I am an artist and an arts administrator. This page highlights my administrative and curatorial practice. I have a deep passion for ensuring artists are supported in an equitable and human way by offering appropriate stipends, making room for artist parents, ensuring publications are created to outlive an exhibition as an archive, and supporting the core practice of art and culture making. I do this while being equally invested in my collaborators’ ideas, their capacity, and their well-being. I am a service-oriented administrator, and I prioritize serving others in order to uplift both internal teams and collaborators. My commitment is unwavering toward fostering the growth and well-being of individuals and the communities to which they belong. This approach entails actively sharing power, giving precedence to the needs of others, and providing proactive support to individuals.

Regin Igloria: Seven Skins
March 7–April 26, 2024


The title Seven Skins is derived from the theory that all the cells in a human body get replaced over seven years. Some take this to mean an individual becomes a new person every seven years. Igloria employs this framework in his exhibition, having gone through seven skins at forty-nine years of age. This show serves as a mid-life re-evaluation, reflecting on past interests, identities, and fascinations while determining the emergence of themes and preoccupations that remain prevalent in his work. Through the lens of dry absurdity, Igloria explores diverse topics such as survival, competition, and the Western iconography of the outdoorsman.

Seven has become a fitting categorical number to Igloria, the last of five children and the seventh member of his family. The cornerstone of the exhibition is seven wall-hanging pieces, each with accompanying artist books. While the wall works are scaled thoughtfully, no larger than his human body, the book counterpart s , set in the midst of the lager wall works allow for a more intimate reading. In tandem these twin works create a literal figure-ground relationship for the viewer. 


Regin Igloria was Born 1974 in Manila, Philippines and currently lives and works in and around Chicago. He is a multidisciplinary artist and educator. His drawings, artists’ books, sculptures, and performances portray the human condition as it relates to the natural environment and inhabited spaces. He founded North Branch Projects, an organization that builds connections through book arts. He works with various communities to create crossover between disparate populations and cultures, aiming to broaden the roles of both artists and non-artists. Igloria has taught at places such as Marwen, RISD, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Snow City Arts, and Carthage College. He received a 3Arts Individual Artist Award as well as local, national, and international grants, support through artist residencies, and has exhibited internationally. He received his MFA from Rhode Island School of Design.


View the catalog here

Listen to Regin Ingloria speak about the exhibition here

Glass Curtain Gallery—Columbia College Chicago
1104 S Wabash Ave, 1st Floor, Chicago, IL 60605

Rhonda Wheatley: There Are Universes. . .
November 9–February 16, 2024

There Are Universes. . . is created on the premise that humans can only perceive .0035% of the light/energy spectrum, a concept that intrigues Wheatley as both an artist and energy healer. Her practice not only investigates this notion but asserts that there is vastly more to reality than what we can sense physically. The exhibition, through a combination of visual artworks, interactive installations, workshops, and hybrid performances, excavates how we might tap into that other 99.9965% of reality, even if only for a glimpse of its potential. Each of these immersive experiences encourages us to employ our imagination and suggests that we possess senses beyond the physical realm, which can aid us in transcending the limitations of the 0.0035%. We may find ourselves connecting with subterranean realms where crystals flourish, where tree roots and mushroom mycelia establish intricate communication networks, or even attuning ourselves to the earth's rhythmic heartbeat deep below.

Rhonda Wheatley is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist, energy worker, and educator whose installations and interactive projects are grounded in the speculative and metaphysical. Her projects over the past few years include solo shows at Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC) and Aurora Public Art and group shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), DePaul Art Museum, Buffalo AKG Art Museum (NY), and Art League of Houston. She has performed as part of the MCA’s In Progress series, at Gallery 400, and the Terrain Biennial. Wheatley seeks to cultivate healing and personal transformation via wellness workshops, such as those she facilitated with Creative Capital, The University of Chicago, Threewalls, 3Arts, Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC), 6018North, and more. She teaches at HPAC and has taught contemporary art at Indiana University and Purdue University, Indianapolis. Wheatley is a 2023 Jackman Wasserman Radicle Resident at HPAC and was a Loghaven Fellow. She received CAC’s inaugural Coney Family Award and a 3Arts ‘Make a Wave’ Grant. She received her MA from DePaul University and BA from Loyola University.

This project is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

View the exhibition catalog here


Glass Curtain Gallery—Columbia College Chicago
1104 S Wabash Ave, 1st Floor, Chicago, IL 60605

Susan Giles: Space Has Become This Material Thing
September 5–October 27, 2023

Space Has Become This Material Thing reveals the intersections of memory, communication, and physicality. Through sculptures and drawings of hand gestures, Giles captures the reflections of individuals who have recently transitioned to new homes. The invited participants, young adults and elderly citizens, like many others, underwent significant changes in their perception of home during the pandemic-induced isolation. The stories and gestures captured through this artwork serve as a point of social engagement through listening, sharing, and connecting personal to collective memory.

