November 30, 2016

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2 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

ÂŹ NOVEMBER 30, 2016

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent nonprofit newsprint magazine written for and about neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago. We publish in-depth coverage of the arts and issues of public interest alongside oral histories, poetry, fiction, interviews, and artwork from local photographers and illustrators. The South Side Weekly is dedicated to supporting cultural and civic engagement on the South Side and to providing educational opportunities for developing journalists, writers, and artists.

Volume 4, Issue 9 Editor-in-Chief Jake Bittle Managing Editors Maha Ahmed, Christian Belanger Director of Staff Support Ellie Mejía Director of Writer Development Mari Cohen Deputy Editor Olivia Stovicek Senior Editor Emeline Posner Education Editor Lit Editor Music Editor Stage & Screen Editor Visual Arts Editor

Hafsa Razi Sarah Claypoole Austin Brown Julia Aizuss Corinne Butta

Contributing Editors Joe Andrews, Ariella Carmell, Jonathan Hogeback, Andrew Koski, Carrie Smith, Margaret Tazioli, Yunhan Wen, Kylie Zane Video Editor Lucia Ahrensdorf Radio Producer Maira Khwaja Web Editor Camila Cuesta Social Media Editors Sierra Cheatham, Emily Lipstein, Sam Stecklow Visuals Editor Ellen Hao Deputy Visuals Editor Jasmin Liang Layout Editors Baci Weiler, Sofia Wyetzner Staff Writers: Olivia Adams, Maddie Anderson, Sara Cohen, Bridget Gamble, Christopher Good, Michal Kranz, Anne Li, Zoe Makoul, Sonia Schlesinger Staff Photographers: Juliet Eldred, Kiran Misra, Luke Sironski-White Staff Illustrators: Javier Suarez, Addie Barron, Jean Cochrane, Lexi Drexelius, Wei Yi Ow, Amber Sollenberger, Teddy Watler, Julie Wu, Zelda Galewsky, Seonhyung Kim Social Media Intern

Ross Robinson

Webmasters Alex Mueller, Sofia Wyetzner Publisher

Harry Backlund

IN CHICAGO

A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors

“Tower” Doesn't Have Quite the Same Ring to It It was announced Monday that Tribune Media, the television and radio station conglomerate, will move across the river from its storied headquarters in Tribune Tower to an office building in the Illinois Center complex. The site was chosen for its “right economics,” “efficient floor plates,” and its “great views”—indeed, some employees are sure to have a better view than ever of their majestic old home. The future of the Tower itself—as well as the future home of the Chicago Tribune and its hapless parent company, tronc—isn't exactly certain: it’s been sold to CIM Group for a mixed-use redevelopment, but there’s no word yet on what that will look like or whether the historic bricks-from-around-the-world that pepper the bottom of the building will be preserved.

“No Justice, No Profits!”

Protesters gathered on Michigan Avenue this past Friday for the second year of Black Friday protests for improved police accountability. It’s hard to say if more has changed or stayed the same since last November, when footage of the fatal police shooting of Laquan McDonald had just been released. Then, activists showed up in the hundreds to express their desire for justice and a major overhaul of the City’s policing approach, disrupting shoppers and causing a dip in sales for Mag Mile retailers. In the following year, Chicago has changed police superintendents, a DOJ investigation of police misconduct has been opened, and Kim Foxx has been elected the new Cook County’s State Attorney, replacing the much-maligned Anita Alvarez. Police reform advocates continue to push for change and higher community involvement in the police system, with some protesting in support of the “Laquan Law,” which would, according to the Reader, open up channels for recalling the mayor, aldermen, and Cook County State's Attorney.

IN THIS ISSUE what happened to mariano's?

She wonders why it’s so hard to establish something fundamental to a community’s wellbeing. chloe hadavas...................................4 exposure and equity

Nearly all the Chicago galleries presented in 2016 EXPO CHICAGO are located in the North Side. yunhan wen......................................8 the fight for fruits and veggies

Even unnoticed, community members have been working hard to combat produce inaccessibility. zoe makoul.....................................10 (re)creation

“It was straight family. It really was.” isabelle lim.....................................13 the chicago sound

CPD Proves Once Again That It’s Literally the Only Employer That Won’t Fire You for Actual Murder The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, a CPD officer fatally shot nineteen-year-old Kajuan Raye in West Englewood. The (alleged) murderer, responding to a battery call, came upon Raye and his friend, who were waiting at the bus stop, and they ran away. CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson claims that Raye pointed a gun at him while running away, so he shot him in the back, but a police search after the shooting failed to turn up a gun. Last Friday, the Cook County Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death a murder (homicide).

This particular instance of institutionally supported (alleged) murder is notable in that seven-month-old police CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson relieved the (alleged) murderer of police powers while police oversight agency IPRA investigates the case, which is apparently the most serious action the police department can take during an open investigation.

The difference between this and paid administrative leave is that the (alleged) murderer had to turn in his gun and badge. But he still gets his paycheck.

“In a city that was designed to divide, here comes the subculture that breaks down all those barriers.” rachel kim......................................15

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The paper is produced by an all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We distribute each Wednesday in the fall, winter, and spring. Over the summer we publish every other week.

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Cover art by Courtney Kendrick NOVEMBER 30, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

What Happened to Mariano’s?

A scrapped grocery store casts doubt on the future of food access in South Shore and South Chicago

BY CHLOE HADAVAS

B

efore Charles Barlow moved to South Shore earlier this year, he wanted to scope out the neighborhood. He looked up the local grocery stores, got in his car, and drove to the corner of 87th Street and Lake Shore Drive, where he expected to find a Mariano’s. Instead of fresh food, he was greeted by grassland and the promise of future development.

“We got there and all we saw was the big Mariano’s sign,” he said.

This was just before the upscale grocery chain announced in February that plans to build a new store on the site had been put on indefinite hiatus. Barlow, a lecturer at the University of Chicago in public policy and geography, was not surprised when he found out that the Chicago-area chain, comparable to Whole Foods, had failed to follow through.

“For any private entity to be interested in going there, I'd like to say that someone was feeling very altruistic and motivated to bring equality to the city of Chicago,” he said. “But who is going to do that?”

For almost two years, there had been a lot of interest in the site—particularly from city and government officials, who saw potential for a “revitalization” project. In July 2014, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, alongside then-governor Pat Quinn, then-10th Ward Alderman John Pope, and Bob Mariano, chairman and CEO of Roundy’s, Mariano’s parent company, announced the plan to open the 70,000-square-foot store. “Today is about a new neighborhood rising,” Emanuel said in the press release, “and communities, the City, and the private sector coming together to create new jobs and new opportunities for tomorrow.”

The new Mariano’s was supposed to mark the first stage of the Lakeside Development project, which promised to turn the abandoned U.S. Steel site in South Chicago into a thriving new downtown area.

At the time of its original planned completion in early 2016, this Mariano’s would have been the largest grocery store within four and a half miles, employing up to 400 people. But 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

just as Lakeside fell through, so too did its first business venture. It now seems as though Emanuel’s “tomorrow” remains as far away as ever.

The demise of the Mariano’s project comes at a time when there have been concerted—and successful—efforts to improve food access on the South Side through new full-service grocery stores: a 74,800-square-foot Mariano’s opened in Bronzeville on October 11, and a reducedprice Whole Foods in Englewood on September 28. The 87th Street Mariano’s, which would have served residents of South Chicago and nearby South Shore, would have completed a triad of high-profile grocery chains entering neighborhoods that are food deserts.

Mariano’s failure is unsurprising given its location and intimate relationship with Lakeside The more interesting question, and the more difficult one, is where the scrapped grocery store leaves the food landscape of South Shore and South Chicago. With or without a Mariano’s, residents of both neighborhoods manage to navigate the desert—but only after overcoming serious barriers to plentiful, fresh food. Although alternative efforts such as farmers markets and co-ops aid food access for some, the neighborhoods’ food desert remains. With the promise of a Mariano’s in South Chicago unfulfilled, hope now rests largely on yet another promise, however uncertain, of a new full-service grocery store in South Shore.

stretch of the imagination.” She mentioned crime and poverty, but mostly bemoaned the inaccessibility of fresh food.

Bond referenced “Crossing the Desert,” a poem she wrote for this year’s South Side Weekly Lit Issue. In the poem, she describes South Shore as a place “Where no food is grown; no food is sold./ ‘Cept day old doughnuts and double D cups from behind bullet proof glass/ Inside the same place you can buy gas.”

The effects of living in such a desert, Bond said, are pervasive. “People are killing

icole Bond, a writer and performance poet, remembers living in the “beautiful, lakefront, mixed-race, mixed-income” South Shore of her childhood.

There were two main grocery stores in the heart of the neighborhood, she said. The Food Basket and David’s Foods, which stood on 72nd and 73rd Streets, respectively.

