May 20th, 2015

The Rauner Budget What over $4 billion in cuts means for the South Side

OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY, GABRIEL SIERRA, THE PROJECT(S)

&

MORE INSIDE

2 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 20, 2015

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is a 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. Started as a student paper at the University of Chicago, the South Side Weekly is now an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting cultural and civic engagement on the South Side, and to providing educational opportunities for developing journalists, writers, and artists.

Editor-in-Chief Osita Nwanevu Executive Editor Bess Cohen Managing Editors Jake Bittle, Olivia Stovicek Politics Editors Christian Belanger, Rachel Schastok Education Editor Mari Cohen Music Editor Maha Ahmed Stage & Screen Lucia Ahrensdorf Editor Visual Arts Editors Lauren Gurley, Robert Sorrell Editors-at-Large John Gamino, Bea Malsky,

Meaghan Murphy, Hannah Nyhart Contributing Editors Julia Aizuss, Austin Brown,

Sarah Claypoole, Emeline Posner, Hafsa Razi Social Media Editor Emily Lipstein Web Editor Andrew Koski Visuals Editor Ellie Mejia Layout Editors Adam Thorp, Baci Weiler Senior Writers: Patrick Leow, Jack Nuelle, Stephen Urchick Staff Writers: Olivia Adams, Max Bloom, Amelia Dmowska, Mark Hassenfratz, Maira Khwaja, Jeanne Lieberman, Zoe Makoul, Olivia Myszkowski, Jamison Pfeifer, Kari Wei Staff Photographers: Camden Bauchner, Juliet Eldred, Kiran Misra, Siddhesh Mukerji, Luke White Staff Illustrators: Jean Cochrane, Lexi Drexelius, Wei Yi Ow, Amber Sollenberger, Teddy Watler, Julie Wu Journalist-in-Residence Yana Kunichoff Editorial Intern Webmaster Business Manager

Clyde Schwab Shuwen Qian Harry Backlund

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, with breaks during April and December. Over the summer we publish monthly.

Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 1212 E. 59th Street Ida Noyes Hall #030 Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, contact: (773)234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly Read our stories online at southsideweekly.com

Cover photo by Alexander Pizzirani: a cutout of Bruce Rauner from the Fair Economy Illinois protest, Monday, May 18, at the Chicago Board of Trade.

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 Apology The South Side Weekly would like to apologize to the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) and the broader Arab American community for the title and cover image of last week’s feature on the AAAN. Neither the title nor the cover was reflective of the Arab American community and the identity and goals of the AAAN. Over the course of the editorial process, before the title was selected, concerns about the cover were raised by the piece’s author, Zach Taylor. Those concerns were not addressed and the Weekly additionally apologizes for our oversight. To learn more about the AAAN’s mission and work, visit www.aaan.org.

For Reel Every summer, the Chicago Parks District shows movies across the city, hopping from park to park every few days for ninetyish minutes of family-friendly viewing. DNAinfo has just published a map of all the places where movies will be shown from June to August. Recent hits such as The Lego Movie and the 2014 Annie will be shown in a number of South Side neighborhoods, but there will also be deeper cuts sprinkled throughout, such as Over the Hedge in Armour Square and Jumanji in Hegewisch. The farthest south movie will be The Avengers in Altgeld Gardens, and the farthest west will be Hairspray in Garfield Clearing, right behind Midway Airport.

A Surprise Protest at McCormick Place 65,000 came from around the country to attend this year’s National Restaurant Association show, which boasted a summit on restaurant finance, culinary showcases, and the unveiling of innovations like ninety-second pasta and edible 3D printing. But on Monday, seventy-five restaurant workers showed up with a slightly different agenda––to protest for an increase of wages for workers who rely on tips. While workers nationwide are protesting for a minimum wage of $15, restaurant workers who rely on tips are paid a base wage of only $4.95 an hour in Illinois, and as low as $2.13 nationwide. Though event officials eventually asked protestors to leave the venue, it’s pretty impressive that they even made it inside McCormick Place with fake event badges.

Deer Are Living on a Landfill in South Deering Truth at least as strange as fiction: the Paxton II landfill in South Deering, which happens to be Cook County’s tallest nonstructural point, is overrun with (you guessed it?) deer. Dozens of the animals, unbothered by the smell and drawn in by the newly planted prairie grass, have made the mountain of garbage their home.

