Renewing Connections
A look back at 2021 and what’s in store for 2022.
QUICK LINKS :::
“Celebrating ten years of Arts + Public Life this past year allowed us to not only reflect on our mission and purpose, but to honor the relationships and people we have treasured and served for a decade.
While we began 2021 virtually, continuing to support artists and arts-lovers on the South Side through fellowships, education, and public programming, we ended it joyously back on the Arts Block. In October, we celebrated our return to in-person programming with an epic day of gathering with neighbors, partners, family, and community.
We have learned many valuable lessons about how to remain a platform for artists and artistic expression when being together in person is not possible, lessons we are eager to carry forward. But there’s nothing like being live and present with one another in shared space—finding the beat in unison, buying local en masse, and getting together to watch home movies that remind us once more of our collective resilience.
As we enter the New Year and all it may bring, we remain grateful to everyone who helped make 2021 an anniversary to remember. Thank you to all who helped us celebrate this milestone. We look forward to many more birthdays in Washington Park with our neighbors filled with art, culture, joy, and light.”
-Adrienne Brown, Arts + Public Life Interim Director
ARTIST RESIDENCIES
2021 APL/CSRPC Artists-in-Residence
2021 marked a decade of impact of Arts + Public Life’s flagship Artists in Residence (AIR) program in collaboration with the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture (CSRPC) — 32 artists, 10 exhibitions, and thousands of connections.
Our 2021 resident artists zakkiyyah najeebah dumas-o’neal, A.J. McClenon, and Lola Ayisha Ogbara forged new relationships, developed new work, created insightful programming, and celebrated it all with a lively opening of the 2021 AIRs exhibition, New Witnesses, in conjunction with our Back on the Block celebration, engaging hundreds of visitors and fellow artists throughout the year.
In order to reflect on a decade of support for our community of artists and envision the next decade, APL announced a 2022 Pause, Celebration, Recalibration and Renewal. APL and CSRPC will temporarily pause the 2022-2023 in-person studio residencies to focus on a 10-year retrospective exhibition celebrating artist alumni in Summer 2022. In 2023, APL/CSRPC will launch a renewed residency program developed in consultation with our community of artists, curators, and scholars.
2021 AIR Program highlights include:
“Communion, Care, & Comfort”
As part of her residency and practice, Lola Ayisha Ogbara hosted three private dinners with fellow practitioners titled “Communion, Care, & Comfort”—the subversion of Black labor through a virtually shared cooking experience.
Live Bubble Activation with A.J. McClenon
A.J. McClenon created a live sound mix using sounds that embrace the Chicago spirit, its Black histories and future, surrounded by bubbles to reflect the possibility of parallel earths.
The Perfect Servant: Exploring Race, Labor & Blackness in Chicago
APL Interim Director Adrienne Brown in conversation with Lola Ayisha Ogbara about her work that explores the tension between pleasure and destruction, while examining exploitation and the possibilities of disruption in capitalist infused spaces.
Mama Gloria: Luchina Fisher in conversation with zakkiyyah najeebah dumas-o’neal
Writer and filmmaker Luchina Fisher, and visual artist zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o’neal discussed “Mama Gloria,” Fisher’s documentary about the trailblazing Chicago Black transgender elder activist.
Quiet Impressions: zakkiyyah najeeba dumas o’neal in conversation with Jazmine Harris
Both artists discussed the intersections of their work, as well as Jazmine and zakkiyyah's collaborative project on view at The Silver Room (August 5 - September 24, 2021).
Performance Residency at the Green Line Performing Arts Center
Amplify Series One Semi-Finalist, “Last Night” by Rachel Lynett. Photo by Definition Theatre
Arts + Public Life continued its Performance Residency Program with Definition Theatre through March 2021, providing administrative, production, and communications support for two projects, America v2.1: The Sad Demise & Eventual Extinction of the American Negro and Amplify, a new play commission developed to empower and uplift underrepresented theatre creatives. Amplify’s purpose is to provide space and resources to writers in the development of new works during the Covid-19 pandemic by creating a collaborative community for them to hear, see, and experience their work, amplified and actualized.