The fleeting shapes and movements our hands make while speaking are skillfully rendered, evoking the embodied experience of the world and making each artwork a tangible repository, preserving the recollections and perceived realities of the speakers. In focusing on the recalled experiences of individuals and the corresponding hand gestures, Giles seeks to illuminate the point at which language takes on a sculptural form. Through this exploration, the exhibition offers a captivating exploration of how our embodied experiences shape our understanding and representation of the spaces we call home.

Susan Giles’s work has shown in Chicago at the Chicago Cultural Center, The Hyde Park Art Center, THE MISSION, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and The Renaissance Society, as well as Mixed Greens in New York; Galería Valle Ortí in Valencia, Spain; and Five Years, London. Major commissions include a permanent sculpture for the University of Chicago in 2021 and a public art commission by Jason Rosenthal in memory of Amy Krouse Rosenthal for the Chicago Park District in 2019. In 2021 Giles was on Creative Capital’s Shortlist. She has received numerous grants, including an Individual Artist Project Grant from DCASE in 2022, 2019, 2017, and 2015, awards from the Illinois Arts Council in 2014 and 2009, a 2005 Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, and a 1998 Fulbright Grant to Indonesia. Giles is an Associate Professor in the Department of Contemporary Practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a 2023 Visiting Teaching Fellow in Built Environment, Arts, Design & Architecture at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

Glass Curtain Gallery—Columbia College Chicago
1104 S Wabash Ave, 1st Floor, Chicago, IL 60605

*Speak Up!
Dorian Sylvain*
Location: Wabash Arts Corridor, 623 S Wabash Ave, Chicago, IL 60605

Speak Up! honors Kamala Harris, the first woman and person of color elected Vice President in 2020--exactly 100 years after women gained the legal right to vote. To commemorate this groundbreaking achievement, the artwork takes the form of a text-based mural featuring the powerful quote, "I'm Speaking," which was said by vice presidential candidate Harris during the 2020 vice presidential debate.

This mural serves as more than just a monument dedicated to Vice President Harris's historic election. It encapsulates the challenges women and people of color face in having their voices heard, as well as the progress made for greater participation in politics and policymaking. Yet, amid these advancements, the mural acknowledges that the journey toward true equality continues. By featuring this empowering phrase in a visually striking manner, Speak Up! invites viewers to celebrate the progress, face the challenges, and remain vigilant in the pursuit of a more just and inclusive society.


Dorian Sylvain is a painter whose color and texture explore ornamentation, pattern, and design as identifiers of cultural and historical foundations. She is a studio painter and muralist, as well as an art educator, curator, and community planner. Much of her public work addresses issues of beautification inspired by color palettes and patterns found throughout the African diaspora, particularly architecture. Core to her practice is collaborating with children and communities to elevate neighborhood aesthetics and foster shared understanding. In addition to commissioned studio and mural work, Sylvain has led public art projects over the past four decades that empower community and expose children to art making. Partnering with such organizations as the South Side Community Art Center, Hyde Park Art Center, National Museum of Mexican Art, DuSable Museum, Chicago Park District, and the Chicago Public Arts Group, she has devoted her work to building the next generation of “cultural keepers.”


Read more about the mural here here

ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Commissioning Committee: The Chicago Womxn’s Suffrage Tribute Committee: Meg Duguid, Michelle Duster, Catherine Mardikes, Kris Nesbitt, Lori Osborne, and Neysa Page-Lieberman

Producer: Meg Duguid

Site and Production Manager: Abie Vasquez, AB Productions

Assistant Artist: Artist Assistants: Katon Blackburn, Shiree Davis, Sergio Maciel, Marshawn Rush, and Delia West

Photography: Sandra Steinbrecher

This project was made possible with donations from individual supporters and Chicago Foundation for Women, Jane Walker by Johnnie Walker, The Harnisch Foundation, The Field Foundation, University Center, Chicago Women’s History Center, and the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

The Chicago Womxn's Suffrage Tribute Committee was formed in 2020 to honor the work of Illinois women for voting and other rights for women, and to ensure that the stories of women’s activism are told and not forgotten. The focus of the committee is to create public art projects that will reach wide audiences and serve to mark the work of women activists in public spaces and venues. The Chicago Suffrage murals are the first of the projects they seek to create. Others include installing historic markers at women’s suffrage sites in the state (five markers are currently underway), and state-wide recognition of female political trailblazers through public art and other projects.

*Votes For Women
Produced by AB Productions*
Location: Wabash Arts Corridor, 623 S Wabash Ave, Chicago, IL 60605

Votes for Women was created to honor the labor and organizing by women who were engaged in the long struggle to gain the right to vote. This mural features the yellow rose, which was a symbol used in the suffrage movement, with the iconic phrase “Votes for Women” at the center. It stands as a vivid reminder of the suffragists' unwavering determination, and serves as a rallying cry that the work for full gender equity persists.