While a decade or so ago goats were being dropped in to try to eat the grass growing on the mountain, at this point, about five years after sheepdogs failed to keep the goat population up, the deer have no competition for the hill. Hopefully they find their new home in Deering endearing.

IN THIS ISSUE the change that’s going to come

what the rauner budget means for

Rauner has called for nearly $4 billion in cuts to social programs. john gamino…4

“Few Will Leave Their Place to Come Here for Some Minutes” (4pm) sammie spector…9

There is excitement, then, for the library’s potential to inject capital into Washington Park. olivia adams…12

building bridges between youth and

framing life in washington park

revisiting the project(s)

police

Photographs from an event

by South Side in Focus. jake bittle…10

the south side

“This will not be a traditional academic conference.” austin brown…8

the space between

“Before we sat down to interview these residents, they didn’t know that their stories were valuable.” amelia dmowska…15

MAY 20, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

What the Rauner Budget Means for the South Side

BY JOHN GAMINO

I

n February, newly elected governor Bruce Rauner proposed his first state budget, which called for massive cuts that would disproportionately impact poor communities, including many black and Latino areas on the South Side. Faced with a $6 billion projected deficit in the upcoming fiscal year, Rauner has called for nearly $4 billion in cuts to social programs, including health and child care programs for low-income people, education and afterschool activities, and mental health services, among others.

Although Rauner is currently negotiating his cuts with Democrats, who hold veto-proof majorities in both state legislatures, in exchange for business-oriented reforms, his office has refused to grant a Freedom of 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

alexander pizzirani

¬ MAY 20, 2015

Information Act request from the Associated Press to see the reforms he would propose.

(His office also did not respond to questions it received from the Weekly.) Rauner has said he wants to “leverage” the budget to better achieve his priorities; as such, the cuts represent a first look at what those priorities are— as well as how they might be felt once a final budget passes.

Although Rauner has characterized his budget and the cuts within it as “necessary, but difficult” choices, he has allowed the income tax to drop from five percent to 3.75 and the corporate tax to drop from seven percent to 5.25, and he has also lifted a freeze on an additional $100 million in corporate tax breaks (approved but not implemented by

Governor Pat Quinn). Most of the income tax savings went to the wealthy, with 54.5% of them going to the top 11.8% of taxpayers, according to the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. Additionally, a report by the Fiscal Policy Center at Voices for Illinois Children finds that reversing the income tax could raise as much as $5 billion while reversing the corporate tax rate could raise between $330 and $770 million. Together, both moves could almost close the $6 billion deficit.

Community organizations have rallied in the face of the budget cuts and challenged both the need for austerity and Rauner’s priorities. Back in March, unions and Fight for 15 brought about 1,500 protestors to the State Capitol and delivered a petition with

10,000 signatories. On May 9, those same groups combined with the Jane Addams Senior Caucus to stage a protest in Winnetka outside one of Rauner’s nine homes. Four days later, they were outside another one of his homes—this time a penthouse in Millennium Park—where they set up a camp they called “Raunerville,” in reference to the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression. And on Monday, fourteen protestors from the alliance Fair Economy Illinois were arrested for sitting in the middle of Jackson Boulevard outside the Chicago Board of Trade (see photos).

The Weekly looked into the budget to assess how the changes might be felt in Chicago and on the South Side.

BUDGET

T

he budget does add $290 million in spending to K-12 education, but Chicago Public Schools (CPS) expects to lose around $16 million under the state’s funding formula. $10 million will be cut from the Safe Passage program, which watches students who changed schools after the 2013 closings to ensure a safe commute.

Illinois has cut state funds for education for years and will still fall below its own recommended “foundation level” for per-pupil spending. In 2013, Illinois ranked last in the U.S. for the share of funds it committed to P-12 public education (Illinois public schools rely on local property taxes for most of their funding).

A few K-12 education programs will see cuts, including funding for Advanced Placement programs, arts and foreign lan-

B

y far the biggest cut is to Medicaid, from which Governor Rauner has taken $1.5 billion. The low-income health care program provides insurance to over half of Illinois children and one of every four Illinois residents overall, and about half the cuts ($735 million) come directly from hospital reimbursements. This represents about thirteen percent of the funds hospitals currently receive to fund Medicaid.