EXHIBITIONS
Toward Common Cause, Dawoud Bey: Portraits from Chicago (1993–2001)
May 21 - Aug 28, 2021
Dawoud Bey, Carlos, 2001, Chromogenic print. DePaul Museum of Art. Courtesy of the artist.
Organized by the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago in collaboration with more than two dozen exhibition, programmatic, and research partner organizations across Chicago, Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40 was an expansive, multi-venue exhibition taking place throughout 2021.
Arts + Public Life was honored to host the first exhibition by a participating partner organization. Dawoud Bey: Portraits from Chicago (1993–2001) opened on May 21, 2021. The exhibition featured six photographs from Chicago-based Dawoud Bey’s (MacArthur Fellow, 2017) portrait series of South Side youth across decades of artistic practice. In the 1990s, he invited them into his studio, seated them against single-hued studio walls, and fragmented their faces across multiple 20 x 24-inch Polaroids. In the early 2000s, he took street photographs of South Side youth as he came across them on sidewalks and steps. As a whole, these portraits make visible a group who are not fully recognized by society, activating the sitters’ inner worlds for viewers to contemplate.
Dawoud Bey, Sharmaine, Vicente, Joseph, Andre, and Charlie, 1993, Triptych, Internal dye diffusion transfer print. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography. Courtesy of the artist.
New Witnesses
Oct 9 - Nov 20, 2021
New Witnesses welcomed hundreds of guests to the culminating exhibition of the 2021 APL/CSRPC Artists in Residence cohort. These works were produced by zakkiyyah najeebah dumas-o'neal, A.J. McClenon, and Lola Ayisha Ogbara, during their ten-month residency, while navigating the continuing restrictions and pressures of the ongoing pandemic.
New Witnesses asked the viewer to consider a more manifold approach to history, where time happens within us, as well as around us. Our bodies, our interiority, and the endless spheres outside of ourselves all mark this passage differently. For o’neal, McClenon, and Ogbara, there is power in these interior histories, and in the body, to not just traverse time but to warp it, reject it, and, at times quite surprisingly, hold space for tenderness within it. This kind of time travel explores what it is to see, to be seen, to be marked in time, or to refuse to be seen at all.
Depth of Field: 65 Years of the Washington Park Camera Club
Feb - Mar 2020, Oct 9 - Nov 20, 2021
Cut short at the start of the pandemic in 2020, and with restrictions on public access to University spaces, APL extended the exhibition run for Depth of Field in October once visitors could safely return for in person visits. Depth of Field includes a large selection of photos from Washington Park Camera Club members who are committed to documenting their neighborhoods, families, and the changing social and economic landscape. In 1955, the same year that the Montgomery Bus Boycott began and Jet Magazine published the polarizing photograph of the tortured and mutilated body of 14-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till, a collective of African American photographers on Chicago’s South Side formed the Washington Park Camera Club. The salon style exhibition was an eclectic collection of images highlighting the varied interests, themes, and subjects that make them such a unique and important community of artists. In a 6 week extended run, over 200 visitors came to view the show.
Depth of Field Exhibition, October 9, 2021. Photos by Philip Thomas of Washington Park Camera Club.
PROGRAMMING HIGHLIGHTS
View on Facebook.com
Directors’ Cut
On April 22, Arts + Public Life kicked off our 10 year anniversary with a conversation among founding faculty director Theaster Gates, Jacqueline Stewart (faculty director on leave), and Adrienne Brown (interim faculty director). The evening was beautifully moderated by Tracie D. Hall, who opened the conversation by posing this to the assembled directors: “How does it feel? Just 10 years and all of that light?” Following a roll call reading of the names of all 32 artists-in-residence supported by APL & CSRPC over the last decade, insights and observations were shared from each of the directors.
Highlights included:
“A sustainable model has been created for cultural development, led by people of color on the South Side. It is highly functional, where people of color are leading the vanguard making room for artists of color and designers of color and curators of color and administrators of color. How can we then take this thing [...] and support it so that it has perpetual work and perpetual sustainability?”