Two years ago, Bond moved back to South Shore. “It’s taken some getting used to,” she said, “because it’s not the South Shore from when I was there forty years ago by any

themselves because you’ve got to go two zip codes away to get an apple,” she told me.

What exactly is a food desert? In short, it’s complicated. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, a food desert is an area that is both low-income and has low access to groceries. Whether an area meets these criteria is determined by the concrete metrics of poverty rate, distance to fresh food, and vehicle access. Chicago’s City Hall has its own definition, but as the Tribune pointed out in September, Emanuel

N

¬ NOVEMBER 30, 2016

changed that definition in 2013. In order to qualify as a food desert before then, an area had to be at least half a mile away from a grocery store of 2,500 square feet minimum.

The qualifications today are stricter: now food deserts only include areas that are at least a mile away from a 10,000-square-foot grocery store. This definition more closely resembles the USDA’s national food desert criteria.

Large areas within South Shore and South Chicago qualify as food deserts by both the old and the new standards. No grocery stores have opened in South Shore since

South Shore had a full-service grocery store until just three years ago, when the Dominick’s in Jeffery Plaza closed its doors as the entire chain folded. Since then, the 62,000-square-foot space at the corner of 71st Street and Jeffery Avenue has remained vacant. the closing of Dominick’s in 2013. JewelOsco and Save-A-Lot are nearby, situated just west of the neighborhood boundary on Stony Island Avenue, and there’s an Aldi farther south of those on 79th, but these stores are far removed from the eastern part of South Shore. The only grocery stores in South Chicago are a Save-A-Lot on 83rd Street and Exchange Avenue and a couple of smaller produce markets along Commercial Avenue, the heart of the neighborhood’s retail district. The median household income

FOOD

of South Shore in 2013 was $29,858, almost $20,000 less than the city average. South Chicago’s median household income of $31,201 is comparable.

The Lakeside Mariano’s was hailed as a way to alleviate the food desert in South Chicago while also setting the stage for a development of unprecedented scale.

The grandiose but unrealistic Lakeside Development project as a whole, with a proposed cost of $4 billion and a timeline of twenty-five years, sought to transform the nearly 600 acres of U.S. Steel’s South Works site into an eco-friendly downtown with housing, shopping, parkland, and a marina.

It was controversial among local residents: some feared the development would raise property values in South Chicago and push them out. But when McCaffery Interests, the developer for Lakeside, failed to generate enough interest and funding, the envisioned Mariano’s vanished along with the rest of the project. McCaffery split “amicably” with U.S. Steel in February.

When contacted for comment, a representative for Roundy’s, Mariano’s parent company, essentially gave the same statement as the one released by Mariano’s in February, around the time of Lakeside’s demise: “Our stance had been that we were interested as long as development had been moving forward,” affirmed the representative, “and development stopped moving forward.” He said he couldn’t tell me anything more.

On the old U.S. Steel Factory site, signs promoting Lakeside Development still dot the walking paths. Bordered on the east by a rocky shore, and accessed by a dead-end road that cuts through prairie, the landscape appears pre-urban, or perhaps distinctly postindustrial. The factory has been abandoned for twenty-four years, and a skeleton of towering ore walls is all that remains.

In the nineteenth century, South Chicago was a rural settlement for fishermen.

Today, the South Works site is reminiscent of the neighborhood’s past. On a recent visit to the site, I saw a man pass the “NO TRESPASSING” sign with fishing gear and two young boys in tow. A few minutes later, another man followed the same path, and I asked him if people come here to fish often.

He nodded, explaining that fewer and fewer areas are available to shore fishermen. He drives out here regularly from the western suburb of Oak Park to fish in the man-made slip in the factory.

There was a Mariano’s sign for a while in the nearby lot, he added nonchalantly, but it came down a few months ago. He shrugged

JASMIN LIANG

NOVEMBER 30, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

on 95th Street and Stony Island. The grocery shopping opportunities have never changed as long as she’s been alive, she said, and at this point “it all feels the same.”

The Lakeside Mariano’s might have changed the way people in this neighborhood shop. Dulce González, a cashier at Macias, summed up the area’s food landscape succinctly: “I think people buy everywhere because each place has something they need—meat in one place, produce in another.”

When I asked her if she would have shopped at Mariano’s, she replied, “If a new store came, we would go check it out....Because if there was one place where you could go and buy everything you need, that would be good.” In fact, all of the people I talked to in both stores said they might check out a new full-service grocery, if only for its convenience.

A sign for the scrapped Lakeside Development stands in front of the ore wall of the long-abandoned U.S. Steel site.

A full-service Mariano's had been planned as an anchor store for the massive development project.

I LUKE WHITE

it off, thankful that his rural expanse had been preserved for just a bit longer.

Barlow, whose research focuses on housing and community development, believes that everything was stacked against the success of the Mariano’s. “It’s too remote.

It’s too depopulated. People are too poor,” he said. Furthermore, he said, the project relied on interest from many other parties, and stakeholders were fed up with how long it was taking Lakeside to get off the ground.

Barlow is not altogether discouraged, but he is also not terribly hopeful that South Shore and South Chicago will see change in the foreseeable future. He believes that “it’s going to take sustained investment from city, state, and private entities…to achieve social equality in the city and overcome that ‘tale of two cities’ narrative.”

W

ithout a full-service grocery store, residents of South Shore and South Chicago either have to take public transit or drive out of the neighborhood for groceries. Bond’s Lit Issue poem was inspired by a photo she took on the bus after shopping for food one day: near her feet sat a Treasure Island bag, and across from her were a man and a woman, each carrying bags from Save-A-Lot and Aldi. All three, 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

the poem says, are “riding back to the desert.”

Bond said she doesn’t really know where most people in South Shore shop. Some go to the Jewel on East 75th Street and Stony Island, but she told me that the sense she has—encapsulated in her poem—is that more go to Save-A-Lot and Aldi. Barlow believes that store choice varies widely based on income and access to a private vehicle—those with lower incomes frequent convenience stores and small family-owned shops.

Earlier this month, I walked down Commercial Avenue between 88th and 90th Streets to survey the independent food stores in South Chicago and to find out where residents do most of their grocery shopping.

G&G Food Market, the first location I visited, was boarded up. Peter’s Fruit Market seemed to have closed down as well. 8900 Commercial Food and Liquor, though still open, is first and foremost a liquor store. There were only two functioning grocery stores on the strip, La Fruteria and Macias Produce, both of which reflect South Chicago’s mixed demographics.

La Fruteria is a small African, Caribbean, and Mexican market. Packaged goods line the aisles, facing the produce and meat on display. Shoppers crowd in the narrow space

¬ NOVEMBER 30, 2016

as Spanish-language music plays loudly in the background and the smell of seafood hangs in the air. For some residents, like Solange Boevi, who recently moved here from the country of Togo, La Fruteria is an everyday grocery store. Boevi lives on 79th, and it takes her ten minutes to get here by bus. There isn’t anywhere closer, she said, and it stocks the kind of food she likes to cook anyway.

For most, however, it seems that La Fruteria is just a quick stop, either for specialty food or to pick up a gallon of milk. John Martinez, a young man I met at the store, lives only one block away, but said he doesn’t come here often. If he needs something small, he’ll stop by, but he tends to shop at nearby Macias or 1st Choice Market on 91st Street.

Macias Produce is just four doors down from La Fruteria, and is about three times as large, with a recently-opened taqueria inside.

Meat, produce, and dairy abound, but the store primarily serves anyone looking for Latin fare. There I met David Martinez, who, similar to Boevi, said he only buys groceries at this particular store. Denise Brantler, who has lived on 87th Street for nineteen years, seems more representative of the general clientele: she only comes here for “little things,” and most people she knows go to the Save-A-Lot on 83rd or the Jewel Osco

n the absence of full-service stores like Mariano’s, residents of South Side food deserts have been creating and finding alternative options for food sourcing in recent years. Most often, these take the form of farmers markets. The South Shore Farmers Market at 79th Street and South Shore Drive provides a nearby example. Yet traditional farmers markets are usually only open half the year, and are somewhat haphazard in terms of their availability and pricing. A more centralized, year-round model in South Shore is the Healthy Food Hub, a cooperative founded by Dr. Jifunza C.A. Wright, M.D., and her husband Fred Carter.

Wright and Carter started the co-op seven years ago, and in the fall of 2014, it moved to its current location at the Quarry Event Center near the corner of 75th Street and Yates Boulevard. Open every Saturday from 11am to 3pm, the Hub promotes a system of wholesale, collective buying that provides access to inexpensive and locallygrown produce, dry goods, and cooked food. Members pay twenty-five dollars a year to join a community in which they have influence over all aspects of food procurement, distribution, and promotion.

