed banners. One spells “YOLLOCALLI” and the other “KEEPING IT WEIRD SINCE ‘97.”

Each column includes six different decorated iced cakes stacked on top of each. In addition to the two cake columns, a phone and two heart shaped stash boxes sitting atop a cake stand rest on a table. The stash boxes, telephone, and table are similarly adorned with circular and lined piping, pearl-like beads, and fruits.

On the right side of one of the columns are two student artworks hung in a top-down fashion. On the opposite side of the installation is a sign that reads “YOLLO EVENTS, JULY 5 & 6 NO CLASS, #SUMMERSFIERCE AUG 2 FINAL EXHIBIT.”

Extended Label

Founded in 1997 by the National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA), Yollocalli Arts Reach was initially intended as a youth museum and youth center that vowed to welcome all without any requirements. Since then, Yollocalli has centered youth’s artistic mentorship through classes and workshops, championing their voices, autonomy, and leadership. When the NMMA purchased the iconic Chicago-based radio station Radio Arte, Yollocalli continued its legacy of producing Latinx youth-led radio broadcasts in the United States. Over the years, Yollocalli has dubbed their motto “Keeping it weird,” a term introduced by students who embraced their differences and relished being surrounded by others who felt the same.

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