- Theaster Gates
“What is so important about APL’s work is how methodical and slow cooked it is. It's just so based in relationship building. Looking at the severity of the kinds of issues we are trying to address, many of us are fatigued and want to see some change real quick. APL demonstrates so beautifully, precisely because it focuses on creative practice, that these things take time, and a kind of individual development and community development working at the same time."
- Jacqueline Stewart
“The staff and community have helped steward this vision across these 10 years. Things that Theaster talked about: space, time, youth, creative entrepreneurship, these are still the bedrock of our practice. APL has really thought, “What kind of a platform can we be? All the different ways that you nurture artists, how to do that with precision, and to expand the way we think about what it means to be an artist? The lifecycle of artistry itself; it has to be incubated.”
- Adrienne Brown
Chop It Up: Black Wall Street Journey Edition
A 3-Part Series
Over the summer, APL reprised our Chop It Up: Dinner with Practitioners series. This third installment focused on the Black economy. Adapted to be a virtual dinner series, guests tuned in to hear artist Rick Lowe and journalist Natalie Moore team up to dish and dissect the intersections of race and economic development.
Presented in conjunction with Black Wall Street Journey—a hub for neighborhood regeneration initiated by Lowe in Washington Park—and anchored by the centennial anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and observation of the historic Black Wall Street, guests from disparate sectors of the Black economic landscape weighed in on cultural dimensions of Black ownership, business, self-reliance, determination, and mutual aid.
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Keewa Nurullah, Kido
Richard Wallace, Equity and Transformation (EAT)
Damon Jones, University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy -
Tiffany Joi, Hemp Heals Body Shop (L1 2020-2022 Fellow)
Ghian Foreman, Emerald South Economic Development Collaborative
Anton Seals Jr, Grow Greater Englewood -
Part 3: August Featured Guests:
Andrea Polk, Solo Noir, Zen Soul Apothecary, L1 2020-22 Creative Business Fellow
Stephanie Hart, Brown Sugar Bakery
Spinning Home Movies
South Side Home Movie Project and Arts + Public Life launched Spinning Home Movies in March 2020 as a way to connect with our communities as they sheltered in their homes. What started as a creative response to the call for online programming has emerged as a new paradigm for meaningful artist/archive partnerships and for robust community engagement. Each episode features a 20-30 minute set of 8mm, Super 8mm or 16mm vintage home movie footage shot by South Side residents from the 1920s to 1980s, curated and soundtracked by Chicago DJs, musicians and performing artists. In 2021, thousands of guests continued to join lively cross-generational, interdisciplinary conversations with archivists, artists, film donors, and family members. With over 20,000 viewers to date, Spinning Home Movies makes ideal use of the screen as a stage while tapping into a desire for meaningful shared experiences.
Collaborating artists this past year include D-Composed, Cam Be and Ciera McKissick with DJ SKOLi.
Spinning Home Movies is produced and presented by Arts + Public Life and South Side Home Movie Project, with support from the University of Chicago’s Women’s Board, Franke Institute for the Humanities and Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture.
“The Movements of D-Composed,” a special episode of Spinning Home Movies
Through the course of a 6-month collaboration with SSHMP, members of D-Composed, the Chicago-based chamber music experience that honors Black creativity and culture through the music of Black composers, poured over the home movie collections, making connections with their own lives and family histories, and emerged with four central themes: Autonomy, Acceptance, Mourning and Joy. Building on the legacy of Black storytelling, each short film, or “movement,” features a set of film clips carefully selected by the ensemble member around her chosen theme, and soundtracked with a new performance by the D-Composed ensemble.
First Monday Jazz
First Monday Jazz is one of APL’s signature series that shifted to virtual delivery in 2020 as a result of the pandemic. Another partial year “remote” meant APL continued to experiment in 2021 with offering performance based-programming and supporting artists to continue to produce work from their homes, in outdoor locations or from onsite “no audience” recording sessions on the Arts Block. Highlights of Virtual Monday Jazz include: Anaiet Soul and Brooklynn Skye, Thaddeus Tukes and The Vibe Tribe, Alexis Lombre, and The Masters Collection headed by Tracy Baker. After 20 months of virtual programming, APL welcomed live audiences back to the Green Line Performing Arts Center to close out the First Monday Jazz season with Fred Jackson Jr’s Erudition Ensemble (November) and 2 Brown Sisters (December).