Although members receive benefits and discounts, you don’t have to be a member to shop at the Hub. The individuals behind the Hub believe that their model is the future of food. Carter said that he wouldn’t mind if a Mariano’s or similar grocery store came into the area, but in his opinion such stores embody an outdated model of food access. Mariano’s, Whole Foods, and Walmart are all the same to him—they’re commoditized centers of distribution at the end of lengthy supply

FOOD

chains. “If your supply chain is very long,” he argues, “you’re not sustainable, you’re not resilient.” Mariano’s mattered in the short term, he said, because it promised to give people access to healthy food, but it wouldn’t have lasted.

Aside from their fragility, said Carter, stores like Mariano’s are problematic because of their tenuous relationship to the community. Corporate chains can claim that they work for the benefit of the neighborhood, but he believes “it’s business as usual.” He sees the new Whole Foods in Englewood as a recent example of this kind of hollow corporate outreach. “That’s not integration,” Carter said. “To me, integration would also be shareholders.” These corporations might provide jobs for the community, but, Carter emphasizes, “a job doesn’t equate to wealth.”

The Hub’s mission, based upon what might be considered radical ideas about food sourcing, cannot yet provide the holistic community building and food security it aspires to create. But Michael Tekhen Strode, the Hub’s technical adviser, is confident that the continued exchange of ideas will help more people rethink the role of food in society.

At present, the Hub might not serve even a quarter of the neighborhood’s population, he said, but with the right marketing and education it has the potential to reach more people. Yet right now, in a neighborhood of over 50,000 people, the Hub has 600 members, and only one hundred people on average participate each week.

Others are more skeptical than Strode.

Barlow, for instance, does not find the Hub’s model feasible; there’s simply not enough awareness or interest for it to make a sizeable impact.

“They may well supplement a small segment of the market, but they're not going to replace anything,” he said. Neither he nor Bond had ever heard of the Healthy Food Hub before I asked them about it.

F

or most residents of South Shore and South Chicago, it will not be a limited co-operative but a full-service grocery store that alleviates food access problems. South Shore had such a store until just three years ago, when the Dominick’s in Jeffery Plaza closed its doors as the entire Chicago-area chain folded. Since then, the 62,000-square-foot space at the corner of 71st Street and Jeffery Avenue has remained vacant.

This vacancy has been particularly frustrating for 5th Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston. “Every day, I ride past the vacant

LUKE WHITE

Dominick’s grocery store…wondering if my constituents will ever have a convenient place to shop again,” she wrote in 2014. “I’m tired of being told the Jeffrey Plaza is not a desirable location without any reasons why.”

Later that year she reported that she showed Bob Mariano the Jeffery Plaza site, but he wasn’t interested. When the Dominick’s chain folded, Mariano’s bought eleven of its stores, while Whole Foods bought seven.

Two years later, Hairston finally had some news for her constituents. At an aldermanic meeting this July, Karriem Beyah, a businessman originally from South Shore, announced his plan to redevelop 40,000 square feet of the former Dominick’s site as a grocery store, Karriem’s Fresh Market. (A Charter Fitness and a children’s clothing store have also announced plans to move into the remaining space.) Although the price point of this new grocery store is unknown and may be too high for some South Shore residents, Barlow, who went to the meeting, said the majority of the attendees were excited. The neighborhood would once again have a grocery store, and a black-owned one at that.

Jeffrey Plaza hasn’t really changed since the announcement. Situated on a busy intersection, it boasts a Walgreens, a few

chain restaurants, clothing stores, and a Radio Shack. In the middle of the strip is a large tan building with evergreen awnings; the faint discolored traces of the name “Dominick’s” on the façade are all that remain of the former tenant. The only sign on the building is a “Coming Soon” for Charter Fitness. If you peek inside the windows, you’ll find evidence of minor construction: piles of wood, a few bags of concrete, and rubble on the floor.

Karriem’s Fresh Market is scheduled to open in the spring of 2017, but very few of South Shore’s residents seem to be aware of this potentially transformative event. The employees of VILLA, the clothing store in Jeffery Plaza attached to the old Dominick’s, had not heard of Karriem’s. Nor had Bond, or any of the people I talked to at the Healthy Food Hub and in South Chicago. There has been little community outreach, apparently, apart from the single aldermanic meeting in July.

Although Barlow finds the absence of marketing and awareness for Karriem’s concerning, he’s inclined to believe that the store will follow through on its promise to redevelop Dominick’s.

Bond, however, is more skeptical. “I’ve heard quite a few stories about that,” she said, referring to the future of the old Dominick’s.

Things are always “in the works” in South Shore, she explained, but seasons go by and people find themselves still having the same conversations.

She believes that a neighborhood generally does not see increased investment unless its demographics shift. “I don’t see anybody making any concerted effort to change it until the neighborhood becomes less black and more white,” she said. Still, she wonders why it’s so hard to establish and maintain something that is fundamental to a community’s well-being.

Does Bond see any hope for her neighborhood’s situation? “There’s me, for starters,” she said, “and I’m a loud mouth.” At the end of the day, she’s not afraid to “make a little noise” for basic necessities. It’s a grocery store, plain and simple—there isn’t much of a debate to be had.

“It doesn't feel like the wheel needs to be reinvented,” she said. “You have a grocery store. You have a gas station, you have a grocery store. You have Walgreens, you have a grocery store.” ¬

NOVEMBER 30, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

Exposure and Equity Turning toward an international art scene, EXPO CHICAGO falls short on city representation

BY YUNHAN WEN

T

he fifth annual round of festivities for EXPO CHICAGO, The International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art, drew to a close on September 25. This year, the art festival hosted work from 145 galleries from around the world, with participants from twenty-two countries and fifty-five cities, and presented the creations of more than 3000 artists. According to the organizers, approximately 38,000 visitors came to Navy Pier to celebrate this yearly art week.

For EXPO, this year’s festival represents the further success of its efforts to build up Chicago as a destination for the international art community. The fair attracted 3,000 more visitors than last year and increased the number of countries represented from sixteen to twenty-two. Yet even as the program grows in international renown, the number of Chicago-based galleries—and especially South Side ones—remains small.

Of the 145 galleries presented in EXPO this year, sixteen are Chicago-based. Though this number is drastically dwarfed by New York's fifty-four, EXPO’s president Tony Karman thinks that considering the variety of participants in the exhibition, Chicago is taking up its fair share.

“It's local, national and international— artists, curators, collectors, art enthusiasts, just like every other international art fair in the world,” said Karman. “The Selection Committee looked at all the applications.

We have applications here...But there's no question that there are leading galleries in Chicago, and they've been represented every year, and I think it's the proper balance—it’s a great percentage of Chicago galleries to American galleries, to international galleries.

I would expect that mix to continue.”

The energy and ambition behind this grand event comes from Karman, who witnessed the downfall of Art Chicago, a

8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

previous international fair for contemporary art, and became determined to return Chicago to the map.

“It’s a great tradition of having an international art fair in Chicago for many, many years, and there's no question that we can both sustain and invite the world every year and be relevant to international art world,” Karman said.

The threshold for making it onto EXPO CHICAGO’s roster is fairly high. Most galleries pay steep costs to rent booths at EXPO; a small booth, 400 square feet, costs $23,000, while an extra large booth costs up to $50,000 for its 1,000-square-foot space.

One major way small or cash-strapped galleries can avoid the high rental price is to apply for EXPOSURE, a program run

by EXPO CHICAGO that is intended to encourage young galleries (those less than eight years old) to apply for entry to the expo. “[EXPOSURE] provides emerging galleries with lower prices to participate in the art fair and also creates opportunities for them to showcase one or two artists in their programs,” explained Karman.

This year there was only one gallery in Chicago favored with this opportunity: Efrain Lopez Gallery, located on Damen Avenue in Wicker Park on the North Side.

As part of EXPOSURE, the gallery was able to rent a booth with two hundred square feet for $8,000. The gallery’s owner, Efrain Lopez, initially told the Weekly that he would love to discuss his experience but did not reply to further questions.

According to Karman, the EXPOSURE Selection Committee has no quota for the number of galleries from each city that may be selected to participate in the EXPOSURE program, but he said the program has never been offered to more than twenty-four galleries. He did not reveal

¬ NOVEMBER 30, 2016

the number of total applications.

This year’s Selection Committee for the EXPOSURE program consisted of two art dealers, both New Yorkers. The Selection Committee for the main program, which is the final authority on the list of galleries that participate in EXPO Chicago, includes a wider group; this year it consisted of eight senior art dealers: three from New York, two from Chicago, two from San Francisco, and one from Los Angeles.

