TO GATHER | TOGETHER
A look back at 2024 and what’s in store for 2025
Dear community art lovers,
Thank you for spending time with us on the Arts Block this year. Your presence brought energy and warmth to our programs and events.
Together, we continued cultivating a vibrant community of artists, critics, performers, and creative entrepreneurs on the South Side. In 2024, our programs and artists came to gather / together in remarkable ways, fostering dynamic collaborations and meaningful creations. Through initiatives like the sound sculpture ode to rhumboogie and screenings of the South Side Movie Project’s historical footage at the Bud Billiken Parade, we celebrated the rich history of Washington Park and the South Side of Chicago. These programs connected past and present, honoring the legacy of our community while inspiring its future.
Director of Arts + Public Life
Associate Professor in the Departments of English and Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity
Adrienne Brown
In 2024, we were thrilled to welcome over 6,000 visitors, including 650 first-time guests. Through our Arts Education program, we engaged 145 teenage students, providing them with 270 hours of direct instruction and creative exploration. Our outdoor venue, the Arts Lawn, has become an extraordinary hub for cultural activities and community connection. With signature programs like First Monday Jazz, RearView Mirror Sessions, Vends + Vibes, and Community Yoga, alongside new events like What She Said and Homecoming, the Arts Lawn has become a space hub for connection and enjoyment. Never So Free served as a pilot for an ongoing effort to offer the Green Line Performing Arts Center as a site of assembly and creativity for a new generation of Black queer artists.
We are incredibly grateful for the community that has come together to make Arts + Public Life a home for imagination and connection. Thank you to our audience members, partners, fellows, residents, students, and donors. I invite you to take a look back at these amazing works and those cherished moments we shared in 2024.
2024 Artists-in-Resdience:
Candace Hunter, Ayanah Moor, Johnaé Strong
Ayanah Moor
APL/CSRPC Artists-in-Residence
Throughout the year, the Arts Incubator became a space for connection, showcasing the inspiring work of Candace Hunter, Ayanah Moor, and Johnaé Strong as part of the 13th cohort of the Artists-in-Residence program.
These three exceptional artists immersed themselves in their practices, utilizing their studios on campus and extending their creative reach across the city. Supported by Arts + Public Life and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, the residency provided numerous opportunities for audiences to experience their evolving work firsthand and engage in meaningful dialogue.
Strong captivated audiences with the poignant screening and discussion at Seeking Still Waters, while Hunter invited community members to reflect on shared histories during her intimate Memory Tea gatherings. Moor's thought-provoking talk Social abstraction offered insights into her exploration of identity, Blackness, and queerness through abstraction.
The residency culminated in Remembering Ghosts, a powerful exhibition that delved deeply into the intersections of history, memory, and identity. Through this work, the artists navigated the lingering echoes of the past, challenging audiences to confront how these traces shape our present and future.
Learn more about their creative journeys through their residency videos:
Candace Hunter
Performance Residency
In its second year, the Performance Residency continued to support innovative and boundary-pushing work, welcoming Quenna Leneé Barrett, Sea Michell Miller, and Roy Kinsey. These three artists immersed themselves in research and creation, using the University's resources to deepen their practices and explore new approaches to performance and storytelling.
The collaborative nature of the residency shone through at Ways of Dwelling: A Conversation Through Art, where Roy and Quenna joined forces with 2024 Artist-in-Residence Candace Hunter and Performance Residency alum Alyssa Gregory and former Community Actor Program educator, Kierah ‘KIKI’ King. This re-imagined book launch for Adrienne Brown’s The Residential Is Racial: A Perceptual History of Mass Homeownership was a testament to the dynamic connections fostered by the APL community, where current and former residents came together to amplify each other’s work and create meaningful moments of engagement.
As they wrap up their residencies, Quenna, Sea Michell, and Roy are preparing for the premiere of their residency projects in Spring 2025. These upcoming performances will showcase not only their individual artistic voices but also the impact of a year spent in rigorous exploration, collaboration, and creation.
Johnaé Strong
This year, the curation of work by “Chicago artists” took on an expansive definition, showcasing work by artists who spent time in Chicago, relocating elsewhere, and creating work that continues to tie them to communities and sites within the city.
