Potential Energy: Chicago Puppets Up Close
December 21, 2024—April 6, 2025
Chicago Cultural Center, Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor East
Curated by Grace Needlman + Will Bishop
Coordinated by Ashwaty Chennat
Co-Presented by Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival
Chicago Cultural Center > Visual Art Program > Exhibitions > Past Exhibitions > Potential Energy: Chicago Puppets Up Close
Chicago is home to a rich and growing ecology of puppetry, bridging mediums and communities of makers. This sampling of puppets by local artists challenges expectations about puppetry and inspires the public to tell their own stories. Puppets are made to tell stories. By taking puppets off stage, we can focus on how artists design specific stories into each object. How do artists invent new ways to mechanize materials in motion, build cohesive worlds, and create characters that expand our ability to understand and empathize with ourselves and others?
This is an exhibition of potentialities. How can the possibility for a particular story be built into a puppet? What are new and unexpected ways to use familiar materials? What stories could you imagine telling with these puppets? What stories do you want to tell and how can you start telling them?
- KT Shivak
- Jaerin Son
- Alonso Galue
- Wendy Madrigal
- Jacqueline Wade
- Myra Su
- Christopher Knowlton
- Jacky Kesley
- Sion Silva
- Emilie Wingate
- Chio Cabrera-Coz
- Tom Lee
- Tracey Christmas
- Kendall Buckingham
- The Reverend Van Ferdinand and Eric Mercure
- August Boyne
- Caitlin McLeod
- Jerrell Henderson
- Chicago Children’s Theater
- Chicago Puppet Studio
- Red Line Service Institute (Ravi Arupa, Tracey Christmas, Steffen Garcia, Shay Jones, Marcela Okeke, Efren Paderes, Reverend Van Ferdinand)
- Manual Cinema
- Jabberwocky Marionettes
- Wonder Wagon
- Rough House Theater Co.
Admission is FREE
Open Daily, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Exhibitions close 15 minutes before the building closes
(Closed Holidays)
Find us:
Chicago Cultural Center
78 E. Washington St.
Chicago, IL 60602
Take CTA to Chicago Cultural Center
- From the elevated lines: exit at Washington/Wabash and walk east.
- From the subway: exit at Lake (Red Line) or Washington (Blue Line) and walk east.
- Served by Michigan Avenue buses 3, 4, 19, 20, 26, 60, 66, 124, 143, 147, 151, 157 and Washington St. buses 4, J14, 20, 56, 66, 147
11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Puppets in Progress
Puppets-In-Progress (PIPs) is an informal gathering for testing out new puppet and object-based performances. Bring whatever you’re working on and get encouragement and feedback from other puppet-folks!
Are you new to puppetry and want a low-stakes way to test the waters? Are you an old hand with a new project? Are you a dancer, comics artist, performance poet, teacher, lifeguard, or engineer just curious about what puppetry looks like today? Everyone is welcome! Bring a project, no matter how rough, or just come for the conversation.
This edition of PIPs is facilitated by Sam Lewis and Kevin Michael Wesson and, as always, hosted by Rough House Puppet Arts!
10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Intro to Puppetry for BIPOC Artists, and Puppet Lovers
Shadow Puppet Workshop by Leah Lara + PUPPETQUEERS
Learning Lab, 1st Floor West
Potential Energy: Closing Slam!
Join us for a closing celebration of the flourishing puppetry scene of Chicago and the exhibit "Potential Energy: Chicago Puppets Up Close" and meet the artists behind the objects!
"Slams" are short-form — often in-progress — performances that are a cornerstone of Chicago's puppet scene. This Closing Slam has two unique sets of performances that offer a slice of the diverse, inventive and interdisciplinary approaches to puppetry that are happening in our city.
1-2 p.m.
- Chris Knowlton
- Tracey Christmas
- Kevin Michael Wesson
- Alonso Galue
3-4 p.m.
- Reverend Punchfizz and the Congregation
- Myra Su
- Jacqueline Wade
- Alonso Galue
5-6:30 p.m.
In conversation with Artists & Curator
Claudia Cassidy Theater, 2nd Floor North
Talk 5-6 p.m.
Q & A 6-6:30 p.m.
Panelists: Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty, Marissa Fenley, Grace Needlman, Abby Palem, Sivan Spector and Myra Su
Moderated by: Zhenesse Heinemann
11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Drop-in Touch Tours
Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor East
Touch tours are an opportunity for visitors to experience artwork through a guided experience of touching the artwork. They are designed as an accessibility tool for blind and low-vision people, but these touch tours are open to anyone (all ages and abilities). In Potential Energy these tours will be led by the artists who made the puppets. Artists can answer questions about their work, offer demonstrations, and guide visitors through experiencing the work through touch.
11 a.m.-4 p.m.
Drop-in Touch Tours
Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor East
12 p.m. and 2 p.m.
Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival
Free Neighborhood Tour performances
Hungry Garden by Poncili Creación
Studio Theater in Renaissance Court, 1st Floor North