First Monday Jazz with 2 Brown Sisters. December 6, 2021. Photo by Angela Estrella Mejia
First Monday Jazz with Fred Jackson Jr’s Erudition Ensemble. November 1, 2021. Photo by Angela Estrella Mejia
Chicago Takes 10
During 2021, APL was a curatorial partner for Chicago Takes 10, a virtual performance series sponsored by the Walder Foundation to provide support to performing artists who have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The series highlights diverse performance styles throughout the Chicago region, featuring local musicians, performers, and dancemakers. Arts + Public Life's performance features the works of the following ten artists: Kristiana Rae Colón, Ricky Harris, Alyssa Gregory, avery r. young, Justin Dillard, Alfonzo Jones, Marie Ange Louis-Jean, Zaria Primer, Tia Greer, and McKenzie Chinn.
Originally aired on July 8th, 2021
ARTS EDUCATION
As APL embarks on year three of implementing a new hybrid learning model, we’d like to express our gratitude to students, families, and instructors for their commitment and dedication to our four education programs throughout the pandemic. Without them, we would not have been able to continue to engage South Side youth through high-quality arts education experiences, providing free programs and stipends to 135 high school students in 2021 with approximately 656 hours of instruction across all program offerings.
Apprentices of the Backstage Production Program (BSP) and Design Apprenticeship Program (DAP) were welcomed back to the Arts Block in 2021 for in-person classes, and it was so nice to have young people in our spaces again. For the time being, the Community Actors Program (CAP) and Teen Arts Council (TAC) remain remote, but they haven’t missed a beat and continue to thrive creatively. Our students inspire us daily and we are proud to share some of their accomplishments with you.
BackStage Production (BSP)
Participants in the Backstage Production Program were eager to return to the Green Line Performing Arts Center to pick up right where they left off. Under the guidance of instructors Razor Wintercastle and Devonte Washington, students received hand-on experience serving as crew members for public programs including First Monday Night Jazz, Fernando Jones’ 11th Annual International Blues Camp at Columbia College Chicago, and collaborated with Community Actors Program on their filmed production of Anansi: The Pot of Wisdom. BSP Alumni Aliyah Haynes and Elijah Clyne received internship and employment opportunities with Deeply Rooted Dance Theater and MPAACT.
Backstage Production students at Green Line Performing Arts Center. Photo by Razor Wintercastle
“Mrs. Wintercastle is a wonderful instructor who helps push us to greatness and she makes sure we understand things that might have been confusing. She inspires me to strive to achieve my goals in life as well.”
-Keonna (BSP Student since 2019)
Community Actors Program (CAP)
The Community Actors Program spread their wings in 2021 and produced their first film, Anansi: The Pot of Wisdom. What started as a virtual performance opportunity quickly transformed into a short film about the pitfalls of hoarding knowledge and resources, and the importance of community. The film was screened at Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts as part of their Family Saturday series.
Design Apprenticeship Program (DAP)
APL’s Arts Lawn development project was front and center for the apprentices of DAP. Guided by APL’s framework and the architectural team at Site Design Group Ltd., students developed a design brief intended to influence Site’s final design of what will be the Arts Lawn Pavilion. The process oriented students in two different ways: an internal-orientation that focused on individual expression, experience, perception, and individual thought; and an external orientation towards site, history, collective community, and expected audience. The result of this collaboration, which was conducted across five virtual meetings with architecture firm Site Design, was a design brief with criteria in five core areas: structure and form, design hierarchy, material, accessibility, and programming. We look forward to seeing our teens’ vision come to life when the Arts Lawn opens to the public in 2022.
Gustina Steele Collection, 1978, Calumet Heights, from the film entitled “Steele Children”
Teen Arts Council (TAC)
Members of the Teen Arts Council took a deep dive into the South Side Home Movie Project Archive to create visual narratives through the use of analog and digital collages and video essays connecting moments in time across families through everyday events. Impressed by TAC’s engagement with the archive, the programming staff at SSHMP invited select teens to be part of a curation team made up of artists, film donors, community members and SSHMP interns to co-curate a series of images currently on display at the site of the upcoming Arts Lawn.