Most hospitals on the South Side are classified as “safety nets,” meaning over fifty percent of the patients they serve are eligible for Medicaid. These include St. Bernard Hospital, Jackson Park Hospital, South Shore Hospital, La Rabida Children’s Hospital, Holy Cross Hospital, Mercy Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, St. Anthony Hospital, and Roseland Community Hospital—nine of the state’s twenty-two “safety net” hospitals.

Seventy-two percent of the patients St. Bernard Hospital serves receive Medicaid. The hospital, which is in Englewood, could lose more than $10 million if the

EDUCATION guage instruction, and teacher board certification.

Another big cut will affect universities: the budget proposes a reduction of almost $400 million, which represents thirty-one percent of public universities’ state funding. Each university will receive the same percentage reduction.

While some schools, such as the University of Illinois, have pledged not to increase tuition for the 2015-16 school year, the budget cuts could lead to an increase in tuition rates at other state universities, or to increases in future years. A recent report by Young Invincibles, a youth advocacy organization, notes that the cost of tuition at public universities has increased by fifty-seven percent at public four-year schools and thirty-eight percent at public two-year schools over the last decade, while from 1999 to 2008 state funds for need-based grants fell by twenty-eight

percent. The report cites a 2012 task force commissioned by the state’s Monetary Assistance Program, which helps low-income students afford college, that found that “college credential attainment inequities” have already increased because of college affordability issues.

CPS students will have fewer afterschool programs available to them as a result of the cuts. After School Matters, a Chicago nonprofit that offers handson, project-based programs, will lose $2.5 million. And Teen REACH, which offers tutoring, college preparation, and cultural enrichment to disadvantaged youth ages six to seventeen across the state, will lose all $3.1 million of its funding. There are eleven Teen REACH providers on the South Side, including the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council and the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization.

Although Rauner has characterized his budget and the cuts within it as “necessary, but difficult” choices, he has allowed the income tax to drop from five percent to 3.75 and the corporate tax to drop from seven percent to 5.25.

HEALTH CARE Medicaid cuts are implemented, according to Derek Michaels, its director of public relations.

Rauner also plans to save nearly $75 million by conducting an “aggressive review” of those eligible for the program— currently adults in homes making less than 133 percent of the federal poverty line, children in households making less than 300 percent of the poverty line, and seniors and disabled people with incomes at or below the poverty line.

Kidney transplants will no longer be provided to undocumented immigrants, and certain mental health and anti-seizure drugs will no longer be exemptions to the Medicaid restriction of four prescriptions per month.

Services that are not mandatory under the Medicaid program, such as dental care and podiatry, will be reduced or discontinued. Although these services have been cut in the past, they were restored because emergency care wound up costing more.

“People will not miraculously get better if they’re denied care for services,” Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago) said after the budget address in February.

“They’ll just end up at a higher level of care in an acute care setting at the most expensive end of their disease.”

The Department of Public Health will lose around $19 million, mostly in preventative and women’s health programs.

Among the programs that will be cut back include breast cancer screenings, AIDS/ HIV education and services, the University of Illinois at Chicago’s sickle cell clinic (all $495,000 eliminated), and grants for family planning, immunizations, vision and hearing screenings, and outreach.

The budget cuts community mental health programs by 15 percent. This $82 million reduction comes after Chicago closed six public mental health clinics in 2012, four of which were on the South Side. Patients were transferred to privately managed clinics like Thresholds, which took over the building of the clinic in Woodlawn that closed. Now the private clinics would have to cut services under the 2016 budget, too.

“We would be taking so many steps backward with the cuts that are on the table,” Heather O’Donnell, the vice president of public policy and advocacy at

Thresholds, told the Tribune in April.

“We weren’t a strong sector before and we would be a shell of that.”

Illinois already cut mental health spending by $187 million from 2009 to 2012. Because Medicaid does not pay very high rates for psychiatric services, organizations like Thresholds rely on public grant funds to pay for psychiatrists and serve their low-income patients. As state mental health spending is reduced, so is the number of patients to whom they can afford to give care.

Medicaid also does not cover a number of services for people with mental health issues, such as programs that help them find jobs and stable housing.

As the gap between needed and provided mental health services widens, the government ends up spending more money on mental health care overall—in emergency rooms and jails. From 2009 to 2013, for example, thirty-seven percent more patients in Chicago were released from emergency rooms for psychiatric care, according to an analysis of state records by WBEZ. The largest increase was in 2012, the same year the city closed six mental health clinics.