Summer ushered in the historic exhibition, Of Her Becoming: Elizabeth Catlett's Legacy in Chicago. The ambitious exhibition highlighted the printmaking, work, and impact of influential artist and activist Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012) within an important site in Catlett’s career: Chicago’s South Side. Of Her Becoming showcased an array of Catlett’s lithograph and woodcut prints alongside works by contemporary Black women printmakers from the South Side, Angela Davis Fegan, Krista Franklin, and Rebel Betty. Of Her Becoming sheds new light on the significance of Catlett’s time on Chicago’s South Side, how this period revolutionized her artistic practice, and how her practice still impacts artists and community organizers on the South Side.
In the Spring, APL showcased the work of Marcela Torres in the solo exhibition, I Brought You Flowers/Te Traje Flores which considers the cultural resonance of gifting flowers as acts of nurturing within BIPOC communities. Torres created installations that explored the profound connection between botany, ancestral heritage, and the act of giving. Central to the exhibit were ceramic pieces cradling flowers, each representing a spectrum of recipients: flowers to ourselves, xochitl to our ancestor, flores to the earth, weaving a rich tapestry of interconnectedness and reconciliation.
Remembering Ghosts closed out APL’s 2024 exhibition season. The show featured work by Ayanah Moor, Candace Hunter, and Johnaé Strong, the 2024 Arts + Public Life/Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture Artists-in-Residence. The culminating exhibition critically examines the intersections of history, memory, and identity as the artists navigate the residual traces of the past within the present. Through diverse media and conceptual lenses, each artist addressed the complexities of historical erasure, resilience, and the spectral influence of collective and personal memory.
In 2024, Arts + Public Life continued to champion creativity and community through our year-round line-up of dynamic public programs and activations. From revisiting the South Side in the 1970s through independent film, to re-imagined book launches for local authors, to writers’ workshops, movie nights and live performances, our initiatives celebrated the power of dedicated spaces for expression and gathering.
Never So Free
Homecoming
First Monday Jazz
Never So Free: Black Queer Art + Assembly in Chicago invited seven multidisciplinary artists to explore the artistic legacies of queer, Black art-making spaces in Chicago through a series of salons, archival presentations, field trips, and creative activations that affirm the critical role of dedicated spaces for queer Black artists. This innovative program engaged over 20 organizations and artists in a sustained focus on space-making, culminating in a public showcase of the artists’ offerings in December.
Homecoming invited Washington Park residents and neighborhood commuters to unwind between work and home in Washington Park’s newest “third space.” For two days, attendees enjoyed a unique soundscape, free books, refreshments, and card and board games while experimenting with APL’s first outdoor installation, ode to rhumboogie, a sound sculpture created by Chicago artists ebere agwuncha and Josué Esaú, and relaxing on the new suite of outdoor furniture designed by students of APL’s Design Apprenticeship Program II.
A new spin on our APL’s signature jazz program, First Monday Jazz moved onto the Arts Lawn during the summer months, inviting FMJ regulars and newcomers to experience live music under the Lawn’s colorful pavilion at night. Guests brought out their lawn chairs and blankets to hear an eclectic line-up of performers, from Ascendant to Taylor Iman, ring out across the Arts Block on a summer evening.
Our Keyholder program continued to offer a free space to gather for local arts-based projects. APL hosted regular meetings of the Washington Park Camera Club, Committed Knitters, Visual Man Review and Community Yoga.
Keyholders
Community Yoga
Our popular weekly yoga sessions led by Latipha Rivers continued throughout the year in the Arts Incubator, and during the summer, our weekly yogis moved their practice to the grassy shade of the Arts Lawn Pavilion every Friday and Saturday morning.
Committed Knitters
APL celebrated our long-term keyholders, Committed Knitters, with a unique Juneteenth celebration featuring a full day of handicrafts, instruction, and creative comradery that drew over 70 knitters, learners, and friends.
2024 showcased not just the talent of APL’s young creators but also their ability to merge artistry with purpose, creating work that resonates far beyond the classroom. It was a year of bold steps, meaningful collaborations, and an inspiring return to form.
