Elevated Chicago And MacArthur Foundation Invest In Community-Led Art Projects

Members of the Austin Safety Action Plan Safe Zone. The Safe Zone was co-founded Davonte Dudley, a co-owner of the Austin Artisan Market, who hopes the market will be another safe, affirming space for community members. Photo provided by Rudd Resources.
Members of the Austin Safety Action Plan Safe Zone. The Safe Zone was co-founded Davonte Dudley, a co-owner of the Austin Artisan Market, who hopes the market will be another safe, affirming space for community members. Photo provided by Rudd Resources.

Elevated Chicago And MacArthur Foundation Invest In Community-Led Art Projects

By Tia Carol Jones

Elevated Chicago recently partnered with the MacArthur Foundation to provide $340,000 in grant money to eight community-led art projects that will be located near transit hubs. Equiticity in North and South Lawndale, the OH Art Foundation in Bridgeport, One Aim High LLC in Bronzeville, the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance in Avondale and Humboldt Park.

 Also the Quad Communities Development Corporation in Bronzeville, Root2Fruit Youth Foundation in Austin, the Southeast Chamber of Commerce and the Kehrein Center for the Arts Foundation in Austin and Washington Park will activate spaces near public transportation. The hope is that these projects will increase foot traffic, amplify community voices and strengthen the local culture.

Elevated Chicago is a coalition that works to move the Equitable Transit Oriented Development (ETOD) forward throughout the city of Chicago. The coalition focuses on bringing community-driven, community-focused and community-led investments to places that have been disinvested and experienced displacement. Marly Schott, lead for Elevated Chicago’s Arts & Culture Strategy, said that transit is an incredible asset in the city of Chicago and Elevated Chicago is working to figure out how to bring investments around transit that are focused on community needs and wants.

Schott said in addition to Elevated Chicago using an equity lens in its work, it also looks at how equitable transit can improve arts and cultural vitality within communities. She said while Elevated Chicago has always invested in arts and cultural projects and placekeeping, there wasn’t a strategy that guided it.

Last year, it launched a new strategy that focused on arts and culture and cultural vitality as tools and the keys for real and true ETOD. With the Elevating Culture Near Transit Grants, Elevated Chicago employs artists, and engages communities around culture to protect, amplify and preserve those communities that have been and are still experiencing displacement. She said the MacArthur Foundation and Elevated Chicago were brought together to engage arts and culture as a way to shape the built environment and to create and drive economic opportunities around the transit assets.

“Culture is not a luxury — it’s a necessity. That’s why the MacArthur Foundation supports creative placekeeping: to honor and sustain the cultural life of communities, especially in the face of displacement and disinvestment. In Chicago, artists and residents have long worked together to preserve the soul of their neighborhoods while imagining new possibilities," Ryan K. Priester, Senior Program Officer, Chicago Commitment, MacArthur Foundation, said in a press release.

Schott said the eight community-led art projects used culture as a driver to shape the built environment and they engaged diverse sectors of their communities. She said the projects are connected to organizations and small businesses and have a lot of connections to community, which amplifies culture within the built environment. 

The projects include the installation of public sculptures, activating storefronts, wellness-centered arts-based community gatherings, murals and marketplaces and performances designed to have a positive impact on the communities where they will take place. Schott said the projects will also lift up the unique identities of the communities.

Each year, there will be an open call for applications that will allow for a new set of projects to be advanced for funding. Schott said the goal is to roll out the program, do it well and use the program to also uplift artists and let them use their skills to build their portfolio through participation in the projects.

“We’re really excited about this opportunity to deepen our relationship across different communities and with different partners to build our network and connect networks to each other and create opportunities through this beyond just the grantmaking and creative placekeeping,” Schott said.

For more information about Elevated Chicago, visit www.elevatedchicago.org.

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