MAY 20, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

alexander pizzirani

HOUSING AND HUMAN SERVICES

A

number of programs for homeless people or families at risk of homelessness will see their budgets slashed. The Homeless Youth program, which funds youth shelters and services, will lose $3.1 million, affecting over 1,300 homeless youth. This will impact organizations such as Teen Living Programs, which operates a drop-in center in Washington Park and a transitional living house in Bronzeville, and the Unity Parenting and Counseling Center in Pilsen.

Supportive Housing Services, which provides help to formerly homeless households, will also lose $14.1 million, affecting over 10,300 households. And the Homeless Prevention program, which provides one-time grants to families at risk of los-

6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 20, 2015

ing their homes, would see $1 million cut, which means 955 fewer grants. Overall, homeless programs will lose thirty-six percent of their current funding.

An estimated 45,000 people will be turned away from funded homeless programs this year, according to the affordable housing group Housing Action Illinois.

Many people may not even be able to heat their homes as a result of one budget cut. 155,550 low-income families would no longer receive assistance to pay for heating next year, saving the state $165 million. The state currently puts a surcharge on all utility bills—an average of $1.58 per month, according to ComEd—to fund the utilities of low-income families. The Rauner budget would keep the surcharge but direct all of the money to the state’s general funds instead. 263,000 households would continue

to receive heating assistance (the total in 2015 was 418,000), but 22,000 will lose help for emergency heating reconnections (out of 60,000 households receiving it in 2015), and assistance for cooling will be eliminated.

The Department of Children and Family Services would see a cut of $167 million. The programs that would be impacted include early intervention services for children up to three years old with disabilities or developmental delays—cut $23 million, affecting 11,208 children—and foster care transition services for children ages eighteen to twenty-one, which would be eliminated, affecting the 2,400 young adults who currently receive financial assistance when they age out of the foster system without a family or a home.

An estimated 45,000 people will be turned away from funded homeless programs this year, according to the affordable housing group Housing Action Illinois.

BUDGET

As compared to the budget enacted last year, the Department of State Police will get an additional $8.6 million.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

R

auner says he wants to reform the criminal justice system and reduce the prison population by twenty-five percent in the next ten years. But instead of cuts, his budget calls for increases in police and corrections funding. As compared to the budget enacted last year, the Department of State Police will get an additional $8.6 million, the Department of Corrections an additional $17 million, the Prisoner Review Board an additional $1.7 million, and the Department of Juvenile Justice an additional $20 million.

The Department of Corrections will “increase its correctional officer staffing levels by 473 positions in order to improve the safety of our correctional officers as well as inmates.” It will also devote funds to implement a “Risk, Assets, and Needs Assessment (RANA) tool to help correctional facilities identify inmate needs and evaluate their public safety risk,” and devote an “additional $58.5 million to improving the mental health care of inmates.” It plans to save some money, on the other hand, through reduced overtime costs.

In a similar move, the Department of Juvenile Justice will hire more security staff, educators, and mental health specialists. It will also increase funding for Aftercare, a youth-focused parole

program, and create an independent ombudsman to investigate complaints and DJJ policies and procedures.

Illinois prisons are overcrowded—the Department of Corrections is at more than 150 percent of its design capacity—and Rauner has called them “unacceptable” and “unsafe.” But reducing incarceration itself is different from improving prison conditions. It is curious that Rauner claims to want the former but is pumping the prison system with more money, and at a time when so many other resources are being cut back.

The one department in the criminal justice system that will see less funding in 2016 is the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, which will have a budget of $102.9 million, just under the $103.3 million it received in 2015.

This includes cuts to programs for bullying prevention, violence prevention, and methamphetamine care. The budget for CeaseFire, which employs former gang members to reduce violence in their communities, will also be cut to $1.9 million, from $4.7 million in 2015.

While investing in more basic resources such as schools, healthcare, and housing would be more effective than CeaseFire in reducing violence and improving living conditions, that is not what the people of Illinois and the South Side of Chicago will get from this budget.

MAY 20, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

POLITICS

Building Bridges Between Youth and Police patricia evans

The Youth/Police Conference addresses complex interactions

BY AUSTIN BROWN

A

s a main building at the University of Chicago Law School, the Glen A. Lloyd Auditorium is usually packed exclusively with academics and law students.

