Themes

Below I have listed projects that fall into the following themes. These themes form the threads that run throughout all of my work: Chicago-Centric Work; Social Movement Documentaries; Collaborative Research; Education; Food and Ecology; Public Space; Urban Planning; Cooperatives and Collectives.

Chicago-Centric Work

Over the last 10 years I have produced a number of projects focused on the conditions of the city itself. The city I live in has been the lens through which I have attempted to understand contemporary issues ranging from neoliberal economic policies to the political potential of art and the power of social movements. These efforts include:

• Never The Same (Ongoing)
• Notes for a People’s Atlas of Chicago (2006-2011)
• Visions for Chicago (2011)
• AREA Chicago (2005-2010)
• Critical Art in Chicago (2008-2009) – This 5-Part series for H-Art Magazine attempted to frame key issues surrounding social/political art in Chicago for an outside audience focused on history, groups and spaces, institutions, media, and community building led by individuals.
• 5 Questions about Art in Chicago (2008)
• Trashing the Neoliberal City available here for download or in print through Half Letter Press for $7 (2006)
• CHAos (2005)
• Contested Chicago Bus Tours (2005-2008): From 2005-2008 I gave bus-tours of contested histories in Chicago as part of the University of Chicago Masters in Social Sciences orientation. The tour was two and a half hours long, 32 miles and focused on the intersections of incarceration, displacement, and migration with a strong emphasis on local social-movement history. The tour was tailored to social science graduate students who were new to Chicago and looking for research subjects and ways to be socially-engaged graduate students. Much of the research for the tour was presented in a map/timeline in the “Solidarities” 3rd issue of AREA Chicago (designed by Dave Pabellon).
• Daley Village (2001)

Social Movement Documentaries:

Over the years I have come to understand much of what I make as “social movement documentaries” which are intended to be made by/for/with the movements they attempt to document and archive. A few of those projects are:

• AREA Chicago (2005-2010)
• Farm Together Now (2009)
• Town Hall Talks (2008)
• Trashing the Neoliberal City (2006)
• Retooling Dissent (2002)

Collaborative Research:

Using a variety of forums and formats I have attempted to continuously experiment with collaborative forms of research in an attempt to combat the isolation and individualism  of education and scholarship:

• Chicago Critical Art (Ongoing)
• Crisis Image Research Group (2012)
• Tactical Media Generation (2012)
• Inquiry to Action Group: Chicago Movement Building Center (2011)
• Bad Jobs in Goods Movement – a collaboration between AREA Chicago and Warehouse Workers for Justice (2010)
• Continental Drift (2005-2010)
• City as Policy Lab & Neoliberal Cities Reading Group (2006-2007)

Education:

Learning communities form organically and bureaucratically and both approaches warrant investigation. I have continuously tried to integrate conversations about education both inside and outside of schools in a variety of forms from articles to public events:

• University of California Institute for Research in the Arts (2010-2011) (Developed publications on themes of arts education during budget cuts and what counts as artistic research in the academy?)
• Mixing It Up - Study Guide (2011)
• AREA Chicago (2005-2010)
• How We Learn (2007)
• Chicago Public Schools – Editing the education section of City as Lab; Interviews with Jesse Senechal and Maura Nugent on the Myth of School Choice; Pauline Lipman and Eric Rico Gustein on Teachers for Social Justice; and editorial support for Notes on the Political Economy of Charter Schools by Eric Triantafillou

Food and Ecology:

In 2001 I was in an arts administration class where we were assigned to organize an art event collaboratively. The only thing we could come up with as a shared interest was food and since then I have continuously found that urgent theme recurring in my interests and work:

• Food Sovereignty (2011)
• Creative Ecologies (2011)
• Farm Together Now (2009-2010)
• Coffee Roasting and Peanut Butter making (2009-2011)
• Energy Plans with Futurefarmers (2008)
• AREA Chicago – Issue #2 “After Winter Comes Spring: Local Food Systems in Chicago” (2006)
• Fooday – A day long festival of food and art organized at the Autonomous Zone with Brett Bloom’s Alternative Curatorial Practices Class (2001)

Public Space:

I am deeply concerned about the quality of public space in the city, how it is used and by whom. This theme has been explored through collaborative research, interventions and public art:

• Chicago Torture Justice Memorials (2011)
• Visions for Chicago (2011)
• Notes for a People’s Atlas of Public Space in Chisinau (2010)
• Energy Plans (2008)
• CHAos (2005)
• Godblessgraffiti (2002-2004)
• Bikecartinfoshop (2004)
• Daley Village (2001)
• Streetspeaker (2001)
• Misc Street Art (Ongoing)

Urban Planning:

The planning and organization of cities has been a central theme of much of my journalism and collaborative public art:

• Visions for Chicago (2011)
• City as Lab (2007)
• Notes for a People’s Atlas (2006-2011)
• Trashing the Neoliberal City (2006)

Cooperatives and Collectives:

A significant part of my time and practice has involved forming and contributing to groups, communities and cooperatives. I enjoy the challenges and benefits posed by working in groups and feeding off of the collective creativity. Here are a few of the groupings I have been involved with over the years:

• Chicago Torture – Justice Memorials Project advisory board
• Chicago Coffee Confederation (Ongoing – Small coffee roasting group that shares resources)
• In These Times (Ongoing – An office cooperative and art gallery)
• Dill Pickle Food Coop (Grocery store which I have participated in since its early stages in 2005)
• StreetRec (Graphics and media collective active between 2001-2003)
• Midwest Radical Cultural Corridor (Loose-knit group of artists and activists living in the midwest of the US)
• Counter Productive Industries (Loose-knit group of Chicago artists from 2000-2005)
• Orientation Center (Office cooperative and cultural center shared with AREA Chicago, InCUBATE and Chicago Underground Library from 2009-2010)
• AREA Chicago (Founder and Editor from 2005-2010)
• Art and the Public Sphere Journal (Advisory Board 2010-2011)
• Journal of Aesthetics and Protest (Advisory Board 2003-2004)
• Gapers Block (Contributors Board, 2007)
• ThreeWalls SOLO (Selection Committee 2008-09)
• Version-Fest (Organizer, 2004)
• UCIRA (Staff member and organizational structure consultant)