Votes for Women is the third in a series of murals commissioned by the Chicago Womxn's Suffrage Tribute Committee. It is a companion mural to Dorian Sylvain’s Speak up! and a sister mural to On the Wings of Change by Diosa (Jasmina Cazacu) located on the south side of 33 East Ida B Wells Drive.

AB Productions is a large-scale mural and art production company owned and operated by Abie Vasquez. AB Productions works on murals with artists from all over the world, and has been working with the Wabash Arts Corridor since its inception.


Read more about the mural here here

ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Commissioning Committee: The Chicago Womxn’s Suffrage Tribute Committee: Meg Duguid, Michelle Duster, Catherine Mardikes, Kris Nesbitt, Lori Osborne, and Neysa Page-Lieberman

Producer: Meg Duguid

Site and Production Manager: Abie Vasquez, AB Productions

Photography: Sandra Steinbrecher

This project was made possible with donations from individual supporters and Chicago Foundation for Women, Jane Walker by Johnnie Walker, The Harnisch Foundation, The Field Foundation, University Center, Chicago Women’s History Center, and the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

The Chicago Womxn's Suffrage Tribute Committee was formed in 2020 to honor the work of Illinois women for voting and other rights for women, and to ensure that the stories of women’s activism are told and not forgotten. The focus of the committee is to create public art projects that will reach wide audiences and serve to mark the work of women activists in public spaces and venues. The Chicago Suffrage murals are the first of the projects they seek to create. Others include installing historic markers at women’s suffrage sites in the state (five markers are currently underway), and state-wide recognition of female political trailblazers through public art and other projects.

The Taxonomy of Peggy Macnamara
March 9–April 28, 2023

The Taxonomy of Peggy Macnamara features an immense array of artwork that has been created during Macnamara’s tenure as the only artist in residence at the Field Museum. This exhibition focuses on her relationship to observing and working among the collections over decades where practice as an artist, teacher, and collaborator has developed a process of long looking that has created a taxonomy of its own.

Macanamara has traveled across the world, geared with her pencils and watercolors, investigating the fascinating intricacies of nature alongside scientists and peers from the Field Museum. Although her work uses the academic approach of illustrating, her savvy is evident in her loose handling of her art materials to document plants, animals, and related conservation work. Macanamara’s work artfully captures living things (or in some cases—once living), educates us, and sparks interest in the complexities of the natural world.

This exhibition hones in on a tapestry of works that inspire curiosity and deep looking at plants, animals, and the dynamic relationships between them. Macanamara’s attention to detail, and skilled hand at analytically dissecting plants and animals is revealed through the works that leave the stages of the development of a piece visible. We engage with her work for the love of looking, but inevitably discussions about nature, extinction, conservation, and collections permeate its surface. Come take a peek behind the scenes of the Field Museum’s collections through Macnamara’s work, and through special tours accompanying this exhibition.

This exhibition was co-curated by Meg Duguid and Mark Porter

View the catalog here

Glass Curtain Gallery—Columbia College Chicago
1104 S Wabash Ave, 1st Floor, Chicago, IL 60605

Norman W. Long: Calumet in Dub
November 10, 2022–February 17, 2023

Calumet in Dub focuses on Long’s research-based work delving into the ecology and soundscapes of the Southeast Side of Chicago along the Calumet and Little Calumet River area. Inspired initially by a story that aired on the BBC about the relationship of the Little Calumet River to the history of the Great Migration, Long has investigated how housing, labor, and environmental activism has coalesced in this location and how historic figure, Hazel Johnson considered the “mother of the environmental justice movement,” diligently brought these issues to light. Other inspiration was found in Annea Lockwood’s work A Soundmap of the Hudson River, and production techniques found in the works of Dub producers King Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry.

This exhibition consists of an 8-channel speaker installation in the main gallery, accompanied by two rooms that shed light on the research that has informed the work. The population demographics, ecological information, and pollution statistics about the Calumet region provide the raw data that Long uses in this body of work and his experimental sound art practice translates visual and text-based information into sonic experiences.

Long’s experimental sound practice uses sound from direct field recordings, sonified research data, and experimentation with various inputs and outputs. This exhibition includes sounds from historically significant locations of the Great Migration in the Calumet area, such as wind in the trees or bubbling water of a stream. Long gathers other sounds by processing data through inputs such as the TwoTone webapp (which allows him to assign a particular note or pitch to the numerical data in order to turn it into sound) or the PlantWave device (that reads plant biorhythms through electrodes connected to a plant). Once sounds have been collected, effects are used to manipulate sound and further creative methods of editing, splicing, and moving sound through multiple audio channels are used to transport the listener to different locations via the soundscapes he creates.

