In conjunction with its Art Design Chicago exhibition Dawit L. Petros: Prospetto a Mare, the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) extends the term of the museum’s Community Engagement Fellow (Solome Bezuneh) by four months, through December 2024. As part of her fellowship, Solome has helped to plan programming for the exhibition, which features the work of Dawit Petros, an Eritrean-born artist based in Chicago whose project explores links related to colonization, migration, and modernism between Italy, East Africa, and Chicago. The fellow is fostering partnerships as well as planning and facilitating programs with the Eritrean and Ethiopian communities in Chicago, overseeing the planning of a workshop, and assisting with the coordination of a scholarly symposium to take place this fall. MoCP’s education staff was terminated in the staff reductions made across Columbia College Chicago (MoCP’s parent organization) this summer. The foundation’s supplemental award will help the museum welcome the public and engage audiences with the exhibition.

The publication Supergraphic Landscapes (Applied Research and Design Publishing) is a collaboration between architect Joseph Altshuler and graphic designer Nekita Thomas, both public art practitioners and faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, featuring contributions from other designers as well. The book traces the lineages of creative placemaking and chronicles contemporary public art practices and strategies that blend graphic design, architecture, and landscape architecture primarily in Chicago’s South and West Sides, analyzing public art’s role in fostering identity, access, and a sense of belonging. Through case studies and analysis, the authors aim to develop a resource for the arts and design fields, showing how discipline–spanning public art practices can help reimagine public spaces and a more liberatory city. 

The youth-led webzine MILDSAUCE: The Art and Fashion Issue explores the question, “How Does Art Influence Fashion and Vice Versa?” and considers the impact of art and fashion on Chicago artists Nick Cave and the late Virgil Abloh. The young journalists use various media and processes (interviews, writing, video, and podcasting) to tell stories intended to delve deeply into the relationships between contemporary art and fashion in Chicago.  

The Newberry Library hosts three collaborative public programs that foreground overlooked and underappreciated aspects of contemporary arts in Chicago and strengthen relationships between the Newberry and stakeholders across Chicago’s contemporary art scene. The programs—“The Art of the Book in Chicago Collections,” “The Art of Memory: Everyday Life during the Pandemic,” and “Punk Photography, Art, and Design in Chicago”— are presented in person at the Newberry, as well as livestreamed and recorded for later viewing.  

Lawndale Pop-Up Spot takes the lead in the community art installation segment of a multi-organization project, “Reimagining 16th Street,” intended to transform the 16th Street corridor in North Lawndale. The Pop-Up Spot’s project is designed to engage community members in discussions about the past, present, and future of 16th Street—exploring its origins and current state, and envisioning its potential over the next 30 years. Unfolding in three stages, each comprising three components (a community convening, an artist-led art–making day building on the community discussions, and an installation), the project aims to enhance public spaces and foster social cohesion, safety, accessibility, and enjoyment for all community members. 

The Richard H. Driehaus Museum launches public programming for its A Tale of Today: Materialities exhibition, challenging conventional interpretations of the Gilded Age–era Nickerson Mansion by inviting a diverse group of contemporary artists to develop new work offering a critical response to materials used in its construction and decoration. The programming includes two free community days, hands-on workshops, and panel discussions. The exhibition and its programs uncover the hidden cultural, economic, political, and ecological histories and networks reflected in the materials, inviting visitors to consider the global systems that the Nickerson family participated in to build and decorate their home with imported materials as well as the contributions of unrecognized artists and laborers from around the world who played a pivotal role in constructing it.