But during the Youth/Police Conference, it wasn’t scholars who did most of the speaking.

Rather, it was teenagers, youth workers, police chiefs, activists, additional community members, and parents who were eager to share their lived experiences.

The conference was a two-day gathering on April 24 and 25 aimed at stimulating dialogue about interactions between youth and police as part of the four-year old Youth/Police Project, a collaboration between the Invisible Institute, participants in Hyde Park Academy’s Media Program, and the University of Chicago Law School Mandel Clinic. The initiative seeks to create a dialogue between minority youth and future lawyers about the relationship between the law and the people whom it’s meant to serve, with an emphasis on how that relationship can be improved. “We 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 20, 2015

want to build, first and foremost, from all that we’ve learned from the kids,” said one of the panelists early on in the conference, distilling the goal of the conference and the larger project.

At the beginning of the conference, event organizer Jamie Kalven of the Invisible Institute made it clear that “this will not be a traditional academic conference.” Five sets of panelists, including professors (from Stanford, the UofC, and Columbia), former and current police officers, and activists, all spoke to their knowledge of police interactions with community youth, but each panel began with recordings of students who told stories about their perceptions of and interactions with police.

Hyde Park Academy students were seated in the audience, pulled out of school for the day to see the fruits of their work with the Institute.

The two panels on the first day of the conference, entitled “How Youth See Police.

How Police See Youth” and “How it Makes Me Feel—Youth,” sought to bring usually neglected community and youth voices to the oft-misunderstood way that African-Amer-

ican children engage with the police. Topics included lack of neighborhood knowledge (“if only the police had knowledge of neighborhoods that the kids have!”), the normalization of mistreatment, and a tendency towards internal problem-solving (gangs, family members, etc.) rather than turning to a police force that none of the community members trust.

When the panelists addressed audience questions, the scope of the conference broadened to cover a wider range of topics, including police brutality, the economic underpinnings of the modern prison system, and 21st-century racial segregation. Near the end of the program, a man took the floor to describe his belief that American society at its core was informed by ideals of slavery, now executed through the prison-industrial complex.

His statements, placing the conference within a larger context, were referred to repeatedly throughout the rest of the panels.

The second panel, “How it Makes Me Feel—Youth,” focused on the psychological state of African-American students, adolescence, and the appropriate approach for police

to take with teenagers. Concerned parents spoke up, expressing their concern about the too-often assumed criminality of their children. Margaret Beale Spencer, Urban Education professor at the UofC, whose research focuses directly on adolescence and the impact of race and culture on development, took the opportunity to draw attention to the hindrances that such animosity can cause in mental development. Youth Mentor and Blackstone Bicycle Works instructor Jamel Triggs offered advice on how police might better inhabit the roles of role models and mentors, rather than enemies.

The Youth/Police Conference attempted to guide listeners and participants toward possible solutions and nuanced discussions.

But while each of the panels brought varied perspectives together, what may have been the most valuable part of the conference was the lunch break, when community members and burgeoning academics and lawyers alike could (and did) sit down and talk to each other, all of them eager to repair what sometimes seems like a broken relationship.

VISUAL ARTS

Gabriel Sierra constructs ‘neutral zones’ at the Renaissance Society

The Space Between

BY SAMMIE SPECTOR

E

ntering Gabriel Sierra’s new site-specific exhibition at the Renaissance Society, my attention was not pulled toward Sierra’s work itself, but rather to the negative space surrounding it—the vastness of the gallery, and its shades of white and blue. With little exception, the entire room, Sierra’s pieces included, is white and angular.

The exhibition, however, asks the viewer to do more than just contemplate the space: to help navigate his exhibition, the first U.S. solo show for the Bogotá, Colombia-based artist, Sierra has left viewers with instructions, albeit vague ones, on how to interact with his constructions.

The installation consists of fourteen separate structures, designated as “areas,” in which to engage with others or with the space itself. If this sounds intimidating, fear not—each of these spaces and constructions is complete with guidelines on how to approach the space, conceptually and physically, in relation to space and time. Plan to walk, touch, talk, jump, and stand—a lot.

