Year of Creative Youth Exhibitions

August 25, 2018—January 6, 2019

Chicago Cultural Center • Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor South

Chicago Cultural Center > Visual Art Program > Exhibitions > Past Exhibitions > Year of Creative Youth Exhibitions > Year of Creative Youth

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As part of the Year of Creative Youth, the Chicago Cultural Center worked in collaboration with four local community organizations to feature the work of young artists.

Peacemakers and Community Connections Project
in collaboration with Changing Worlds

During the 2017-2018 academic year, Changing Worlds collaborated with Chicago Public Schools educators and 11- to 13-year-old students from Pilsen, Back of the Yards and the Near West Side. During this project, 250 youth created visual and poetic imagery examining their local challenges and celebrating community leaders working for positive change in their communities. After exploring these networks of support for peace and non-violence, youth had ample inspiration for their poems, original drawings and posters and handcrafted lightboxes that signify peace, hope and community. Changing Worlds invites you to experience how youth are responding to Chicago violence and offering their own understanding of the culture of care and concern that exists for their communities.

Fern Room Goes East
in collaboration with Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance

The Garfield Park Conservatory's iconic Fern Room is recreated at the Cultural Center, bringing a multi-sensory experience of the beauty, history and nature to downtown. Through a series of art and science- based activities, thousands of "ferns" were created by visitors to the Conservatory's free, weekly drop-in family programming throughout the summer. The Conservatory's Urban Roots teen interns provide interpretation of the exhibit, detailing each featured fern species and the room's history.

PR Colonial Identity, Inc.
in collaboration with Studio Arts & Exhibition Program (SAEP), Puerto Rican Arts Alliance

SAEP's teens made a selection of historical portraits marking important moments in Puerto Rican art history. The exhibit is an experimental painting installation taking visitors through the chronological colonial turmoil that shaped the face and identity of Puerto Ricans past and present. The Studio Arts & Exhibition Program (SAEP) enrolls 105 teens in after-school and summer Studio Arts programs in residency at two locations, Humboldt Park Field House and the Roberto Clemente Community Academy.

Odes and Tattoos
in collaboration with Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education

How are voices and stories from overlooked, liminal social spaces elevated? How are marginalized cultural perspectives depicted to convey new ideas of self and community that are often sidelined by a larger historical narrative? Students from North-Grand High School attempt to tackle these questions through the creation of multidisciplinary artworks that examine how history and culture are manifested through art and and how they themselves can find agency by re-presenting the social and cultural. Teaching Artists Marc Fischer and Jose Luis Benavides have collaborated with teachers Karen Furlong and Lisa Welsh to create this exhibition.