When asked whether there were artists and galleries on Chicago’s South Side represented during this year’s EXPO, and which galleries those were, Karman offered a list of names and locations: “We reached out to many of the artists, whether they are living in the South Side, the North Side, or the West Side. They have been visited by many of our collectors, exhibitors coming into town, or curators coming into town,” he said. “We worked very closely with the University of Chicago, closely with all the departments down there—both Logan Center, Booth School, Renaissance Society, Smart Museum. We worked very closely with Theaster Gates.

Since we built the project, we've been very committed to the South Side and even in Pilsen. The National Museum of Mexican Art, we work very closely with them.”

The Weekly sent inquiries to the National Museum of Mexican Art regarding the relationship between the museum and EXPO CHICAGO but did not receive a confirmation or denial by press time. However, the Renaissance Society, the UofC’s contemporary art gallery, confirmed its participation in EXPO for the past three years. As part of EXPO’s Special Exhibitions program, designed to highlight contemporary and modern art nonprofits, it was able to secure a booth on the grand first floor of EXPO to showcase its recent

exhibitions. Similarly, the UofC itself had a booth showcasing the work of recent graduates from its Department of Visual Arts MFA program.

Karman is optimistic about the diversity cultivated by EXPO CHICAGO: “Of course it's diverse and it represents the broader cultural community of Chicago—it has to,” he said. “It has to be very inclusive, and it will continue to be. I established EXPO...because I want to make sure we are reaching out to all the cultural institutions and museums and theaters, especially providing opportunities for artists in Chicago [so that] they get a chance to come, to be able to benefit from what I hope is a broader international involvement.”

But nearly all the Chicago galleries that presented at EXPO CHICAGO this year are located on the North Side of Chicago—specifically the neighborhoods of Wicker Park, River North, West Loop, and the Loop. In the Weekly’s inquiry into South Side gallery involvement with EXPO CHICAGO, only one institution replied aside from the UofC’s Renaissance Society—Gallery Guichard on 47th Street and Vincennes Avenue. “No, unfortunately we have not interacted with the EXPO CHICAGO fair and do not know of any other galleries or artists that do,” said Frances Guichard, the owner of the gallery.

For Karman, EXPO CHICAGO is an occasion that brings together all kinds of people who enjoy modern art. “It's meant for both seasoned professionals as well as individuals who are just lovers of art,” he said. However, at least thus far, the expo seems to be not so much concerned with being a product of its city—south, north and west—as it is with producing an image of Chicago for the world. ¬

VISUAL ARTS

This map shows the locations of ten Chicagoarea galleries that were chosen by EXPO CHICAGO's selection committee to participate in the 2016 festival.

JASMINE MITHANI

NOVEMBER 30, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

The Fight for Fruits & Veggies How are gardens and distributors improving produce access on the South Side?

BY ZOE MAKOUL

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his year has seen three high-end grocery stores open their doors for residents on the South Side, with much fanfare and with varying discussions of food accessibility. These stores— Mariano’s in Bronzeville and two Whole Foods, one in Englewood, the other in Hyde Park—are undoubtedly welcome additions to neighborhoods that have in the past been categorized as food deserts, in the case of the first two, but the issue still remains that thousands of Chicago residents live without access to healthy foods, especially fresh produce. Currently, Chicago has what the Illinois Advisory Committee to the United

10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

States Commission on Civil Rights deems “low food access zones” in Washington Park, Greater Grand Crossing, Pullman, West Pullman, Roseland, South Deering, and South Chicago.

More than just an inconvenience, this skewed produce distribution has an impact on the health of residents in lowaccess neighborhoods. In 2011, a National Minority Quality Forum survey found that in a Chicago food desert, between forty-five and fifty-five percent of residents suffered from stage two chronic kidney disease due in part to lack of access to healthy foods, as well as lack of access to health care and low

¬ NOVEMBER 30, 2016

wages. A high-end grocery store may help, but will not resolve these issues of access and health.

Then again, supermarkets are not the only resources communities have.

There are alternative sources of fresh produce—farmers markets, urban farms, and community gardens. Today, over one hundred community gardens thrive in Chicago, a long tradition that began in earnest in the 1940s with the Victory Garden movement, and has grown in recent years. And as Reverend John Ellis from the Greater Englewood Garden Association told me, “A community garden is designed

for everyone.”

Despite this, the issue of produce distribution and access still seems to stick stubbornly on the South Side. The effects of initiatives to combat food deserts in these communities manifest in subtle ways that don’t show up in statistics, which gives the impression that little progress has been made. But even unnoticed, community members have been working hard to combat produce inaccessibility, recognizing that two categories of produce distribution are particularly well poised to address issues of accessibility. Community gardens have a strong foothold on the South Side, products

FOOD

of both passion and localized frustration.

And food distribution companies, known for catering to the wealthy, are expanding their reach—using their resources to change the food landscape. Both produce sources face similar challenges of profitability and responsibility.

S

ome of these solutions are coming from expected places. Among established gardening organizations, such as the Greater Englewood Garden Association, and established farms like Growing Power,

years. In the 1990s, the Environmental Protection Agency partially remediated the land, but the toxicity of the soil remained a concern until the Cooperation Operation planted mushrooms to increase nutrient levels, according to Liz Nerat, Cooperation Operation co-founder. Nerat, an artist and musician from West Rogers Park, describes the EPA remediation as “not really a solution, just a temporary thing to make it not terrible.”

Back in 2013, when the Cooperation Operation began, the lone Walmart that

through the herb gardens, Nerat shouted her philosophies over the wind. “We wanted to create a more tangible solution that would help people be more self-reliant,” she explained. “The idea is that you come and you contribute, and this is yours. You have this as much as we have this. We don’t charge for anything. People are able to come and we teach them how to take care of the garden, and then they are able to take what they want home with them.”

The Cooperation Operation is an oasis of sorts. Hidden on 114th Street and

get them into it and show them everything, and let them taste some food, and they see why this is important for the South Side of Chicago. Sometimes they come back and they bring their families. And that’s the goal. This is fun, it’s good for you, and it’s not difficult.”

I asked Nerat if she thought the people who used the garden the most were, in fact, people who don’t live near a Whole Foods. On the Saturday I spent there, a few volunteers were from Pullman, but many had traveled from the North Side. She paused,

These maps show the distribution of five food services across Chicago. Green dots represent Peapod, purple dots Instacart stations, blue dots Door to Door Organics, red dots community gardens, and yellow dots urban farms.

Larger dots indicate greater accessibility (e.g, how many days a week the service is open or delivers).

DATA VISUALIZATION BY SAM BASTE

Growing Home, Windy City Farmers, The Plant, and the Gary Comer Youth Center rooftop farm, newer, smaller gardens have been sprouting up in greater numbers in recent years. One such newer initiative is Cooperation Operation, a small urban renewal project and community garden in Pullman founded by seventeen artists, community organizers, business people, and retired Occupy movement activists. In 2013, they moved into a house together and decided to build a garden for the neighborhood in an abandoned lot.

The lot had been a paint processing facility and had stayed unoccupied for several

now sits in the neighborhood didn’t yet exist. Nerat continued her account as she picked earthworms out of the mulch and set them down in the soil. “There are very few places to get healthy food, to get healthy and cheap food. Accessibility was one of our main reasons for starting this. You shouldn’t have to live next to a Whole Foods to eat healthy.”

During my interview with Nerat, she gave me a brief tour of the garden, which, in April, was mostly growing onions and chamomile, before handing me a shovel and a wheelbarrow. As we got to work laying mulch out for a wheelchair accessible path

Langley Avenue, it looks a bit like an art project. Most of the fruits and vegetables are grown in repurposed boats and cinderblock troughs. There are so many hand-painted signs and magnificent trellises in the space that it’s hard to imagine that in 2013, all that existed under its name was a Kickstarter campaign and a petition to the alderman.

Nerat’s favorite thing about the Coop Op, she told me, is “getting a bunch of teenagers who don’t care where food comes from and think gardening is stupid, and they’re like, ‘This is boring, it’s hot, and I want to go to McDonald’s,' since there’s a McDonald’s right across the street. But we

then told me that they have a little bit of a different group this year, because they’re expanding their classes and their workshop series. Many of her friends come down from the North Side for the open mic nights or the outdoor yoga classes.

I left the Coop Op that day with a sunburn, an onion, and some secondhand clothes, having gardened, watched a yoga class, participated in a workshop on food policy in America, and held someone’s baby for a few hours. I felt the thrill of having done manual labor outside on a nice day. I wondered, though, if an onion and a dress would sustain me if I relied solely upon

NOVEMBER 30, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

FOOD

the garden for produce. As communities continue to organize around gardens and sustainability projects, they must reckon with obstacles from weather to advertising.

Even community gardens are not always accessible.

When I asked Reverend Ellis why this could be, he explained, “The top priority for us [the Greater Englewood Garden Association] is to create green spaces and ensure the health of the plants and the soil.”

A garden is many different things, he told me, with produce distribution only one among dozens of goals.