The summer brought the return of the Design Apprenticeship Program II after a three-year pause. This revival brought renewed energy and creativity as teens engaged in transformative and meaningful community collaborations. Highlights included DAP II’s participation in Homecoming and contributions to Josué Esaú and ebere agwuncha’s ode to rhumboogie, a sound sculpture on the Arts Lawn, where they used their woodworking and design skills to support the larger artistic vision.
The numbers tell a powerful story: in 2024, there were a total of 145 teen participants, 332 class sessions, and 270 direct instructional hours across all programs.
The real impact was felt through community connections. Teens partnered with organizations like KLEO Community Center, which performed in the summer Teen Arts Showcase. With Sistas in the Village, students designed and built custom tables and benches for the community garden’s ancestor circle meetings, blending craft with cultural heritage. The Teen Arts Council students joined the Bud Billiken Parade and collaborated with the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials Foundation.
150 people gathered on the Arts Lawn and at the Green Line Performing Arts Center to celebrate the remarkable talent and creativity of our community’s young artists. The seating furniture created by our DAP students, as shown here, was gifted to Sistas in the Village in Englewood.
Teen Arts Council students met and introduced their banner design for the Bud Billiken Parade inspired by the South Side Home Movie Project’s archive to Dr. Jacqueline Stewart, South Side Home Movie Project’s founding director.
L1 Creative Business Accelerator Program
This year, we welcomed a talented new cohort of fellows to the Accelerator program and the L1 Retail Store
Oluwaseyi Adeleke, owner of prgrssn
Joli Chandler, owner of Soma Gems Jewelry
Twjuana Robinson, owner of Callie Decor
The fellows participated in a series of seminars designed to build a strong professional network and foster connections for future collaboration. These sessions covered a range of topics, including accounting, design, commercial real estate, legal and intellectual property, public relations, and more.
In collaboration with APL, the fellows produced a series of engaging public programs:
Intention to Gratitude: This transformative program led by Joli Chandler evolved into a thriving community, providing opportunities for self-care and spiritual growth.
Chigeria: This fashion show marked Olu’s debut as a writer, director, producer, and actor in a play that encapsulates his journey as a Creative Entrepreneur.
Talking Walls: This engaging event explored the intersection of interior design and family legacy, fostering meaningful conversations and inspiring creativity.
Beyond those public programs, the fellows also developed strategies to increase foot traffic to the L1 Retail Store. They planned and executed activations such as beat-making classes, design workshops, product launches, film screenings, and curated conversations. Their creative endeavors yielded impressive financial results, brought new faces to the Arts Block, and contributed to its commercial viability.
We were thrilled to announce this year that curator, writer, and co-founder of Sixty Inches from the Center Tempestt Hazel will lead our 2025 cohort.
Tempestt Hazel is a curator, writer, and co-founder of Sixty Inches From Center, a collective of editors, writers, artists, curators, librarians, and archivists who have published and produced collaborative projects about artists, archival practice, and culture in the Midwest since 2010. Across her practices and through Sixty, Tempestt has worked alongside artists, organizers, grantmakers, and cultural workers to explore solidarity economies, cooperative models, archival practice, future canon creation, and systems change in and through the arts.
Read this interesting interview between Tempestt and Critic’s Table founder Adrienne Brown.
Stay tuned–we’ll announce our 2025 Cohort in the new year!
In 2024, we continued the critical conversation through a series of public programs led by alumni from last year’s cohort. Over the summer, our 2023 alum Camille Bacon celebrated the launch of her new online magazine, Jupiter, co-created with Daria Harper. Together, they hosted Apophenia: Anatomy of a Prayer, a unique guided somatic meditation and writing workshop featuring poets Ireon Roach and Victor Musoni.
In the fall, our 2023 alum Dr. Rikki Byrd, founder and editor of the Fashion and Race Syllabus and Black Fashion Archive, returned to lead Saying the Hard Part Out Loud, a day-long series of intensive workshops for fellow cultural critics. The event concluded with a lively public discussion, fostering meaningful dialogue and exchange.