Norman W. Long’s current practice centers on walking, listening, improvising, performing, teaching, field recording, and exploring memory, place, ecology, and race. Long has performed and exhibited at Yale University’s Center for Collaborative Arts & Media in Newhaven, High Zero Festival in Baltimore , as well as the Experimental Sound Studio, Kavi Gupta Gallery, The Renaissance Society, Chicago Humanities Festival, Chicago Cultural Center, and the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial all in Chicago. Long has performed and toured with Angel Bat Dawid and the Brothahood, the Ali/Harris/Long/McKenna group, Dan Bitney, Todd Carter, Xris Espinoza, Carol Genetti, Damon Locks, Tatsuya Nakatani, Joe Namy, Cristal Sabbagh, and Sara Zalek. He has released his compositions on Hausu Mountain, Reserve Matinee, LINE, and Room40 labels. Anemoi is the latest ensemble release with Ishmael Ali, William Harris, and Wills McKenna. His solo album, BLACK BROWN GRAY GREEN was released in September 2021 on Hausu Mountain, and Return and Recovery is his latest solo release on LINE.

View the catalog here

Glass Curtain Gallery—Columbia College Chicago
1104 S. Wabash Ave., First Floor, Chicago, IL 60605

Land Acknowledgment: The Calumet region was home to the Illinois, Miami and Potawatomi.

*Bakr (Bakr Addaoui)
TAMGHAT*

"In the high elevations and deep valleys of the Moroccan Atlas Mountains are scattered small forgotten villages where the Amazigh community lives. I made several visits to the Atlas Mountains, where I was charmed by the energy of nature and the beauty of the locals, by their faces, language, and traditions. They always welcome their guests with goodness and a special traditional group dance called "Ahidous," where men, women, and children dance and sing in a beautiful harmony. This work is a tribute to those people and to the Moroccan Amazigh culture.”

--Bakr

This project was produced in conjunction with Casablanca Committee of Chicago Sister Cities International, in collaboration with Francis W. Parker School where Bakr was in residence in October 2022.

Read more about the mural here

Photo: Sandra Steinbrecher

*Tima (Fatima Ezzahra Khilad)
self-reflection*

self-reflection embodies moments of unity with oneself, where meditation and inspiration have a place… Here the self finds its way to creativity, love, and freedom.

Read more about the mural here

This project was produced in conjunction with Casablanca Committee of Chicago Sister Cities International, in collaboration with Francis W. Parker School where Tima was in residence in October 2022.

Cecilia Beaven: Piece of Consciousness
September 6–October 28, 2022

In Piece of Consciousness, Beaven thoroughly investigates the imagination, absurd humor, and the cartoonish playfulness that are characteristic of her work. Consisting of paintings, comics, animation, ceramics, and sculpture, she uses fictional storytelling with a stylized graphic visual language to reference pre-Columbian iconography and mythical realms. The promotional image for this exhibition, entitled Biting Self, is emblematic of the fanciful imagery Beaven uses to direct her narratives. Beaven taps into Aztec cultural symbols often referencing folkloric animals and human animal hybrids, to play with narratives including those of creation, God, warriors, and spirit animals.

Beaven’s practice is one of observation and representation of the self and its vulnerability. She exposes a humanly shared nature and consciousness while holding on to the understanding that facts are complicated, and that history and mythology are routinely intertwined—in fact the word for history and story are the same word in Spanish (historia). Imbued with empathy and curiosity, Beaven’s work connects with the viewer to form a collective sympathy through a self-ethnographic narrative. As a result, we navigate the journey of being a woman within Beaven’s world—whether that be one we also experience, or an imaginary one the artist has created.

Cecilia Beaven is a visual artist from Mexico City based in Chicago. Beaven holds an MFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago which she attended as a Fulbright scholar and a BFA with honors from ENPEG La Esmeralda in Mexico City. Her multidisciplinary artwork—which includes murals, painting, drawing, animation, comics, and sculpture—has been shown in solo shows in Mexico City, Houston, and Chicago, and in group exhibitions in Mexico, the United States, Colombia, Sweden, Italy, and Japan. Beaven has painted murals in several cities (such as Hiketa, Japan; Paris; Houston; Chicago; and in Mexico in Oaxaca, Pachuca, Tepoztlan, Tijuana, and Mexico City) where she was commissioned to paint a segment of the border wall between Mexico and the US. She has been awarded distinctions such as the Fulbright Scholarship, the Leroy Neiman Foundation Fellowship at Ox-Bow School of Art, and the Radicle Studio Residency at Hyde Park Art Center.

View the catalog here

Glass Curtain Gallery—Columbia College Chicago
1104 S. Wabash Ave. 1st Floor, Chicago, IL 60605

*jina valentine: Exhibit of American Negroes, Revisited *
September 7–Oct 29, 2021

For the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, W.E.B. Du Bois led the creation of a series of modernist drawings that visualized data on the state of Black life in America as a part of the Exhibit of American Negroes. In Exhibit of American Negroes, Revisited, jina valentine utilizes 2020 Census information to update Du Bois’s works with contemporary data.

valentine’s interdisciplinary practice is informed by the intuitive strategies of American folk artists and traditional craft techniques and steeped with curiosity for information and how to organize it. In her inquiries, she reveals and interweaves latent stories found within texts, objects, narratives, and spaces. Exhibit of American Negroes, Revisited builds upon her core practice. valentine’s drawings maintain the composition, aesthetic, and areas of inquiry of the originals while revealing patterns, progress, and impasses in the socioeconomic development of Black Americans over the past century.

