CULTURAL STEWARDSHIP
Together with our community partners, Arts + Public Life acts as a cultural steward to fill in gaps in written and visual histories and the built environment, transferring value across generations.
Cultural Stewardship at APL is a broad and collaborative initiative to remember, honor, preserve, and share back to our communities a range of artifacts and perspectives of the lived experiences of Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods.
In 2019, the South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP), launched in 2005 by Arts + Public Life Director Jacqueline Stewart, joined the APL team, promoting the preservation and accessibility of community-created historical artifacts through collaborations with artists, educators, students, curators, and South Side residents.
The South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP) is a five-part initiative to collect, preserve, digitize, exhibit, and research amateur 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.
The SSHMP film vault currently houses more than 400 film reels (8mm, Super 8, 16mm) from 28 South Side families, and the digital archive has expanded to over 12 terabytes of data.
In 2018, The South Side Home Movie Project partnered with Arts + Public Life to present an exhibition of private film footage gathered from residents of Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods. The Everyday Resistance exhibition featured home movies captured by amateur South Side filmmakers animating a domestic space and offering a visual record and aesthetic of Blackness from the 1940s through the 1980s. This rich visual inheritance tells us much about Black control over the Black image and gives viewers the opportunity to witness moments of leisure and performativity lived within the constraints and confines of racism and anti-Blackness.
EXHIBITION
Everyday Resistance: The Art of Living in Black Chicago South Side
May 23–July 6, 2018
UCHICAGO COURSE
Architecture of Memory
Architecture of Memory is an architecture studio course taught at the University of Chicago Department of Art History since 2019, developed and instructed by Nootan Bharani, Arts + Public Life Associate Director Design and University Partnerships
Architecture of Memory is 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. For final design projects, students choose sites in Washington Park and create a design for a memorial for an aspect of social history of the South Side of Chicago.
Community Archives
Cultural preservation is rooted in Arts + Public Life ‘s collaborative work with South Side Black and Brown artists and community organizations. We invite you to explore our archive of past exhibitions and programming.
Activation and Stewardship of Spaces on Historic Garfield Blvd
Arts + Public Life’s work is based on the Arts Block, a creative corridor in the heart of Washington Park extending along East Garfield Boulevard from South Prairie Avenue to South Martin Luther King Drive.
Much of APL’s work is rooted in how arts + culture is reparative, restorative, and transformational work – for the adult and teen artists involved, for visitors who attend programs and exhibitions and for the actual physical block. What we do and the art support must be relevant and resonate to those who traverse these streets, which hold a rich cultural legacy including the Rhumboogie Cafe.