“I re-enrolled because I knew I would have a good time. There is respect and openness in our space that I value. There was a different experience to take advantage of every time, and I wanted to be a part of it.”
- Serena (TAC Alumni, 2019-2021)
CREATIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
L1 Creative Business Accelerator + Retail Store
L1 Grand Opening, October 9, 2021. Pictured L-R: Alfredo Nieves-Moreno, Ka Yee C. Lee, Tara Betts, Pat Dowell, Eric Williams, Paul Alivisatos, Ava Polk, Andrea Polk, Peter Gaona, Tiffany Joi, Adrienne Brown, Robert Zimmer, Mark Kelley, Theaster Gates. Photo by Philip Thomas
Launched in August 2020, the L1 Creative Business Accelerator fellowship continued virtually for most of 2021, with L1 partner Proximity continuing to mentor the L1 fellows and identify opportunities tailored to each entrepreneur’s growth path. Virtual engagement didn’t slow down L1 fellows Tiffany Joi, Peter Gaona, and Andrea Polk. Hemp Heals Body Shop (Joi) engaged in branding strategy and expanded Chicago-area distribution channels, ReformedSchool (Gaona) adopted a new website platform, Solo Noir for Men (Polk) secured major distribution deals with TJ Maxx/Marshalls and Walmart, and Polk launched a new business, Zen Soul Apothecary, with her daughter Ava.
Positively impacting the economic vitality of the community
The wait is over! L1 Retail Store’s Grand Opening was on Saturday, October 9, 2021. The Back on the Block event served as APL’s first formal in-person community celebration since early 2020, welcoming hundreds to shop the new store and explore APL’s other venues on the Arts Block. After postponing the opening for over a year due to pandemic-related restrictions, the event helped kick off the Fellows first season as brick-and-mortar creative businesses with over $10,000 in sales in their first month open. In less than four months as “store mates,” the fellows have started to work on new product developments across their brands, and had over $30,000 in total sales in 2021.
For their first holiday season housed inside the L1 Retail Store’s 700 square feet, the Fellows curated special events and activities to generate awareness and create custom shopping experiences for the community and targeted networking groups.
Events included special L1 hours to offer shopping during APL events, Black Friday and Small Business Saturday in-store experiences and specials, cross-promotion with the Washington Park Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony, Thursday Night Sip and Shop Happy Hours with Retreat at Currency Exchange Café, and a pop-up L1 x Retreat Friday Night Market, featuring a DJ, drink and food specials, and local creative vendors including: Found Objects, Kfleye, Exotic Scents of Mind, Red Elephant Candles, Trading Races, Ilava, Dandy Kingsman, Aplomb Vintage, and Drink Monday Coffee.
WGN News: ‘New Washington Park store features products from Chicago entrepreneurs’
CULTURAL PRESERVATION
In Fall 2019, South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP) joined Arts + Public Life as an expansion of APL's ongoing commitment to Cultural Preservation by promoting the preservation and accessibility of community-created historical artifacts through collaborations with artists, educators, students, curators, and South Side residents. APL’s Cultural Preservation initiative is a broad and collaborative project to remember, collect, preserve and share back to our communities a range of artifacts and expressions that document, reflect and uplift the lived experiences of Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods.
2021 Highlights Include:
A New SSHMP Website and Digital Archive
SSHMP’s new website launched in December 2021, and offers an exciting virtual destination with an array of opportunities to explore, contribute to and immerse yourself in South Side histories. With this new online presence, SSHMP honors and celebrates local home movie makers from throughout the 20th century, and boldly declares the beauty, culture and history of Chicago’s South Side. Through a series of collaborative design workshops facilitated by members of the South Side Home Movie Project, Arts + Public Life, and UChicago Arts Westin Game Lab, SSHMP arrived at a shared sense of identity, aesthetic values, design inspirations, and features and functionalities. The new site offers an inviting, dynamic destination to view all 450+ digitized home movies within an easily searchable database.