Along with valentine’s work, this exhibition will present a selection of prints from Du Bois’s initial data visualizations that are housed in the Library of Congress. Exhibit of American Negroes, Revisited examines the illustrations in the context of the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, where they were first shown, and explores how they have been framed historically and revisited by artists and researchers over time.

jina valentine is a mother, visual artist, and Associate Professor of Printmedia at SAIC. She has exhibited at venues including The Drawing Center, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. She has been an artist in residence at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, Joan Mitchell Center, Banff Centre, Santa Fe Art Institute, Marble House, and the Women's Studio Workshop. Her work has received recognition and support from the Graham Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, and Art Matters among others. She is also co-founder (with Heather Hart) of Black Lunch Table, an oral-history archiving project. jina received her BFA from Carnegie Mellon and her MFA from Stanford University.

View the catalog here

Soft Allergy
Claire Ashley, Judith Brotman, and Cameron Clayborn
November 11, 2021 – February 18, 2022

Soft Allergy is born out of the collaboration of individual practices. In a series of call-and-response vignettes, where edges are present yet hard to determine, the artists in this show have pushed and pulled, upending and uplifting each other's practices. Meeting every three weeks over Zoom since 2020, the artists developed the show virtually and by trading material and works in the mail along with toiling in their studios.

Not only does the exhibition consist of singular objects from the artists’ individual practices that are placed in relationship to one another, but each artist has worked on, embellished, painted, sewed into, and/or incorporated spoken work, audio, or video inside of another’s object. These actions spur a number of comfortable and uncomfortable relationships that are optimistically dark, bringing out issues of gender, race, and material. The works in the show exude the formal, material, and conceptual struggles of their co-creation—they are generative and intuitive, and so the show is always in a state of being created.

Excitingly, during the run of Soft Allergy, a satellite exhibition, Tender Irritant, viewable from the windows took place at SAIC Galleries. Produced in the same manner as Soft Allergy, the work in Tender Irritant acts as a phantom appendage functioning as both companion exhibition and vigorous reaction simultaneously.

Claire Ashley received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BFA from Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen, Scotland. Originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, Ashley is now Chicago based. Currently, she teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Department of Contemporary Practices, and the Department of Painting and Drawing. Ashley’s work investigates inflatables as painting, sculpture, installation and performance costume. Her works have been exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries, museums, site-specific installations, performances and collaborations at venues including Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, England, Art Basel in Kassel, Germany, Rockelmann & Partner in Berlin, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR, Illinois State University Galleries in Normal, IL, DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA, ICEBOX Crane Arts in Philadelphia, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Additionally, her work has been exhibited in Scotland at The House for an Art Lover in Glasgow, gallerA1, in Edinburgh, and the Highland Institute for Contemporary Art in Inverness.

Judith Brotman is a multidisciplinary artist and educator from Chicago. Her work frequently occupies a space between abstraction and figuration, deterioration and regeneration, elegance and awkwardness, generosity and obligation. She has exhibited at venues including Indiana University Northwest, Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, MN, Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, The Society of Arts & Crafts in Boston, Asphodel Gallery in Brooklyn, the DeVos Art Museum in Marquette, MI, as well as Smart Museum of Art, RUSCHWOMAN, Weinberg/Newton Gallery, Threewalls, Slow Gallery, Chicago Cultural Center, Tiger Strikes Asteroid Chicago, Chicago Artists Coalition, Hyde Park Art Center, and Gallery 400 all in Chicago. Brotman’s work is in the collection of The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Illinois State Museum, and the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection as well as in many private collections. Brotman received her BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies where she currently teaches.

Cameron Clayborn was born in 1992 and was raised in Memphis, TN. He lives and works in New Haven, CT. Clayborn’s practice addresses the relationship vulnerability has to power. Their work is materially rooted, and combines elements of Postminimalism, craft, performance, and spirituality. He has exhibited nationally and international with solo exhibitions and venues including Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, Germany (forthcoming), Art Basel Statements with Simone Subal Gallery in Basel, Switzerland where Clayborn was awarded the Baloise Art Prize, Simone Subal Gallery in New York and Boyfriends in Chicago. He has shown in group exhibitions at venues including Bradley Ertaskiran in Montréal, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart in Stuttgart, Germany, Casemore Kirkeby in San Francisco, FIAC with Simone Subal Gallery in Paris, Mildred’s Lane in Beach Lake, PA, Magenta Plains in New York, and Heaven Gallery in Chicago among others.