Cultural Stewardship is Arts + Public Life’s practice of honoring local histories, supporting networks of memory holders, and amplifying the value of these legacies through the arts in ongoing conversation with South Side generations past, present, and future.
As a hub for arts and culture in Washington Park, Arts + Public Life responds to the necessity to recall and uphold the many local people, places and forms of creative expression that ground our communities. In collaboration with partners, we develop care-driven approaches for preservation, meaningful access, and creative activation of memories and materials.
In 2024, APL teams created opportunities for neighbors and our network to be in conversation about the histories of Washington Park and Chicago’s South Side. Highlights included the reimagined book launch Ways of Dwelling: A Conversation through Art, a celebration of Rose Blouin’s new collection of photography, To Washington Park, With Love, and the vibrant Chicago Style Film and Fashion Show, co-hosted with Illinois Humanities and the South Side Home Movie Project. Each of these public programs invited neighbors and partners to engage deeply with the histories that ground our communities and resonate in the present, creating meaningful conversations and spaces for reflection.
The archive continues to grow
The South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP) enjoyed a fruitful year in 2024, expanding its archive and forging valuable partnerships. We welcomed 82 new films - 28 to existing collections and 54 that built out four entirely new collections.
Bud Billiken Parade
SSHMP brought an electrifying celebration of South Side history to the 95th Bud Billiken Parade by streaming rare footage from the Ramon Williams Collection on a video truck in the parade. Viewers were treated to nostalgic scenes from the 1940s to the 1960s, including legendary moments like Joe Louis leading the parade as Grand Marshall in 1948 and early scenes of footwork dancing. The talented students of APL’s Teen Arts Council marched alongside the mobile screen with their hand-made, vibrant banners inspired by scenes from the films.
“The Bud Billiken® Parade is a beloved Chicago tradition celebrating youth and education, and we are thrilled to have our South Side Home Movie Project and TAC participate in it. This activation, which aligns with APL’s cultural stewardship practice, is unique as it is both historic and filled with youthful enthusiasm. It is a perfect example of the synergy of creativity on the Arts Block.”
—Professor Adrienne Brown, APL’s Faculty Director
Throughout the year, SSHMP partnered with a dynamic group of organizations, including the Filipino American Historical Society, Arts Design Chicago, Chicago Defender Charities, Bronzeville Historical Society, Blanc Gallery/Parkway Ballroom, the University of Chicago’s Film Studies Center, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
These collaborations helped bring our shared vision to life, creating powerful connections and expanding our reach within the community. Some of the most popular public programs include the Chicago Style Film & Fashion Show and the Parkway Picture Show, premiering films by Ramon Williams that were shot in the Parkway Ballroom itself.
Congratulations to Our 2024 Cohort
We wish our 2024 cohorts of artists, performers, and entrepreneurs the best and look forward to continuing to work with them as part of our family of talented alumni! We encourage you to keep following these incredible artists:
Artists-in-Residence
L1 Creative Business Accelerator
Joli Chandler | Soma Gems Jewelry
Twjuana Robinson | Callie Decor
Oluwaseyi Adeleke | prgrssn
Performance Residency
We would like to celebrate!
Camille Townson and Rai Terry from our South Side Home Movie Project presented our works at the 2024 Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) conference.
Alyssa Gregory is now our Communications and Community Engagement Manager. In addition to her contribution to communications, Alyssa will also support artist and audience engagement through diverse community exchange at APL.
The Arts Lawn, along with the landscape designer site design group, ltd., won the Merit Award from the Illinois Chapter American Society of Landscape Architects, a celebration of 2023’s most interesting and powerful places.
We feel proud of our curator, Sheridan Tucker Anderson, and the nomination for a 2024 Black Excellence Award: Outstanding Exhibition for Of Her Becoming: Elizabeth Catlett's Legacy in Chicago.
Arts + Public Life made the cover of Chicago Reader twice this year! One features stills from our South Side Home Movie Project's archive showing the Bud Billiken Parade in the 1940s and 60s, and another features Catlett's Red Leaves!
