The Rivendell Theatre Ensemble is partnering with artist Tonika Lewis Johnson to present a production inspired by the artist’s Folded Map project, a photography and video series that addresses the legacies of redlining and the inequity it created between the North and South Sides of the city. Embracing Johnson’s grassroots, people-first approach, Rivendell is exploring the real-life experiences of Folded Map participants (referred to as “map twins”) to craft a new theatrical work. Focused on the “map twins” of Rivendell’s Edgewater location and Johnson’s home community of Englewood, the Rivendell is building upon the Folded Map Project’s process, using radical community engagement, co-creation, and multicultural collaboration to comment on disparities and exclusions through art. 

“Never So Free: Black Queer Art + Assembly in Chicago” is a salon and program series that brings together a small intergenerational cohort of Black queer artists to research and develop projects about the rich history of queer Black arts spaces in Chicago. The program expands in the fall and winter with a collection of free public programs highlighting the cohort’s findings, coupled with collaborative art-making experiences. This project serves as a pilot initiative, marking the beginning of an ongoing effort to transform Arts + Public Life’s Green Line Performing Arts Center into a South Side hub for assembly and creativity and a supportive space for a new generation of queer Black artists to engage in creative endeavors. 

Edra Soto, a Puerto Rican artist based in Chicago, crafts an outdoor installation next to the cultural hub Comfort Station in the Logan Square neighborhood in northwest Chicago. During the summer and fall this outdoor setting  functions as a communal space and site for additional art installations, performances, and participatory workshops and programs curated by Soto and partner organizations. The programming and installations pay homage to and celebrate Latinx/e heritage, acknowledging the rich cultural identities present in Chicago communities and addressing the project’s core themes of displacement, collective grief, and neighborly care. 

Mobile Makers Chicago (MMC) organizes the “Strength in Community Pop-Up,” a mobile classroom initiative that actively involves youth ages 8–18 in design activities that foster discussions about space, place, belonging, and positive community change. The classroom on wheels travels to outdoor community events to reach youth in disinvested areas and who identify as LGBTQ+, female, Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color. MMC’s goal is to engage youth in design through play, allowing them unrestricted freedom of expression and providing necessary materials at no cost. Instructors at the Strength in Community Pop-Up events—designers from communities underrepresented in the design field—serve as role models, answering questions from those interested in a career in design. 

Sixty Inches from Center is hosting the reimagined Chicago Archives + Artists Festival, a multi-day event that serves as a platform to promote awareness of cultural archives; share archival best practices; and foster relationships among artists, archivists, librarians, curators, and cultural producers from Chicago and the Midwest. Key goals are the empowerment of all artists to actively contribute to the cultural record to benefit Sixty’s partner archives by encouraging new donations, the fostering of collaboration among disparate archives, and the enhancement of public awareness of Chicago’s archival resources to shape an inclusive future. The project specifically engages artists and archives that bring underrepresented voices and histories to the forefront.