Curated by Meg Duguid

Soft Allergy
November 11, 2021 – February 18, 2022
Glass Curtain Gallery–Columbia College Chicago
1104 S Wabash Ave, 1st Floor, Chicago, IL 60605

Tender Irritant
December 20, 2021 – January 12, 2022
SAIC Galleries
33 E Washington St, Chicago, IL 60602

View the catalog here

Listen to Cameron Clayborn's talk here

Listen to Judith Brotman's talk here

Listen to Claire Ashley's talk here

*On The Wings Of Change
Diosa (Jasmina Cazacu)*
Location: Wabash Arts Corridor, 33 E Ida B Wells Dr, Chicago, Il 60605

On the Wings of Change honors the work of Chicago suffragists in obtaining the right to vote. Through portraiture, this mural ensures that the stories of women’s activism are told and not forgotten.

A young girl is enthralled in wonder as she opens a magical book from which the history of Chicago’s women’s suffrage emerges as enchanted pages that whirl all around her. The animated pages contain portraits of key figures in the local suffrage movement. Among the portraits dance a flight of swallows, who are well known for their resilience in long distance migrations, representing the inspiring journey of women who dared to soar to new heights.

The suffragists depicted in this mural are the following: Mary Livermore, Myra Bradwell, Frances E. WIllard, Fannie Barrier Williams, Jane Addams, Catharine Waugh McCulloch, Ida B. Wells, Grace Wilbur Trout, and Agnes Nestor.



ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Commissioning Committee: The Chicago Womxn’s Suffrage Tribute Committee: Meg Duguid, Michelle Duster, Catherine Mardikes, Kris Nesbitt, Lori Osborne, and Neysa Page-Lieberman

Producer: Meg Duguid

Site and Production Manager: Abie Vasquez, AB Productions

Assistant Artist: Jesus Navarrete, The Art Bunch Inc

Photography: Sandra Steinbrecher

This project was made possible with donations from individual supporters and Chicago Foundation for Women, Jane Walker by Johnnie Walker, The Harnisch Foundation, The Field Foundation, University Center, Chicago Women’s History Center, and the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

The Chicago Womxn's Suffrage Tribute Committee was formed in 2020 to honor the work of Illinois women for voting and other rights for women, and to ensure that the stories of women’s activism are told and not forgotten. The focus of the committee is to create public art projects that will reach wide audiences and serve to mark the work of women activists in public spaces and venues. The Chicago Suffrage murals are the first of the projects they seek to create. Others include installing historic markers at women’s suffrage sites in the state (five markers are currently underway), and state-wide recognition of female political trailblazers through public art and other projects.

Cristal Sabbagh: OOPS! POW! SURPRISE!
March 8 - April 21, 2021.

OOPS! POW! SURPRISE! takes a deep look at Cristal Sabbagh’s interdisciplinary practice that includes traditional portraiture, ceramics, and performance. While movement is the spine of her practice and the core that all her other work emanates from, intentional spontaneity, reverence, and bliss are threads woven throughout.

Sabbagh’s performance practice, rooted in improvisation and Butoh, walks a line between the everyday, the divine, the personal, and the political. In embodying in her art transformational memories while simultaneously celebrating pop culture and the experimental, she challenges power structures and awakens viewers’ senses. Working both in a solo capacity and with collaborators, Sabbagh is equally attuned to individual perspectives and collective structures. As with Sabbagh’s previous projects, OOPS! POW! SURPRISE will also incorporate collaborative work. Her collaborators include Erin Peisert, Scott Rubin, Keisha Janae, Ramah Malebranche, and Sara Zalek. In various configurations, these collaborators have regularly engaged in improvised performances, opening up new avenues for Sabbagh’s material and conceptual exploration.

Although her work is defined in movement, her practice also looks outward to portraits of the world around, taking the forms of traditionally drawn portraits, figurative ceramic sculptures, and nontraditional portraits on ceramic mugs. Sabbagh labors over each piece, that act as homage and memorials and are a resistance to white-supremacy. Her traditional portraits include images of Black Trans lives that have been taken or disrupted. And her nontraditional portraits take the form of Black creatives lovingly emblazoned on ceramic mugs intended to be shared by friends and family. Not only do these works infuse the user’s everyday coffee and tea rituals, but their ceramic forms will stand the test of time, potentially outliving the user by thousands of years and leaving traces of how we lived recorded by Sabbagh’s hand.

Cristal Sabbagh is a teaching interdisciplinary artist influenced by film, history, politics, Butoh, and improvised sound. She’s currently curating and performing in Freedom From and Freedom To, an improvisational, cross-medium performance piece. She was awarded a DCASE IAP grant to help fund an opportunity to combine most of her creative interests in a risk-taking and vulnerable way. It uses an ensemble of dancers and improvising musicians that are remarkably diverse in their approaches to dance, instrumentation, and backgrounds. She’s a core member of Marie Casimir’s Djasporas dance collective, seen at the Instigation Festivals in Chicago and New Orleans over the past four years. For the past three years, she’s also been a member of Move Move Collaborative, in Baltimore, Maryland. Her portrait prints are featured in Seer Gallery’s Collection in Chicago.