Despite some instruction, a lot is still left up to the viewers’ individual experience and their willingness to consider Sierra’s work. His treatments of temporality and man-made objects, which seem organized and deliberate, are also ambiguous and enigmatic, and at times difficult to grasp; the exhibit might leave an individual vaguely gazing around, wondering what they should be doing next.

To complicate matters further, the title of the installation changes eight times a day, on the hour. Anna Searle Jones, Director of Communications at the Renaissance Society, said she watches viewers contemplate Sierra’s work all day as they “work” to understand and enjoy the space. Despite how difficult this “work” might sound, the feedback has been largely positive.

“A number of people have mentioned to

sammie spector

us that they don’t normally like exhibitions where you have to ‘do’ something, but that they really got into trying out his instructions,” Jones said. “I think that there is a certain humor to them that makes them a bit more palatable.”

As Sierra told a small audience at his artist’s talk during the week of the installation opening, construction doesn’t always mean building objects; one can construct ideas, creating powerful attitudes. Sierra’s exhibit is best described as just that: an attitude.

Sierra hopes that by changing titles, which he considers the most significant component of his pieces, he will alter the relation viewers have with the gallery and their perception of its space, producing interactions and emotions based on the logic governed by the title.

These titles, ranging from “An Actual Location for this Moment” (3pm), to “Few Will Leave Their Place to Come Here for Some Minutes” (4pm), are poetic and compelling, perhaps affecting the “attitude” more than the physical aspect of the installation.

Jones said that these lines have made her more attuned to how the space changes with regard to light.

In his artist’s talk, Sierra emphasized that each of the installation’s interactive areas is not a visitor’s destination, but more so

a passage within the space, representative of traversing through experiences, or what he considers “momentary neutral zones.”

This idea begins before a visitor even steps through the door, since Sierra has lined the entrance with white strips. This interest in space can perhaps be traced to his training in architecture and design, though he also draws on Latin American Modernism.

As I make my way through the space, whitewashed and filled with natural sunlight, no pathway feels empty. The constructions themselves as well as the negative space between them are thoughtful, precise, and, whether intentionally or not, calming. Sierra has paid careful attention to the way in which viewers will walk, pause, interact, and breathe within his space. As he noted at his talk, his project wishes to address what happens between rooms, in the act of crossing from one room to another, especially as he takes away the common labels or functions of rooms (such as the kitchen or living room). “What happens when you walk from one empty room to another empty room?” Sierra asked.

In exploring the exhibit, I quietly jumped, carefully lifted, and more so than anything, spun around, taking in the shapes and lines constructed around me. After spending some time in the space, I was more willing to attempt his guidelines, portrayed

with stick figures in a handy pamphlet at the door. I made more noise, lifted my feet higher, took more pictures and less heed, allowing myself to become more comfortable with my surroundings. Easy enough, since the gallery was quiet the particular morning and particular hour (10:30am) I visited. At that time, the exhibition was called “Monday Impressions.”

Sierra seems to envision exactly what he wants to see, and what he wants his visitors to feel, in this exhibition. As the Renaissance Society enters its centennial celebration, Sierra’s avant-garde ideas fit well with its goal to go beyond the traditional notion of a gallery.

“He really considered the gallery here at the Ren in terms of the size and forms of the constructions,” Jones said. “The works in this show were built specifically for the Ren and will be dismantled after the exhibition closes.”

Sierra’s work is mirrored beautifully in the Renaissance Society’s architecture, breathing life into a space that has embraced him with welcoming arms. The two together have constructed not only pieces of an exhibition, but also an attitude: impermanent, aesthetically thoughtful, and intriguing.

MAY 20, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

Framing Life in Washington Park South Side in Focus event displays snapshots of daily life 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

ÂŹ MAY 20, 2015

elliot nickelson

PHOTOGRAPHY MUSIC

BY JAKE BITTLE

T

his past Friday, South Side in Focus, a University of Chicago student organization that aims to share and amplify the voices of South Side residents through public art exhibits, held a gallery opening and performance at Currency Exchange Café in Washington Park. The event, titled “As We See It,” featured photos (left and below) taken on disposable cameras by students from Imagine Englewood If… and the Chicago Youth Programs in Washington Park. The photos allowed the students to document daily life in their households and neighborhoods. Interviews with the student photographers and a video made by students from Englewood accompanied the images. Students also performed in an open mic event (at right), sharing poetry that reflected on life in their neighborhoods. Find some of the students’ work reproduced here. kristin lin

markita mobley

Top, Unique, a student from Englewood, reads poetry discussing life in her neighborhood. On her left is Jeanne Lieberman, a UofC student who helped organize the event, and on her right is Monique Roundtree from Washington Park, who also read her poetry.