Expanded SSHMP Archive and Activation Opportunities
SSHMP welcomed four new donor families and their home movie collections into the archive (the Burt Ramos Family Collection, James E. Taylor Collection, O’Neal Family Collection, and Roberts Family Collection). Archive footage was activated in a wide range of projects including Amanda Williams’ Black Reconstructions at MoMA (Feb 27–May 31, 2021), Preserve the Pit (Summer 2021), Punch 9 for Harold Washington (Oct 2021), new Spinning Home Movies episodes, the “What loves looks like in public” installation on the Arts Lawn banners, and APL’s Home Movies for the Holidays ‘sidewalk cinema’ gallery window installation in December. City-wide audiences were introduced to the SSHMP through the Chicago Humanities Festival, One Book One Chicago, Hyde Park Film Fest, Doc Chicago conference, Sundance Film Fest panel, AMIA and beyond.
Architecture of Memory UChicago Course taught by Nootan Bharani, APL Associate Director of Design and University Partnerships
Winter 2021 was the third iteration of Architecture of Memory, an architecture studio course that asks students to design a memorial. APL team member, Nootan Bharani, developed and has taught the course at the University of Chicago since 2019. By imagining spaces that evoke emotion and inspire action, and examining relationships and meaning between architecture and place, students explore concepts for spaces created for the purpose of holding, preserving or honoring aspects of culture and history.
2021 was a mix of in-person and Zoom class meetings, culminating in student project designs for memorials tied to an aspect of social history of the South Side. Topics ranged from nightlife on historic Garfield Boulevard, leisure, COVID-19 victims, the future of Washington Park, lost Green Line CTA stations, and Fred Hampton and the Rainbow Coalition. To study Chicago, students considered current events of the previous year including the pandemic’s toll, uprisings in Chicago, and the political atmosphere in the US. The class also met outdoors for walking tours with guest experts—discovering and discussing the cultural history of Bronzeville, Pullman, and Washington Park—including wandering the great park after picturesque snowfall.
GROWTH
We Turned Ten!
A Decade Marked by Meaningful Exchange and Ambitious Cultural Production
Launched in 2011, Arts + Public Life celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2021. The legacy of art and creative entrepreneurship runs deep in Washington Park, and this rich heritage grounds our work and guides our priorities for future growth. During the last ten years, we witnessed the tremendous cultural wealth of Chicago’s South Side, rendered more visible and accessible through spaces like the Arts Incubator, the Green Line Performing Arts Center, and the opening of the L1 Retail Store.
As we turned ten, the words of Chicago’s own Gwendolyn Brooks’ signaled a way forward–– “We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”
Back on the Block L1 Grand Opening and 10th Anniversary Celebration
On October, 9, 2021, we formally welcomed hundreds of members of the community to the Arts Block for the first time in over a year to safely celebrate the grand opening of the new L1 Retail Store and APL’s 10th Anniversary. The sun was shining on the Arts Block as community members, artists, City and University officials gathered for an afternoon of family-friendly activities to commemorate the milestone events, which included live performances by Bomba con Buya and poet Tara Betts, DJ Slomo from Future Rootz, and small bites by Justice of the Pies. Back on the Block guests also had the opportunity to view the New Witnesses exhibition at the Arts Incubator Gallery, the Depth of Field: 65 Years of the Washington Park Camera Club photography exhibition in the Incubator Flex Space, screenings of Spinning Home Movies with the South Side Home Movie Project at the Green Line Performing Arts Center, and the unveiling of the new temporary artwork banners surrounding the Arts Lawn site.
A New 2021-2024 Strategic Framework: APL Values Redefined
APL introduced a new mission, vision and value-statements last year as part of a 2021-2024 strategic framework. The new framework was the result of a year-long collaborative team adaptive planning process led by APL leadership that incorporated key APL community partner feedback, and built on the work of the 2018 staff-designed strategic plan.
Our Mission
Arts + Public Life is a dynamic hub of exploration, expression, and exchange that centers people of color and fosters neighborhood vibrancy through the arts on the South Side of Chicago.