Programming
Note: All programming for OOPS! POW! SURPRISE! will take place online.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HZDoltbhkE Listen to Cristal Sabbagh in conversation here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-eI6WWCH_w View the OOPS! POW! SURPRISE! Performance here
With collaborators Erin Peisert, Scott Rubin, Keisha Janae, Ramah Malebranche, and Sara Zalek

Curated by Meg Duguid, Essay by Abra M. Johnson.

The Glass Curtain Gallery
1104 S. Wabash Ave, Chicago, Il 60605

Third Coast Disrupted: Artists + Scientists on Climate
September 8 – February 19, 2021


Third Coast Disrupted: Artists + Scientists on Climate is an exhibition of newly commissioned artworks culminating a yearlong conversation between artists and scientists centered on climate change impacts and solutions in the Chicago region.

Through science-inspired sculpture, painting, collage and more, the artworks examine local impacts -- happening here and now -- ranging from extreme heat to flooding to habitat loss, and more. They also shine light on local solutions underway, like "cool roofs," nature-based approaches to slowing stormwater, and backyard habitat restoration. Some imagine future possibilities.

Third Coast Disrupted is based on the notion that art can connect and engage with people on an emotional level. It can pique curiosity, be unexpected, tactile, interactive, evocative, and memorable. It can slow people down, inspire them to reflect, move them to talk to each other -- and spur them to act.


Curatorial Team: Project Director & Lead Curator, Christine Esposito; Science Curator, Liam Heneghan; Art Curator, Lisa Roberts; Senior Consultant, Meg Duguid

Participating artists: Jeremy Bolen, Barbara Cooper, Hector Duarte, Rosemary Holliday Hall, N. Masani Landfair, Meredith Leich, Andrew S. Yang

Participating scientists: Elena Grossman, MPH; Daniel Horton, Ph.D.; Abigail Derby Lewis, Ph.D.; Aaron Packman, Ph.D.; Katherine Moore Powell, Ph.D.; Desi Robertson-Thompson, Ph.D.; Phil Willink, Ph.D.

To view a copy of the Third Coast Disrupted catalog, click here

To see a virtual tour of the exhibit, click here


The Glass Curtain Gallery
1104 S Wabash Ave, 1st Floor, Chicago, IL 60605

Programming

Katharine Hayhoe: Connecting Global Change to Local Impacts & Solutions
Katharine Hayhoe, Climate Scientist, Texas Tech University
Watch a recording of the program here


The Art of Communicating Climate: A Conversation
Katharine Hayhoe, Climate Scientist, Texas Tech University
Mika Tosca, Climate Scientist, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Christine Esposito, Project Director & Lead Curator of Third Coast Disrupted and Founder, Terracom - Moderator. Sponsored by Openlands.
Watch a recording of the program here


Water, Water Everywhere: First-person Flooding, Impact & Action
Elena Grossman, Program Director, BRACE-Illinois, and Third Coast Disrupted scientist
N. Masani Landfair, Third Coast Disrupted Artist
Daniella Pereira, Vice President of Community Conservation, Openlands
Debra Shore, Commissioner, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago
Watch a recording of the program here

Avian Effects: Climate Change and Birds
Forrest Cortes, Director of Community Engagement, The Nature Conservancy in Illinois
Peggy Macnamara, Artist/Professor/Author, Field Museum and School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Doug Stotz, Senior Conservation Ecologist, Keller Science Action Center, Field Museum
Watch a recording of the program here


Getting Around Carbon: New Looks at Transportation Options
Melody Geraci, Deputy Executive Director, Active Transportation Alliance
Daniel Horton, Lead Researcher, Climate Change Research Group, Northwestern University, and Third Coast Disrupted scientist Andrew S. Yang, Associate Professor, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Third Coast Disrupted artist
Sponsored by the Illinois Science & Energy Innovation Foundation
Watch a recording of the program here

Breaking Down Plastics. Building up Solutions
Barbara Cooper, Third Coast Disrupted Artist
Tyrone Dobson, Senior Volunteer Engagement Manager, Alliance for the Great Lakes
Timothy Hoellein, Associate Professor, Loyola University
Watch a recording of the program here

Where the Future Came From
November 1, 2018 - February 15, 2019

Where the Future Came From focused on the role of feminist artist-run activities in Chicago from the late 19th century to 2019. This program consisted of a symposium, an exhibition that is an open participatory research lab, and a series of programs, all of which were be documented through a publication. Chicago has a deep history of artist-run activities. These projects are self-propelled programs that have been the lifeblood of Chicago’s contemporary art scene. In fact, many nationally and internationally recognized artists cut their teeth in such spaces. Where the Future Came From contextualizes the role of feminism within that history and expand beyond work previously explored.

The history of artist-run projects in Chicago is one that often lives in the memories of the people who ran and experienced the projects that exist as footnotes on a cv, exhibition history, or small publication attached to any given artist’s career. This creates an anti-hierarchical platform to engage within the history of artist-run spaces, and the programs in Where the Future Came From will reflect that egalitarian process by employing artists, viewers, and art historians as experts based on their experience with any given project.

Organized and curated by Meg Duguid.