“The problem,” Parkinson said, “is just that we’re a private company that’s trying to make money.” Delivery services like Peapod may not be able to expand to the neighborhoods in Chicago that need produce the most—it’s simple supply and demand.

N

ot everyone may have the time, inclination, or ability to trek over to a garden and tend to their own produce. Those working on the other side of produce distribution in Chicago understand this. They are the delivery services, brandishing convenience and carefully calibrated user interfaces. I talked to Thomas Parkinson, co-founder, Senior Vice President, and Chief Technology Officer of Peapod, in a location that certainly contrasted that of the Cooperation

12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ NOVEMBER 30, 2016

Operation.

In a sleek office in the Lyric Opera building in downtown Chicago, Parkinson and I nabbed a room with windows overlooking the city. I was expecting what he said first: “We mostly serve middle- to upper middle-class neighborhoods. We don’t really penetrate into the rougher neighborhoods.”

I asked Parkinson if Peapod targeted a certain demographic. He tapped his thumb against the table, then replied, “When you make deliveries, it’s across-the-board demographics. Single moms working two jobs, disabled people, old people, we deliver to all that. Our biggest market, probably, is working professionals, but if you ride on a truck I think you’d be amazed at who we’re delivering to.”

What surprised me were the quiet efforts Peapod has made in recent years to engage locally with food distribution.

“We’ve made several attempts to break into the food desert. We did one thing where we created bundles of fruits and we delivered them to a community center in the Lawndale neighborhood," Parkinson said.

“People could then come and buy it from the community center, it was even subsidized.

We tried—there just wasn’t much demand.”

When that effort failed, Peapod made another attempt, working with local activists Chris and Sheila Kennedy and their new community-based nonprofit, Top Box Foods, again delivering produce to churches, community centers, and the Alderwoman's office, so that community members could access fresh food even if they didn’t shop for food online. Peapod originally did most of the fulfillment for the organization, but it now runs on its own.

Recently, Top Box Foods, Evanstonbased tech company FarmLogix, and an Indiana farming hub collaborated to win the Food to Market Challenge. The challenge, part of a partnership between Kinship Foundation and Chicago Community Trust, awarded $500,000 to the partners to support their plan to sell boxes of produce from Chicago Public Schools for an affordable price—between eight and twenty-eight dollars. In an article from the Tribune,

Sheila Kennedy said she “expected Top Box to deliver the equivalent of 160,000 meals per month, up from about 40,000 a month currently. The boxes...can be purchased with LINK cards, the modern-day version of food stamps.” Their solution relies more heavily on networks and far-reaching distribution than on local community efforts, like gardens or farms. As the project takes off, their approach will be tested.

Peapod is supportive of both the networking and the local approaches. In 2015, Peapod announced a partnership with Gotham Greens in the Midwest.

Earlier that year, Gotham Greens’s newest greenhouse, one of the world’s largest and highest-efficiency rooftop farms, opened in Pullman. Hyperlocal produce from urban farms across Chicago will now be available to Peapod shoppers from Chicagoland, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis. And for the past two years, Peapod has partnered with Harvest Moon Farms in Wisconsin to put together a summer Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) Boxes, delivered weekly to shoppers for thirty-five dollars a box.

Speaking with the leaders of these efforts, I had nothing but hope that healthy eating could become widespread and indiscriminate. When interviewing community members, however, I realized equitable produce distribution faces fierce nemeses. Food deserts are linked to entrenched issues of politics and civil rights.

In Chicago, food deserts disparately impact African-American communities, especially when considering the racial segregation of the city’s housing. But the biggest challenge to produce distribution is actually a practical paradox: profit and sustainability run counter to many of these efforts.

“The problem,” Parkinson said, “is just that we’re a private company that’s trying to make money.” Delivery services like Peapod may not be able to expand to the neighborhoods in Chicago that need produce the most—it’s simple supply and demand.

Big companies may face issues of profitability, but community gardens are not without their own problems. Nerat is planning to release instructional videos

online, in addition to the workshops offered on-site, because damage has been done to Cooperative Operation crops by people who don’t know how to harvest them properly.

It’s hard to toe the line between accessibility and responsibility. A similar community garden on 27th Street in Little Village, Semillas de Justicia, is gated and locked with a code. From the outside, it looks foreboding.

Just over on 26th Street, Guadalupe, a first-generation immigrant, sells mangoes to customers who drive up in cars, right outside of a local supermarket. When I asked if he knew about any of the several community gardens in his neighborhood, he responded, “I don’t think there are any. There are in Mexico. But here, no. Here, it seems to me, they don’t. Because we’ve looked into it, and have yet to find any. While there is support from the government for those who were born here [in the US], but for us, we who are undocumented, no.”

I asked if his shopping habits changed since he moved to Little Village. “Yes!” he told me, enthusiastically. “We were from a rancho. On the rancho we cultivated corn, all kinds of vegetables, beans, chilies. All of that, we grew in the countryside. We had large plots where we cultivated everything.

Here, we shop in the supermarkets, wherever it is least expensive.” I asked if the same vegetables tasted different depending on where they were grown. “Yes,” he said, “only the things cultivated in Mexico don’t have many chemicals. But the things grown here [in the US] are. It has a lot of chemicals because in two to three months, they make the fruit to grow a lot, but in Mexico they don’t. It’s different.”

Another Little Village resident, Ignacio, worried about the quality of supermarket food as well. “Growing food at home and having it grown elsewhere is not the same,” he said. Even the chilies taste different to him, “maybe because of the fertilizers or because of the chemicals they use, who knows. But I think it’s that.”

The difficulty is not in creating new gardens, it’s in spreading the word that community gardens exist and are available to all community members, even the undocumented or non-English speaking

ones. There are four community gardens in Little Village, all of which operate efficiently and offer plots of land and educational classes. They are run almost exclusively by locals. But Reverend Ellis insists, at least for Englewood, “As far as day-to-day gardening goes, it’s not going to be a good garden without accessibility.”

It’s surprisingly frustrating to hear the eager optimism of the various champions of Chicago produce, like Nerat or Parkinson, contrasted with the skepticism of those who don’t see community gardens as realistic solutions for themselves, like Guadalupe or Ignacio. “There are so many urban farms in Chicago, and anyone can do this,” Nerat insists. “We knocked on doors and got over 200 signatures on a petition, we gave a presentation to the alderman, and we got access for five years. People think this seems like a crazy thing, but you just need a vacant lot, a bunch of seeds, some good soil, and friends.”

To Guadalupe and others, those simple ingredients are so difficult to obtain that they are prohibitory. Guadalupe said that during the summer, many people grow food in their yards. But he was insistent that “if there was a larger plot, it would be better.”

Maybe what we need is just a little more hope. The innovations at Peapod, the wide-eyed courage of the Cooperation Operation—efforts are coming up from hyper-local community efforts and down from big corporations, each benefitting a population that doesn’t use the other. Nerat taught me that lasting change can start anywhere.

“If we can just change the way we look at resources, not just food, like bike wheels becoming a dome or old boats being used for planters…” She trails off briefly, perhaps recognizing the magnitude of the challenge.

But she blinks and is hopeful again. “We have this one-time use way of looking at the world, but we take that old thing and we give it a new life. People get overwhelmed thinking about these big global issues. But it starts with one person doing something like this in their backyard and just changing the way they see things.” ¬

WHAT’S MISSING IN YOUR ’HOOD?

Sam Baste and Elizabeth Ortiz contributed Spanish translation and additional reporting.

TEXT “SSW” TO

312-697-1791 Then tell us what you want to see in your community.

This is a public engagement project from City Bureau, Chicago’s civic journalism lab based in Woodlawn.

THE PUBLIC NEWSROOM UPCOMING EVENTS Thursday, December 1 2pm–8pm: Public Newsroom is open 6pm: Workshop on Music Journalism led by Leor Galil of the Chicago Reader Thursday, December 8 2pm–8pm: Public Newsroom is open Thursday, December 15 2pm–8pm: Public Newsroom is open 6pm: Workshop on CPD Use of Force Data led by the Invisible Institute CITYBUREAU.ORG/PUBLICNEWSROOM THE EXPERIMENTAL STATION 6100 S. BLACKSTONE AVE

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NOVEMBER 30, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

Clockwise from left: Oscar Brown, Jr., Maggie Brown, and Africa Brown.

Brown and his family members were some of the original cast members of the first productions of In De' Beginnin' in the 1970s.

(Re)Creation

Oscar Brown Jr.’s “In De’ Beginnin’” offers humor and healing

BY ISABELLE LIM

T

COURTESY OF ETA CREATIVE ARTS FOUNDATION

he tree set in the middle of the eta stage is a riot of color. Its trunk, painted with streaks of neon, is strewn with vines and stamped with a variety of West African adinkra icons. Hanging from a branch is a lone, glittering red ornament—the apple in this retelling of the biblical origin story, and a nod to Christmas and the tradition of nativity plays, to which In De’ Beginnin’ pays slight homage with the timing of its current run. The prominent and idiosyncratic set piece, however, is the first 14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

clue that this retelling of the origin story will be anything but by The Book.

