Introduction Dimitri

WAYS TO TELL

Funded by Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and Illinois Humanities

ConTextos is a literary arts organization that uses the power of personal narrative and Art to promote healing, restoration, critical thinking and dialogue. Ways To Tell, a community-based Author/Artist led program seeks to amplify voices and inspire others to use their stories as tools to help unify and transform Chicago. ConTextos alumni Authors and local Artists were selected to co-create public art pieces rooted in stories from their respective communities. Ways to Tell was made possible thanks to funding from the City of Chicago DCASE Cultural Grant Program as well as Illinois Humanities.

The art pieces, inspired by Authors’ experiences and insights, are powerful tools of transformation in the push to restore and build equity throughout our city. The art created in this program will be publicly presented in community based exhibitions to spark dialogue and engage local community members.

In phase one of the Ways To Tell program, we met twice each week for 90-minute Authors Circle sessions. In those sessions, we learned about Chicago and our specific neighborhoods, got to know one another by sharing personal stories set in those neighborhoods, wrote about our experiences and insights, created small scale collaborative art pieces such as neighborhood flags, and made plans for large-scale art pieces to be produced in phase two. In phase two Authors and Artists collaborated to create artwork inspired by the writing and experiences of our Authors.

Bringing Authors and Artists together allowed us to tell our stories in new ways. We learned a lot about Chicago neighborhoods and the wealth of history that surrounds us every day. We learned that many of us from different neighborhoods share similar experiences, memories, and sentiments in and around Chicago. We learned how to collaborate in the creation of Art, which can be very personal by its nature.

As we explored our own experiences growing up in our respective neighborhoods, we also investigated structures and phenomena that are common across neighborhoods throughout Chicago and beyond. In addition to memories and anecdotes, the writing contained in this book is a collection of the reflections of Ways To Tell Authors and Artists on topics including representation, gentrification, education, and what leisure looks like in our neighborhoods. The art created by the four Ways to Tell artists: Dave, Kalief, Naimah, and Senyah, offer a wonderful visual representation of the ideas shared in conversation with our Authors Aisha, Jonathan, Gilbert, and Tim.

Dave Flynn Elliss’s art, a stunning triptych in his trademark graffiti-surrealism style, depicts people, places, and images from the South Shore neighborhood that his Author partner, Aisha Truss-Miller, calls home. He used a combination of digital print and paint on a large canvas.

Kalief Dinkins, paired with fellow Roseland neighborhood native Tim Cox, created a panoramic digitally painted image of children of Roseland sitting on a hill, looking toward their future. The image is full of iconography that inspires and draws us back to Roseland, from the Derrick Rose jersey to the roses growing out of bushes that spell out “We Grow Here Too.”

Senyah Haynes created a beautifully detailed collection of paintings on canvases of various sizes and shapes depicting her Author partner Gilbert Henry, and iconic imagery from his Rogers Park neighborhood.

Naimah Thomas has created intricate pieces of multimedia art that combine paint, collage, and text to convey the stories, experiences, and feel of Jonathan Ivory’s memories growing up in Austin while also speaking more broadly to a shared black experience.

It was an immense pleasure for me to facilitate the Ways To Tell Program. I felt privileged to participate in such meaningful conversations as we shared the stories of the places that made us and learned about the challenges that persist throughout our city.

We hope that you enjoy this book, and that it serves as an artifact that will increase understanding and inspire dialogue between and within our diverse communities.

Dimitri Hepburn