About Us
As a neighborhood platform for arts and culture in Washington Park, Arts + Public Life (APL) provides residencies for Black and Brown artists and creative entrepreneurs, arts education for youth, and artist-led programming and exhibitions.
Our Vision
APL’s community partnership model demonstrates the power of the arts to transform communities. We support a rich ecosystem of artists, youth, and entrepreneurs of color who are the cornerstones of our thriving neighborhoods and catalysts for a vibrant Washington Park and South Side.
Our Values
We center people of color
We are intentional
We are good neighbors
We co-create
We build access + break ground
We believe artists are catalysts for change
Arts Lawn Preparatory Construction and Temporary Banner Project
Arts + Public Life is excited to introduce our audiences to our first outdoor venue in 2022. The Arts Lawn will be an active green space for Washington Park designed to contribute to the cultural and economic vibrancy of our neighborhood. Preparatory construction work began in 2021, and included the replacement of the sidewalk along 55th Place, in partnership with Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT), which has improved walkability for our neighbors. Planning for the performance lawn, pavilion, native gardens and wandering paths is underway.
In 2021, APL developed a strategy to transform the construction fence banners surrounding the site into a canvas, to not only share information about the Arts Lawn, but present works by local artists and a South Side Home Movie Project installation. The banners include 24 digitized photographs from local artist Rose Blouin’s Washington Park Summer 1987 series and 6 original works by artist Edo. These two South Side artists were selected through a jury process and awarded $1000 each.
The South Side Home Movie Project’s installation, “What Love Looks Like in Public,” invites visitors to walk alongside vintage scenes of public life drawn from SSHMP's home movie collections, depicting moments of intimacy, connection, and attentive care that green space nurtures across Chicago's South Side. The installation also includes a playlist created by Rae Chardonnay, available via QR code and intended to compliment the film still images.
Once winter weather wanes, construction is expected to begin in the Spring. We can’t wait to welcome you to Washington’s Park’s new green space in 2022.
Listen to the “What love looks like in public” curated playlist by Rae Chardonnay
Rendering by SITE Design
SUPPORT
APL thrives thanks to the support of a community of generous donors whose gifts have sustained Arts + Public Life, Green Line Performing Arts Center, L1 Creative Business Accelerator, and the vibrant creativity happening every day on the Arts Block.
2021 support highlights include:
Partnership with the Darryl Chappell Foundation to Distribute $10,000 in Emergency Cash Payments to Ten Active Artists of African Descent
In November 2021, APL partnered with the Darryl Chappell Foundation to support ten alumni from the Artist-in-Residency program with $1,000 each in unrestricted cash grants. These grants, initiated by Darryl Chappell (UChicago MBA ‘96), recognize Afrodescendent artists who examine themes relevant to South Side communities, have a visual arts practice with a history of community engagement, and contribute to the local creative ecosystem. We are deeply grateful to Darryl and the Darryl Chappell Foundation for its support in addressing artists’ critical financial needs, and look forward to future opportunities to partner in support of our South Side artist community.
Thank you to APL’s 2021 Major Funders:
COMING IN 2022
Please note that 2022 exhibition and program dates for in-person attendance are tentative due to the current Covid-19 resurgence and related University and City safety protocols. Subscribe to the APL mailing list to stay in the know as dates are confirmed.
Highlights to look out for this year include:
Exhibitions
February 11 - March 18: Rose Blouin solo exhibition featuring works from her Washington Park, 1987 series
April 8 - May 27: Exhibition by guest curator Ciera McCissick
July 8 - Sept 9: AIRs Retrospective, a 10-year retrospective exhibition in collaboration with the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture and the Logan Center, celebrating APL/CSRPC artist-in-residence (AIRs) alumni. The two-site exhibition will showcase works from AIRs alumni at the Arts Incubator Gallery and the Logan Center gallery.
“Bud Billiken Parade #55” from Rose Blouin Washington Park 1987 Series.
Creative Entrepreneurship
Shop L1, of course, and be on the lookout for patio pop-ups and summer marketplaces throughout the year.