Written by the late Oscar Brown Jr., In De’ Beginnin’ is, simply put, a Genesis story.

It tells the tale of biblical creation and the events that led to the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. But it’s also much more than a simple Biblical reenactment. Director Kemati Porter and Musical Director Maggie Brown told the Weekly about its deeply particular modes of storytelling—the entire musical is told

¬ NOVEMBER 30, 2016

through a particular dialect with dropped consonants and slang, dialogue is spoken in rhyming verse, and the songs, written by Oscar Brown Jr., his son, Oscar Brown III, and Calvin “Coco” Brunson, carry the same smooth jazz tones that they honed in clubs on the South Side.

All of these elements came together as soon as Brunson took his place behind a modest keyboard stand on stage left. As the first notes rang out, the seven-member cast jubilantly sashayed onstage, a choral outburst

marked by brightly colored costumes and strikingly contrasting nude bodysuits which made it immediately clear who played the roles of Adam and Eve. Pastor Tamara Bennett, clad in a rainbow bell-sleeved dress, and Colin Jones, playing the part of the Rev, worked the audience in these first moments of the play, pulling together a heady show of energetic narration and eliciting calland-response participation. “Amen!” the audience would yell back as Bennett sang.

This communal-yet-intimate atmosphere

STAGE & SCREEN

was sustained through most of the first half of the play, mainly by Jones, who would interject scenes with his narrative passages and an insistent preacher’s aura summoned through sheer force of voice and glistening sweat on his forehead. It felt a lot like going to church­: fellow audience members would often break out into laughter or smile widely and wildly at the scenes onstage. Within the eta theater, as In De’ Beginnin’ played, it seemed like a strange sense of community was being constructed.

This sense of intimacy, of family even, is unsurprising, considering the roots of the play. Brown, the musical director of the show and the daughter of Oscar Brown Jr., recalls when In De’ Beginnin’ was first staged at The Body Politic Theater in Lincoln Park during the late 1970s . “It was a family affair originally, where my older sister played the Lawd, my younger sister played Eve, and my dad was the Rev, and my brother was in the band, and my cousin was the Devil, and my stepmother was the Serpent. So it was straight family. It really was,” Brown said.

The family affair continued even after the play was re-staged by The Chicago Theater Company, with Africa Brown, the younger sister of Maggie, then reprising the role of Eve. Through all its previous runs, In De’ Beginnin’ has always been at some level about family, communities, and the intimacies that these circles contain.

It was no surprise, then, and the perfect convergence, that this latest re-staging of the show would be taken up by eta, itself an organization more like a family than any bureaucratic institution.

Porter and Brown both said the initial process of getting In De’ Beginnin’ to the eta stage was a collaborative process more than anything else. Early in the year, Brown had put out a call to various theaters, dance companies, and creative organizations, looking for those interested in staging works of Oscar Brown Jr. Already heavily involved in a process to commemorate and celebrate her father’s legacy for what would have been his ninetieth birthday, Brown hoped that 2016 would be “the year of Oscar Brown Jr.,” with music festivals, readings, panel discussions, and more in mind. Porter, on behalf of eta, responded to that initial call, finally selecting In De’ Beginnin’ as a family-friendly musical production for their holiday season. It was an apt coming together of the work of a Chicago legend, also hailed for his grassroots-level advocacy and engagement, and a theater that has been similarly committed.

In this same vein, the process of calling, auditioning, and working with actors for the show was focused on nurturing and training rather than any cutthroat competitiveness.

Porter reiterated, “Our mission is a training mission—to train artists. [The play] was a great opportunity for some artists to understand and explore that philosophy because we don’t know about it. So we were all jumping into the water together not knowing what the hell we were getting into but it was going to be a good something.

who saunters on after being conjured from Adam’s rib by the Lawd, has a stage presence that immediately captures the attention of an audience, and clearly of Adam. The fool-like Adam, played by Khyel Sherman Roberson, is entranced, and trails after Eve, speechless and hapless. Even while she croons “I’m with you,” slowly leading him offstage, it is clear that she is in charge, a dynamic that plays out later in a hilarious feat of physical fight comedy between the two. As Eve defeats Adam, Bourn’s

Within the eta theater, as In De’ Beginnin’ played, it seemed like a strange sense of community was being constructed.

That I was sure about.”

The process of training and rehearsals was still fraught with challenges, however, partly because of the requirement of actors to both sing and act, as well as the dialogue—a killer combination of rhyming verse and what Brown describes as a “Negro dialect.”

“It takes time to learn that. To unlearn what you know and learn something new, to drop consonants,” Porter said, to which Brown adds, "Cause you been trained to be proper.

Now we’re saying ‘No. Let it go.’”

The dialect is immediately striking, but Brown also points out that the verse is written in iambic pentameter, and, even more noticeably, rhyming quatrains. “I mean, who did that apart from Shakespeare?” she laughed. The spoken word in In De’ Beginnin’, with its cadences and specific intonations, is already difficult—add to it the humor that it’s supposed to evoke, and it seems a near miracle that the actors are performing the dialogue in any smooth way.

Brown chuckled, “[My father] was a funny cat, and sometimes the youth of actors, they don’t even realize what they’re saying. They don’t even realize the wittiness of what or how they can say that. But they grow into it.

And I look forward to every passing show, and I think they’re going to sink teeth a little further and embody these words.”

It’s a hope well-placed, with some truly standout performances, especially in the second half of the show. Fania Bourn’s Eve,

reprisal of this battle of the sexes tune sees her belting center stage, fists raised and punching, a call to arms for herself and a moment that showcases her stunning voice.

Despite her simultaneous punching, Bourn easily hits the higher registers in the song, her voice resounding around the theater, a welcome echo.

Musically, In De’ Beginnin’ is a tour de force, especially with Calvin Brunson behind the keyboard. Brown emphasized that live music was crucial for the show, saying that recorded tracks were an option initially, “but this show would suffer greatly.

It’s not meant for a recorded track. It’s meant for someone who can play along, and the music kind of introduces scenes and gives punctuation to different moods of the show.”

This natural rhythm is wonderfully conducted through Brunson’s playing.

During the show, he appears to the audience as nothing but a shadowed figure behind a keyboard on stage left. But as the songs begin, the figure sways, jerks, and moves to the tunes, Brunson himself responding to the musical moods he creates. As one of the original creators of the music, his involvement was a no-brainer for Brown and Porter. The former recounts how a teenage Brunson used to play music with her brother and her father until they were old enough to get into clubs and play there. “He’d been playing with my father

and collaborating on a lot of songs and actual whole plays like this one and Journey Through Forever,” she pointed out, citing a long family history and familiarity with the work.

As the play navigates its way through the second half, more sinister themes surface, and Kai A. Ealy’s turn as the Devil/Serpent takes on an outstandingly decadent villainous quality. His solo, in which the refrain “Your destruction, your damnation, and your death” reverberates in the once church-like atmosphere of the theater, is unnervingly entertaining.

It’s an impressive performance that sees Ealy embody the slithering physicality of the Serpent character—eyes bulging, gait smooth and purposeful, and voice digitally mangled to take on a slightly ear-piercing register. As the play progresses and we see the inevitable temptation of Eve, the implication of Adam, and their banishment from the Garden, the words and music of Oscar Brown Jr. continue to guide the narrative journey, before ending in a final song with the parting words, “Now you know you’ll die.” It’s a chilling last statement, a final memento mori wrapped in a joyful tune, and a reminder of mortality that leaves audiences just slightly shaken in their entertained state.

Yet the ending also encapsulates so much of what Oscar Brown Jr.’s work does—provide humor, words, song, and healing to situations and states often too difficult or painful to discern. Brown talked about the powerful social and civic work that her father did in the 1950’s and 1960’s, explaining that he started touring and performing in schools like Dunbar Vocational High School and DuSable High School and then put his attention to working with gangs like the Blackstone Rangers. “He endeared himself." Brown said. "Certain people got a glimpse at how you could really use your art to come to your own rescue. Economically, spiritually, morally."

In De’ Beginnin’ highlights this legacy of humor in direness, of lyricism in somber times, and most of all, of art as a method of healing for the community. Porter stressed this last feature in discussing Oscar Brown Jr.’s work: “He was very much an artist of the community. We can take care of ourselves, and art is one way of doing that.