Programming
What to Expect in 2025:
In Spring 2025, don’t miss the chance to see our talented Performance Residents Quenna Lené Barrett, Sea Michell Miller, and Roy Kinsey take the stage at the Green Line Performing Arts Center. It’s sure to be an unforgettable showcase of creativity and talent!
Chicago Critic’s Table
Stay tuned for an exciting announcement in early 2025 about a new public art project on the Arts Lawn.
Spring Exhibition
We will offer an APL course at UChicago! Students will learn on the Arts Block about Relationships, Engagement, and Cultural Stewardship on Chicago’s South Side.
Old Head, 2023. | 72 in X 72 in | Acrylic Paint and Printed Paper. On Canvas
Performance Residency
A new solo exhibition featuring Brandon Carlton will open in Spring 2025. Don’t miss this captivating showcase of their work in the Arts Incubator Gallery
In early 2025, we’re excited to announce the new Chicago Critic’s Table cohort. Stay tuned for this dynamic group of voices who will shape the conversation around Chicago's vibrant arts scene!
Arts + Public Life Course
The Cultural Stewardship team is excited to launch a new project focused on studying Washington Park during the 1980s and 2000s. This exploration will deepen our understanding of Washington Park’s rich history and its cultural significance over the decades.
Public Art
In 2025, get ready for an exciting lineup of programs! We are excited to introduce a new partnership with Old Town School of Folk Music's Fireflies, an early childhood program that connects kids to sound and play. This summer, we’ll bring back our beloved First Monday Jazz and Vends+Vibes to the Arts Lawn, along with other new initiatives designed to bring the Washington Park community together.
Cultural Stewardship
As we step into 2025 with excitement and purpose, I want to take a moment to reflect on the remarkable strides Arts + Public Life made in 2024. This past year, APL deepened its connection with the Washington Park community, activating the Arts Lawn with a variety of programs that brought neighbors to gather/together and share creativity, joy, and movement. From Homecoming to What She Said to Community Yoga, these outdoor events celebrated the rich culture and spirit of the South Side.
We were especially proud to see the Teen Arts Council and South Side Home Movie Project at the Bud Billiken Parade, marching alongside other community organizations and showcasing the talents and dedication of APL's young leaders. Behind every program and event, our incredible staff displayed unwavering flexibility and commitment, navigating an ever-changing landscape to advance APL’s mission of creating and sustaining cultural spaces that serve our community.
As we look ahead to 2025, we are energized by what’s to come—the premiere of groundbreaking work by our Performance Residents, the announcement of the 2025 Chicago Critic’s Table, and so much more. Each milestone reaffirms our role as a pillar of the South Side’s creativity and resilience.
Thank you for your continued support, partnership, and belief in APL’s vision. Together, we are shaping a future that celebrates the history, culture, and brilliance of Washington Park and beyond. Here’s to another year of growth, collaboration, and extraordinary achievements!
Alfredo Nieves-Moreno
Arts + Public Life, Deputy Director
We are grateful for our long-standing University partners
Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture
Logan Center for the Arts
Chicago Studies
Department of Cinema and Media Studies
Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society
Office of the Provost
Department of Race, Diaspora and Indigeneity
English Department
Our friends and partners across the city:
After School Matters
Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago Defender
Chicago Film Archives
City Club Chicago
Elevated Chicago
Gertie
Greater Chicago Food Depository
Haymarket Books
Illinois Humanities
Kingdom Branding
Media Burn
Miyagi Records
The Silver Room
Traubert Foundation
And our major funders:
Critical Minded
Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events
Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation
Good Chaos
Illinois Arts Council
Irving Harris Foundation
MacArthur Foundation
Mellon Foundation
Paul M. Angell Family Foundation
Terra Foundation for American Art
The Women’s Board at the University of Chicago
Walder Foundation
Arts + Public Life 2024 photographers and videographers :
View all 2024 photos on Arts + Public Life’s photo gallery
Andy Cat
Anjali Pinto
Dion Turner
Jacklyn Rivas
Joel Maisonet
Lyric Newbern
Moll Nye
Natasha Moustache
On the Reel
Seed Lynn
Simeon Frierson
Steven Michael Adams
Ted Evans