L1 Grand Opening, October 9, 2021. Photo by Philip Thomas.
Performance Residency Open Call
An open call for performers, dancers, designers, cultural producers, creative ensembles, directors, choreographers, playwrights, and producing groups will be released in early 2022 as part of APL’s Performance Residency at The Green Line Performing Arts Center. The Performance Residency grants access to the well-equipped Green Line Performing Arts Center from April 2022 to December 2022, providing opportunities to showcase existing productions, incubate new works, present public workshops, and lead industry masterclasses.
You Got Jokes Stand-Up Comedy Event, May 2019. Photo by Daris Jasper
Programming
Rear View Mirror Sessions with Duane Powell
This 4-part music lecture series is not to be missed. Music historian Duane Powell dedicates the 2022 installment of Rear View Mirror Sessions to four musical legends who performed at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival: Nina Simone (March), Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, and The Staple Singers. Powell will lead audiences on an innovative, musical experience celebrating the remarkable legacies of each 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival artist. An invited musical guest will close each program with a live performance inspired by the career, style, or sound of the profiled legend. Rear View Mirror Sessions is presented by Soundrotation, in conjunction with BrainTrust Management.
Grown Folks Stories Returns to the Arts Block
Arts + Public Life will once again showcase Chicago’s multi-faceted storytelling community with Grown Folks Stories—two hours of five minute stories that range from the hilarious to the absolutely somber. This ever-popular gathering of nonprofessional, unrehearsed storytellers, who give us the real stories we live everyday is scheduled to return to the Green Line Performing Arts Center every third Thursday of the month starting this Spring.
First Monday Jazz at the Green Line Performing Arts Center
This Spring, trumpeter and composer Corey Wilkes will kick off the 2022 lineup of APL’s monthly jazz series featuring both established and emerging Chicago musicians.
My Best Friend is Black: A Live Comedy Show
APL is delighted to present this live comedy variety show in February that focuses on providing a platform for Black performers.
Arts Lawn Opening
Rendering by SITE Design
Live concerts.
Film screenings.
Arts marketplaces.
Sunrise yoga.
Jazz under the stars.
Scheduled to open in Summer 2022, the Arts Lawn transforms the vacant lot next door to the Green Line Performing Arts Center into a beautiful, public green space that will host a variety of community-centered arts programs. With support from the Project for Public Spaces, Arts + Public Life conducted workshops with local community members in 2014 to develop a vision for programs in the open space, and those ideas have formatively driven the planning for this space. APL anticipates opening the Arts Lawn in 2022 to host a wide array of public programs including film screenings, live theatre, outdoor music, public performances, exhibitions, youth education, and creative marketplaces.
A New Arts + Public Life Website
APL will introduce a brand new dynamic website this year—artistically designed to create engaging user experiences that educate our audiences on the full breadth of APL platforms and opportunities, while uplifting our expansive network of artists and community partners. With the new site, users will able to easily navigate a new APL event calendar, make reservations, and discover relevant programs and artist opportunities. We look forward to sharing the new site with you in early 2022.
Looking Forward to Renewing Connections in 2022
“Inspired by our first decade in Washington Park and the learnings of 2021, Arts + Public Life looks to 2022 with gratitude and optimism. We hope to increase our in-person activities on the Arts Block safely and can’t wait to see you all ‘Back on the Block’ during 2022. On behalf of the entire APL family, we are wishing you a happy, productive, and healthy New Year!”
-Alfredo Nieves-Moreno, Arts Public Life Deputy Director
‘Back on the Block’ Community Celebration, Oct. 9, 2021. Photo by Philip Thomas. Pictured L-R: Alfredo, Justin, Adrienne, Avery, Sabrina, Julia, Tony, Devonte, Razor, Jen, Robina, Erin, Kate, Stacey, Harold, Isis, Fabiola, Nootan, Gabriel, Willie (Blondie)
Support South Side Artists
Arts + Public Life thrives thanks to the support of our community. You help us elevate a rich ecosystem of South Side artists, youth, and entrepreneurs of color in Washington Park, demonstrating the power of the arts to transform communities.