Click here for the catalog

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L0fIgGUMs4 Click here to listen to view The History of Art & Feminism: Where the Future Came From|

Related Programming:
Where the Future Came From Symposium
The symposium kicked off with a keynote conversation bringing together Lynne Warren, Adjunct Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and Courtney Fink, Director, Common Field, to discuss feminism, the artist-run, and money. This will be followed by a day-long program featuring presentations by Estelle Carol of Chicago Women's Graphics Collective, Arlene Turner-Crawford of Sapphire & Crystals, Mary Ellen Croteau of SisterSerpents, and Beate Minkovski of Woman Made Gallery, as well as a panel discussion with members of current feminist artist-run projects including panelists Gloria Talemantes of Mujeres Mutantes, Amina Ross and Jory Drew from F4F and Beauty Breaks, Jennifer Sova from The Overlook Place, and Luz Magdaleno Flores and Daisy Yessenia Zamora Centeno from Brown and Proud Press, moderated by Kate Hadley Toftness, Director, Chicago Archives + Artists Project.

Imagining a New Women's Liberation Movement One Zine at a Time
Led by Rana Liu and Willa Goettling

Women with the World at their Feet? Representing Women at Chicago World’s Fairs
Presented by TJ Boisseau, Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program, Purdue University

Rooms of their Own: Women Artists' Organizations and Collectives in Chicago (1890–2015)
Presented by Joanna Gardner-Huggett

Women’s Work at Hull-House and Beyond: The Feminist Agenda through Arts and Crafts
Presented by Melissa Potter and Jennifer Scott

Fighting as Form: Building Community on the Lower West Side
Presented by Nicole Marroquin

Women in the Alcoves: On Alice Browning, Dr. Margaret Burroughs, and the Women of The Catalyst
Presented by Tempestt Hazel

Feminism in Your Face: Public Art Resistance?
Presented by Neysa Page-Lieberman

¡Sí, Se Puede!
Exhibition Dates: September 5-November 4, 2017
Curator: Meg Duguid

¡Sí, Se Puede! is an exhibition that connects the legacy of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta and their work with the UFW (United Farm Workers) Movement to current artistic practices centering on education, history, acts of resistance, and community work in Chicago. For the exhibition, five artists have immersed themselves in the UFW archives to use the documents, images, and publications they found as springboards for creating new works. A selection of’ photographs by Victor Alemán, Cesar Chavez’s personal photographer, is also included to provide illuminating historical context of the UFW movement. ¡Sí, Se Puede! extends beyond this gallery along the Wabash Arts Corridor—with two murals being painted in September—and stretches west to partners in Pilsen and Little Village. This program provides a crucible for creating a dialogue about self-determination movements and the relationships among the archive, history, and current contemporary culture.

Participating artists: Victor Alemán, William Estrada, Ian Kerstetter, Nicole Marroquin, Victoria Martinez, and Gloria "Gloe" Talamantes, with murals by Hector Duarte and Sam Kirk.

This exhibition is organized and curated by Meg Duguid.

Glass Curtain Gallery
1104 S Wabash Ave, Chicago, IL 60605

Click here to view the catalog

*Hector Duarte
Desenredando Fronteras (Unraveling Border #2)*
Location: Wabash Arts Corridor, 1014 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60605

The butterfly flies from Canada to Mexico. The butterflies fly freely, and the human being does not—they go and come back.

This mural was produced in conjunction with the exhibition ¡Sí, Se Puede! at the Glass Curtain Gallery.

ABOUT THIS PROJECT:
Lead Curator: Meg Duguid
Co-Producers: Meg Duguid and Neysa Page-Lieberman
Site and Production Manager: Connie Stanley
Project Manager: Meg Duguid
Project Assistant: Sydney Pacha
Assistant Artist: Gloria Talamantes

Sam Kirk
The Seeds We Plant Today Determine Our Growth For Tomorrow
Location: Wabash Arts Corridor, 1306 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60605

The Seeds We Plant Today Determine Our Growth For Tomorrow mural highlights the work of Dolores Huerta in her role as an activist for human rights, additionally her strength and persistence as the only woman in a male dominated field. The power fist is a symbol seen in movements for marginalized people throughout history. Further symbolism is reflected in the sun which connects to the roots with the rising fists of the work of our ancestors. It is my duty to create work that makes women more visible, in content and process. My team is made up of strong female artists of color, so when people see us painting this work the message comes full circle and together we change minds. Women of Color must be seen more often as the strong, nurturing leaders that we are.

This mural was produced in conjunction with the exhibition ¡Sí, Se Puede! at the Glass Curtain Gallery.

Lead Curator: Meg Duguid
Co-Producers: Meg Duguid and Neysa Page-Lieberman
Site and Production Managers: Jenni Button and Abie Vasquez
Project Manager: Meg Duguid
Project Assistant: Sydney Pacha
Sponsorship Leads: Jenni Button and Meg Duguid
Assistant Artists: Jennifer Cunningham and Eva Cancino