And I think that’s just the consummate ... artist. That’s the consummate artist, who understands that the gift that they have is the gift that can heal.” ¬

NOVEMBER 30, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

The Chicago Sound

COURTESY OF TWO SEVEN EIGHT MEDIA

“Midway Documentary” aims to showcase the forgotten history of Chicago hip-hop

BY RACHEL KIM

T

he creators of Midway Documentary, Ryan Brockmeier and Chad Sorenson, believe that behind the success of big names in Chicago hip-hop are many unheard stories of artists who built the genre.

“The stories we're uncovering are the links in everything,” said Sorenson. “It shows you how if just one person doesn't show up to this one spot, that chain of events doesn't happen and Kanye West may still be working at the Gap.”

16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

The Legendary Traxster is one such artist who had an undeniable impact. He is largely credited for creating a new cadence in which a rapper’s flow rides with the rhythm of the hi-hat instead of the downbeat. And Shabba Doo, a dancer born and raised in Cabrini-Green, became famous with The Lockers, a Los Angeles dance group, and later starred in the 1984 indie film Breakin’, one of the earliest and most influential hiphop movies.

Brockmeier—the director, co-

¬ NOVEMBER 30, 2016

writer, and producer—began outlining the documentary and archival project in December 2013. Sorenson, a Chicago DJ known as DJ Risky Bizness, was the first person Brockmeier called, and he is now the lead researcher and producer. The core team also includes Kevin Beacham and Rahsaan “DJ Sean Doe” Hawkins.

In July, the project partnered with Columbia College and its Center for Black Music Research to further develop its hiphop archive. The archive will cover the early

dance and graffiti scenes from the 1970s, the drill scene and the rise of independent rappers, and all of the stories in between.

Chicago’s early hip-hop scenes never received the same major label attention cities like Los Angeles or New York City have often taken for granted.

Major labels were not seeking out people from Chicago to sign, according to Sorenson. “If you start giving a market its own infrastructure and room,” he said, “they’re no longer going to buy New York

MUSIC

records or LA records.” This, Sorenson explained, was in large part why Common and other Chicago giants had to leave the city to find a career.

“We have testimony from many artists who were signed by majors...who were told that they had to change their style to fit the New York audience,” said Sorenson. “How disheartening is that?”

the city to commune and start a hip-hop community with like-minded individuals from other parts. And some of those kids might be in rival gangs. Being Chicago hiphop doesn’t mean what race you are or what neighborhood you come from—which is very important to this city.”

While people like Chance the Rapper and the success of his Magnificent Coloring

“We have testimony from many artists who were signed by majors...who were told that they had to change their style to fit the New York audience. How disheartening is that?”

—Chad Sorenson, documentary producer and DJ

For Brockmeier and Sorenson, two Chicago locals, the city’s hip-hop community encompasses more than just the music and the culture that both surrounds and sustains it—it is also a profound representation of the strength of the community itself. The survival and triumph of hip-hop in Chicago, a city that has historically been segregated by race, ethnicity, gang affiliations, and socioeconomic status, have been a testimony to hip-hop's ability to unite different groups within the same genre.

“In a city that was literally designed to divide, here comes the subculture that breaks down and defeats all those barriers,” Sorenson said. “You’ve got kids coming from one neighborhood...to other parts of

Day, a day-long music festival that sold out U.S. Cellular Field, have recently brought Chicago some well-earned praise, mainstream media portrayals of both Chicago and its hip-hop culture have often been less than flattering.

Recently, the coverage of Chicago’s hip-hop has largely focused on the violence often associated with the drill rap scene.

Two years ago, Vice’s music channel Noisey released an eight-part documentary, Welcome to Chiraq. According to Noisey's website, the documentary focuses on “Englewood, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city of Chicago” and the drill artists on the South Side. According to prominent Chicago music critic Jim DeRogatis, the

documentary was made by “voyeuristic cultural tourists [who] parachuted into Chicago” and offered “little real insight into the cause of these problems.”

Subsequent examinations of hip-hop in Chicago—like Spike Lee’s 2015 film Chi-Raq, which also uses Englewood as its backdrop—are no exception to the trend of exploiting the violence in Chicago and using it to demonize entire neighborhoods and the people living inside them.

“The media needs a narrative, so they will focus on the negative things,” said Sorenson.

“The Englewood area is a perfect scapegoat for them to blame America’s problems on.

But people don’t understand that the vast majority of Englewood is normal, bluecollar, working everyday people.”

“When we were growing up,” Sorenson continued, “if you were around some people doing hip-hop music, you were probably in a safe place. Those kids weren't looking to do anything but hip-hop and have a good time.

And the majority of kids got into Chicago hip-hop to save their own lives.”

For both Brockmeier and Sorenson, the rise of Chicago’s early talents are thanks to the city’s “independent hustle” and “bluecollar mentality,” and an ability to find success despite the city’s lack of major-label attention.

One example is E.C. Illa, a legendary white rapper from Chicago and one of Eminem’s earliest influencers, who selfproduced and shot a music video for about $1,000 that eventually landed on national music outlets like BET’s Rap City and The Box. The same strain of uncompromising independence can be seen in the younger generation of Chicago artists, such as those, including Vic Mensa and Chance the Rapper, affiliated with the independent Savemoney crew. While these young artists are open fans of their predecessors, Brockmeier and Sorenson hope that their documentary can help both artists and audiences learn more about their own history, and are proud of the

work ethic and talent of younger generations of Chicago’s hip-hop artists.

Currently, the project is hosted on a website that features nearly two hundred individuals from the Chicago hip-hop scene.

While this website also serves as promotional material for the film, Brockmeier hopes that their database will eventually be completely accessible to the public and “the front line if…people want to do research on Chicago hip-hop.” According to both creators, this archival project currently stands as “the most comprehensive archive and documentary of any given scene on the planet.”

According to Brockmeier and Sorenson, the entire project has been funded out of pocket for nearly three years.

Sorenson, who is the owner of one of the largest music collections in Chicago, still faithfully searches eBay auctions to find rare records for the documentary. The project is also receiving donations of important historical Chicago hip-hop artifacts and hopes to present them at an exhibit near the release of the documentary, which is slated for November of 2017. Recently, the Ill State Assassins, a rap crew whose members (like E.C. Illa and The Legendary Traxster) were some of the most talented and famous artists from Chicago, donated an authentic, vintage, and highly coveted eighties Ill State varsity jacket to the project.

“At the end of the day,” Sorenson said, “We have nothing but the best intentions to show everyone in Chicago in the best light.

We’re not doing anything to show negative parts of the city—the national media can do that…When we interview people from Englewood, we try to talk to them about Englewood to change the narrative of the people and the community there. We want to show that you can be from our city, and do what you want. You can be from any neighborhood in this city and do whatever you want.” ¬

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BULLETIN Can Tech Innovators Fix Criminal Justice?

1871, 222 W. Merchandise Mart Plaza, Suite 1212. Wednesday, November 30, 6pm– 7:30pm. Free. (312) 239-0310. bit.ly/techjusticereform There are countless (and often needless) barriers that former offenders must pass through to re-acclimate to society. Some of those barriers, such as a company or a school’s unwillingness to hire or admit individuals with a criminal record, are controlled by the private sector rather than federal regulations. Join Lincoln Network and Illinois Policy Institute to discuss the role of the tech industry in this and other aspects of criminal justice reform. ( Jonathan Hogeback)

North Kenwood-Oakland Meeting on Sullivan Station Development Kennicott Park Field House, 4434 S. Lake Park Ave. Thursday, December 1, 6:30pm.

Free. bit.ly/sullivanstation The North Kenwood Oakland Conservation Community Council will host a public meeting regarding Sullivan Station, a mixed-income housing development. The $44 million project was completed in 2014, but the conversation on mixed-income housing, and its role in changing neighborhoods, continues. (Hafsa Razi)

Felt The Fear But Found My Freedom: Women in Tech and Entrepreneurship BLUE1647 Tech Innovation Center, 1647 S. Blue Island Ave. Friday, December 2, 6pm–8:30pm. Free. Register and details at bit.ly/feltthefear. join1919.com

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From the workplace to education (and even in relationships), fear and insecurities can often get the best of us. Learn how to “‘Live Life Full Out’ #rightNow (in spite of fear)” from a panel of women who self-describe as everything from “Encourager of Hope” and “Changemaker” to entrepreneurs and data scientists. Sponsored by 1919 and hosted

by BLUE1647, this evening of networking and support is sure to empower all who attend. (Emily Lipstein)

Bronzeville SOUP Bronzeville Incubator, 300 E. 51st St. Saturday, December 3, 4pm–7pm. $5 donation for soup, salad, bread, and a vote.

Register at bit.ly/bronzeville-soup. (773) 285-5002. thebronzevilleincubator.com At Bronzeville SOUP—an idea transplanted from Detroit—attendees donate five dollars at the door for a meal (bread, salad, and, shockingly, soup), and local entrepreneurs working on community projects present a set of pitches. After the pitches are finished, diners vote for their favorite: the winner gets the pot of cash at the door. (Christian Belanger)

The Revolution Has Come with Robyn C. Spencer Seminary Co-op, 5751 S. Woodlawn Ave. Sunday, December 4, 3pm–4:30pm. Free.

