The Englewood Arts Collective Creates Visibility Through Arts

The Englewood Arts Collective will be providing programming for this year’s The Other Art Fair, which includes beatmaking. PHOTO PROVIDED BY PAGE ONE PUBLIC RELATIONS.
The Englewood Arts Collective will be providing programming for this year’s The Other Art Fair, which includes beatmaking. PHOTO PROVIDED BY PAGE ONE PUBLIC RELATIONS.

The Englewood Arts Collective Creates Visibility Through Arts

By Tia Carol Jones

The Englewood Arts Collective was formed by ten multidisciplinary artists who came together in 2017, but they became really active three years later in the summer of 2020, responding to what was happening in the world at the time. The collective initiative came together with the mission to positively represent where they were from, Englewood and West Englewood.

“Just in our lived experiences, we realized that many people had such negative connotations to the neighborhood where we grew up and still loved,” said Co-Founder Janell Nelson. “By virtue of just representing ourselves and coming together to say, hey, look what comes out of neighborhoods like Greater Englewood … we just wanted to reframe the narrative.”

Nelson’s discipline is in graphic design, and she created the website for the Englewood Arts Collective for them to promote the artists in the collective. In 2020, they became more active with the mutual aid drop, where they distributed funds to other South side artists, and activated and transformed the vacant viaduct on 58th and Halsted. They also hosted a hosted a community paint day and designed the Englewood Gateway Mural. 

What started as a reaction was proactively being used as a tool and catalyst for a positive transformation. The Englewood Arts Collective is one of the community partners at this year’s ‘The Other Art Fair’, which will take place from Thursday through Sunday, March 27th-30th, at Artifact Events, located at 4325 N. Ravenswood Ave.

The Englewood Arts Collective has four main tenets: revitalize public spaces through art driven beautification, engage all Chicagoans in creative experiences that build community pride, disrupt harmful narratives about Greater Englewood through artmaking and visibility, and to create economic opportunities for other South side artists.

Nelson is passionate about advocacy for artists, especially in bureaucratic spaces, with elected officials. Pugs Atomz is another Co-Founder who is also an entrepreneur, artist and clothier. He has expertise in how artists can be economic forces and drivers. He had his own booth at the art fair before and was able to leverage that into an opportunity for the collective to participate.

The Englewood Arts Collective will be providing programming for ‘The Other Art Fair’, which will include printmaking, collaging, beat making, as well as live painting demonstrations, magnet decorating, a mosaic demonstration and mindfulness and macramé. Nelson said participating in ‘The Other Art Fair’ speaks to how artists can tap into their own agency and not be siphoned or extracting the culture, but represent the culture in spaces where that representation might not always be at the forefront.

 Being a part of ‘The Other Art Fair’ with the Englewood Arts Collective is also an opportunity for artists to get visibility, sell their art and build based on that visibility. Pugs Atomz said because of his participation in last year’s show, he was asked to participate in Art Beats & Lyrics, a traveling artists showcase. 

“You’re also able to build relationships with buyers, galleries and other artists, because there are people from all over the U.S. who come to each city to show their art work,” Pugs Atomz said.

For more information about the Englewood Arts Collective, follow them @englewoodartscollective on Instagram and visit englewoodartscollective.org.

For more information about ‘The Other Art Fair’, visit www.theotherartfair.com/chicago.


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