The Arts Lawn | Temporary Banner Exhibition
About the banners
Recognizing that remediation and construction would require opaque fencing nearly 6 feet high for over two years, APL wasted no chance creating an outdoor gallery. Artists Rose Blouin and Edo were selected from a pool of 47 applicants that applied to an open call and jury process conducted by APL and the Office of Civic Engagement (OCE) at the University of Chicago. Each winning artist received a $1000 honorarium, and reproductions of the artists’ works were installed as banners along Garfield Blvd fencing in October 2021. This project was so successful that Rose Blouin has since gone on to display her photos from the banners in multiple exhibitions (including at APL and UChicago Medical) and UChicago faculty members Eve Ewing and Adrienne Brown are now partnering with her on publishing a book of her photos.
Additionally, APL invited several community members to co-curate a series of film stills from the South Side Home Movie Project archive displayed along the western construction fence. The display, titled "What Love Looks Like in Public", included a link to a special playlist created by DJ Rae Chardonnay, for viewers to listen to as they viewed the works. You can read more about this, and listen to the playlist, by scrolling down.
South Side Artists Rose Blouin and Edo Featured on Arts Lawn Temporary Fence Banners
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Rose Blouin
The Arts Lawn Banner Installation features 24 images from Blouin’s Washington Park Summer 1987 Series.
“During the period of June through September 1987, I shot nearly 3,000 images in Washington Park in order to document the activities there. These photographic images, however, accomplished much more than mere documentation; they represented a profile of Chicago’s African American community at a place where they come together for recreation, arts and cultural events, festivals, sports, community events, parades and even weddings. I believe there is historical value in this type of looking back. The 1987 No Crime Day and Black on Black Love campaigns held in Washington Park aren’t far removed from today’s urgent insistence that Black Lives Matter.
Rose Blouin’s Washington Park Summer 1987 project is partially supported by an Individual Artists Program Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, as well as a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, through federal funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.
For more information on Blouin’s project or to purchase photographs, contact her at rblouin@colum.edu.
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Edo
“My purpose is to help heal, inspire, and bring joy to people through my work. A lot of my work, and specifically the pieces I selected for this project, are filled with Chicago culture and real-life situations which we face on the daily—addressing what it’s like being a young African American man trying to navigate through life. The colors are what attracts you, but once you sit with my work you begin to put yourself into the piece and it becomes about you. My work meets the viewer where they are mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It becomes an instant interaction piece and as you change, the work changes.”
Presents
“What love looks like in public.”
In celebration of the upcoming Arts Lawn, the South Side Home Movie Project invites you to walk alongside vintage scenes of public life drawn from our home movie collections depicting moments of intimacy and connection that green space nurtures across Chicago’s South Side.
When thinking about public space, oftentimes “public” suggests large groups or impersonal interactions. The images displayed in this installation highlight the small, tender, and often unnoticed encounters that frequently take place in public spaces—invoking feelings of belonging and nostalgia that emerge along with a sense of community ownership.
These home movie stills were selected by a multigenerational team of co-curators composed of film donors, local high school students, South Side artists and project interns. The curation team was inspired to recall the easy intimacy and comfortable public life that we yearn to return to, and to stay grounded in the positive transformations of the past year—tapping into the community’s long history of mutual care.
“Justice is what love looks like in public, just like tenderness is what love feels like in private.”
- Dr. Cornel West
Soundtrack by Rae Chardonnay - LISTEN NOW!
Listen to co-curator Rae Chardonnay’s song mix inspired by the images in this installation, featuring donor oral history recording clips from Lynette Frazier (July 23 2007) and Susan and Ellis McClelland (February 17 2008), courtesy South Side Home Movie Project.
Clip from Lynette Frazier’s oral history recording, July 23 2007 - courtesy South Side Home Movie Project
“Family Affair” - Sly and the Family Stone
“Walking into Sunshine” (Larry Levan mix) - Central Line
Clip from Susan and Ellis McClelland’s oral history recording, February 17 2008 - courtesy South Side Home Movie Project
“Family Affair” - Mary J. Blige
“Joy & Pain” (Classic House Mix) - DJ De La Roche + Dawn Williams
“I Am the Black Gold of the Sun” - Minnie Riperton + Rotary Connection
“What love looks like in public” Image Credits
Film stills from South Side Home Movie Project Collections.
Click on the image to view the actual film from the South Side Home Movie Project Collection.
Ellis McClelland Collection, 1955-56, from the film entitled “The Kids 1955-6”
Co-Curation Team
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Rae Chardonnay
DJ, arts manager and events producer Rae Chardonnay is dedicated to encouraging a life of open-minded learning and expression. She is the Founder of Black Eutopia, a program designed to cultivate space for marginalized communities, and co-founder of the award winning Party Noire. She was recently noted as one of Chicago’s Top 5 DJ’s by NPR, and Chicago’s Best DJ by the Chicago Reader. Rae collaborated with SSHMP on episode 6 of Spinning Home Movies: “If just for a moment, eutopia.”
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Jeannette Foreman
Lawyer, small business consultant, educator, media/arts/communication advocate, the thread running through Jeanette Foreman’s 40 + years of work is activism aimed at creating solutions for the social, economic and political inequities impacting Black lives. Foreman has championed the Creative Arts as the most powerful tool to produce good solutions across societal boundaries. Her family donated over 100 home movies, the Jean Patton Collection, to the South Side Home Movie Project.
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Kareema Godhrawala
A college freshman majoring in English, Kareema Godhrawala is interested in entertainment and publication along with the arts. They have served as an intern at the Art Institute and worked with the Teen Arts Council at Arts and Public Life to create socially motivated art collections and projects.
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Justina Ibarra
A senior at Muchin College Prep high school, Justina Ibarra is an intern at the Teen Arts Council at Arts and Public Life, and an artist who works with video, photography and abstract murals. Justina is ambitious in producing art and film, and is also interested in entertainment, publishing and directing.
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Ciera Alyse McKissick
Ciera Alyse McKissick is an independent writer, curator, cultural producer, and the founder of AMFM, an organization whose mission is to promote emerging artists. Her work often involves collaboration through supporting Black and brown artists, local arts organizations, and seeks to stimulate community engagement that's driven by inclusivity, accessibility, intention, and care. Ciera collaborated with SSHMP on episode 14 of Spinning Home Movies: “In Transit(ion).”
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Selin Oh
Selin is currently based in Chicago—with roots in Indianapolis and Korea— where she studies history at the University of Chicago. She has had the great privilege of working as a collections intern with the South Side Home Movie Project. Selin is ultimately interested in the public histories we share and the roles public spaces play in shaping those stories.
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Rai Mckinley Terry
Rai Terry is a Black queer visual scholar, audiovisual archivist and multimedia artist. A master’s student in the Public Humanities program and Fellow at the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University, they are interested in engaging and preserving spaces of Black Queer agency and joy within and outside of the archive and utilizing alternative ways of history making toward a truer public education. They recently completed a Summer Internship with the South Side Home Movie Project.
The South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP) is a five-part initiative to collect, preserve, digitize, exhibit, and research home movies made by residents of Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods. We aim to build an alternative, accessible visual record, filling gaps in existing written and visual histories, and ensuring that the diverse experiences and perspectives of South Siders will be available to larger audiences and to future generations.