(773) 752-4381. semcoop.com In her new book, The Revolution Has Come, CUNY professor Robyn C. Spencer examines the “organizational evolution” and gender politics of the Black Panther Party’s earliest forms in sixties Oakland. (Christian Belanger)

Introducing Progress & Poverty Overflow Coffee Bar, 1550 S. State St. Thursday, December 1, 6:15pm–8:15pm. Free.

Register at bit.ly/progressandpoverty. (312) 450-2906. hgchicago.org

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If you were born in the 1890’s, you probably wouldn’t need an introduction to Henry George’s most famous work, Progress & Poverty. Born a little later, you’re probably aware of its effects—George’s discussions of boom and bust economic cycles and private and public property are just a couple of hot topics. Chuck Matlitz of the Henry George School will discuss how we could implement some of George’s ideas in the twenty-first century. ( Jonathan Hogeback)

VISUAL ARTS Bit X Bit Digital Art Demo Space, 2515 S. Archer Ave. Saturday, December 3, 7pm – midnight. $5.

(312) 451-2962. dadschicago.com Not your D.A.D.S kind of party: Digital Art Demo Space opens its doors for a night of sound performances by venoSci, Solarbear, Chaos Network, and more. There will also be a workshop led by venoSci on using alternative handheld systems to make visuals for performances. (Corinne Butta)

Make Your Art Happen High Concept Labs, 2233 S. Throop St. Applications accepted through Sunday, December 4. Artist Season March 1 through June 30. $15 application fee. highconceptlabs/apply High Concept Labs opens a call for their next Sponsored Artists: apply before December 4 to receive custom support for your practice. Rehearse, perform, write, document, and teach as one of ten artists this spring. (Corinne Butta)

Firehouse Holiday Bazaar Firehouse Art Studio, 1123 W. Roosevelt Rd. Saturday, December 2, 11am–6pm.

Free to shop, $55 ticket to make your own

glass ornament. Buy tickets online at bit. ly/firehousebazaar. (773) 907-0841. artreachchicago.org ArtReach’s first Firehouse Holiday Bazaar features some gift-worthy blown glass ornaments, beads, cards, scarves, and necklaces, all created by local artists like students from Afterschool Matters and Project Fire. Buy the perfect present, or make your own! (Hafsa Razi)

Grabolandia National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St. Sunday, December 3, noon–5pm. Free. (312) 738-1503. institutograficodechicago.org The Instituto Gráfico de Chicago presents a “print festival,” where visitors will get to meet the institute’s artists, learn about the process and tradition of printmakingprintmaking, and put some printing blocks to paper, to create their own work of art. (Hafsa Razi)

A Voice for Victims URI-EICHEN Gallery, 2101 S. Halsted St. Opening reception Friday, December 9, 6pm–10pm. Through January 6, hours by appointment. Free. (312) 852-7717. uri-eichen.com Drawings by Kathy Weaver and photography by Dr. Zaher Sahloul feature in Uri-Eichen Gallery’s fifth annual Human Rights Show. Weaver’s series, entitled “War Devours Us,” and Sahloul’s photographs from his experiences in underground hospitals in Aleppo focus on destruction and enduring humanity in the Syrian crisis. (Hafsa Razi)

EVENTS

MUSIC An Angelic Toy Drive Affair The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Saturday, December 3, 2pm–8pm. $5 with a new, unwrapped toy, $10 without toy. 21+.

(312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com Enjoy local music and spread some holiday cheer at the Angelic Toy Drive Affair this Saturday. Hosts Angela Pena and Curtis McClain will bring you music from Chicago DJs—including Track Master Scott and Steve Poindexter—in exchange for a donated toy. Dance easy, knowing you're making a difference for a child in need this holiday season. (Emily Lipstein)

Roy Woods Reggies Rock Club, 2105 S. State St. Sunday, December 4, 6:30pm. $12 online, $15 day of show. All ages. (312) 949-0120. reggieslive. com One of the latest benefactors of Drake’s now-fabled co-signs, Roy Woods makes— you guessed it—moody, downcast R&B with chilly synthesizer tones that’s perfect for sad sex or long dark hoodie walks…and you bet he’s from Toronto. Check him out this Sunday at Reggies. (Austin Brown)

Punch Drunk Soul Club at Punch House Punch House, 1227 W. 18th St. Monday, December 5, 9pm. (312) 526-3851. punchhousechicago.com Local DJs Bill Ocean (no, not Billy Ocean of "Caribbean Queen") and Shawn Rios, who preside over The Minimal Beat, a daily music journal, will serve as song selectors at the Punch House as part of an ongoing series of nightly guest DJs. Genres on deck include soul, funk, garage, and "kitchen sink." ( Jake Bittle)

STAGE & SCREEN Butterfly Rising & new work by Amir George SMG Chatham 14, 210 W. 87th St. Thursday, December 1, 7pm. $6. blackworldcinema.net Black World Cinema’s monthly screening of work within the African diaspora comes closer to home, with two new short films

by Chicago-based filmmaker Amir George and a 2010 film showcasing the varied talents of actress Tanya Wright: she wrote, produced, directed, novelized, and starred in the movie, about a “strange butterfly man” who changes two women’s lives. ( Julia Aizuss)

Nothing Is Too Small for a Revolution: Anarchist Films by Nick Macdonald Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Friday, December 2, 7:30pm. freesouthsideprojections.org South Side Projections will showcase five films by Nick Macdonald, an experimental anarchist filmmaker whose movies often take the form of “essays” that grapple with questions of political action, national leadership, and, most famously, the morality of the Vietnam War. Macdonald will be on hand to present and discuss his own 16mm prints with Jonathan Rosenbaum. ( Jake Bittle)

South Side Projections will be celebrating Kwanzaa by showing all seven films, each of which takes place in a different part of the African diaspora, in one day. ( Jake Bittle)

African American Film Pioneers: Eleven P.M. Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Saturday, December 3, 7pm. Free. filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu This UofC Film Studies Center series comes to a close with this 1928 film about a street violinist, only recently rediscovered but accompanied by quite a bit of hype— “wholly unique,” “cinematically innovative,” “surreal,” “bizarre,” and “not to be missed.”

Well, don’t miss it, then, or Jacqueline Stewart’s introduction beforehand. ( Julia Aizuss)

The Lady’s Not for Burning

Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Saturday, December 3, 2pm. Free. southsideprojections.org

ACRE TV. Part 1: Tuesday, November 29–Monday, December 5; Part 2: Tuesday, December 6–Monday, December 12. acretv. org

Visionary filmmaker Carol Munday Lawrence’s first foray into animation was a series of seven short films, released in the 1970s, on the seven principles of Kwanzaa.

Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. Through Sunday, December 11. $58, discounts available for seniors, faculty, and students.

(773) 753-4472. courttheatre.org What can you expect from family drama?

In the case of the third and final chapter of Court’s Greek Cycle, a story in which “even justice can bring destruction.” In Sophocles’ play, Nicholas Rudall’s translation, and under Seret Scott’s direction, Electra and her brother Orestes scheme to avenge their father Agamemnon’s murder. (Daniel Mays)

eta Creative Arts, 7558 S. South Chicago Ave. Through Saturday, December 24. $40, discounts for students and seniors. (773) 7523955. etacreativearts.org Oscar Brown Jr.’s funky musical, based on the Book of Genesis, is eta Creative Arts’ holiday entertainment offering for families. Brown was a multitalented artist, civil rights activist, and humanitarian; his daughter Maggie Brown will take on musical direction for this production, which eta calls a “tribute” to one of “Chicago’s greatest artists.” ( Joseph S. Pete)

Hyde Park Community Players will celebrate the holidays in characteristically idiosyncratic fashion by staging a play about a witch trial in a fifteenth-century English town. Critics have praised the playwright’s “insistence on the wonder of human life” and called the play a “poetic fantasy.” ( Jake Bittle)

RE/NIGHT/LIVE/MARE: Parts 1&2

Electra

In De’ Beginnin’

University Church, 5655 S. University Ave. Friday, December 2–Sunday, December 4, and Friday, December 9–Sunday, December 11. Tickets $12.75, $15 at the door. hydeparkcommunityplayers.org

Animated Kwanzaa Films at South Side Projections

foremost “re-considers your nightmares.”

This week, you can catch the daydreams, fantasies, and horrors reworked in the end of Part 1 (RE) and the second airing of Part 2 (NIGHT). ( Julia Aizuss)

ACRE TV’s latest project might now be a little too timely: this diverse four-part multitude of twice-airing video art first and

NOVEMBER 30, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19