eric nickelson

MAY 20, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

The Change That’s Going to Come Neighborhood preservation, and progress, in light of the Obama Library Decision

BY OLIVIA ADAMS

T

he Barack Obama Foundation officially announced its selection of the University of Chicago’s bid for the Obama Presidential Library (OPL) in an early morning video message on Tuesday, May 12. The announcement featured Michelle and Barack Obama, as well as several testimonials from apparent South Side residents. Though the long-awaited announcement did not name the library’s exact site, much of the attention regarding the OPL and its final location has turned to Washington Park, which has emerged as the favorite among residents and area business owners.

The Washington Park bid consists of thirty-three acres available to the Foundation for construction of the park: twenty-two of those acres account for a section of Washington Park’s green space, and the other eleven acres consist of a vacant lot owned by the UofC, the City of Chicago, and the CTA. If built in this space, the OPL will provide opportunities that the Washington Park and Woodlawn neighborhoods seldom see; however, this optimism carries with it an expectation of accountability for the Foundation. For business owners, the promise of economic development must

12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 20, 2015

also acknowledge the people who already live in these neighborhoods. According to them, the library’s ability to enhance these neighborhoods should be achieved through the support of their residents. Without the prioritization of community development, the threat of that community’s being overshadowed by the library will remain a serious concern in the coming years.

Ghian Foreman, a developer with Chicago-based community development agency Greater Southwest and a lifetime resident of Hyde Park and Kenwood, lauds the OPL for the opportunities it could provide to the surrounding neighborhoods. He prefers Washington Park to Jackson Park, a popular opinion among local business owners and residents.

“I think that there’s so much more potential of what could be [in the Washington Park area]. You have Garfield Boulevard, which is a major street, a lot of traffic. You got the Red Line, you got the Green Line, you’ve got access to Midway airport, you’ve got bike lanes on State Street, you’ve got Washington Park, which, you know, it’s an international destination!” Foreman said.

The immediate cost to the park itself is unclear and dependent on where the OPL

will sit within the bounds of the Washington Park bid. Friends of the Parks (FOTP), an advocacy group that aims to preserve parkland, has argued for placing the library primarily on the vacant lot just west of Washington Park at the corner of King and Garfield. According to the UofC, a specific use for the lot was not designated within the proposal.

The state legislature responded swiftly to threats of litigation from FOTP if the library is built on parkland. HB 373, a bill passed on April 23 by the Illinois legislature, clarifies that “the corporate authorities of cities and park districts may enter into leases, not to exceed 99 years, to allow a corporation or society” to build or renovate a museum on Chicago parkland. The bill’s success has stoked fears that more investors will be able to build properties along Lake Michigan, until the lakefront turns “into Disneyland,” in the words of Melanie Moore, Director of Policy at FOTP. Many residents, however, see the possibility of the OPL being located on parkland as a necessary sacrifice. To Paula Hamernick, manager of Greenline Coffee on 61st and Eberhart, the choice is obvious.

“Well, I really respect the fact that we

DEVELOPMENT

javier suarez

can’t lose more green space. The city already lacks for green space. I feel like we need jobs more than—like if you’re gonna quantify the values, I value the green space, and I value the parkland—but if it has to be one or the other, I value people more, and the fact that they need jobs more, and if this brings more jobs, and if it brings more opportunity, then to me that’s more valuable.”

Greenline Coffee comes out of the business incubator of Sunshine Gospel Ministries—Hamernick and her husband Joel Hamernick, the organization’s executive director, hope that that the presidential library will help in developing micro-businesses throughout the neighborhoods surrounding the library’s final destination.

According to the Obama Public Library Economic Report from the UofC, the construction of the library would result in $156 million in new earnings for local businesses and institutions and 3,280 new jobs. The report also notes that, post-construction, an estimated $14 million and $17 million would be generated annually in food and retail, respectively, in the neighborhoods surrounding the library site. Additionally, “over 11 new retail outlets and 30 new restaurants” would be established in the sur-

rounding neighborhoods.

Tierra Jones, owner of the year-old Penthouse Boutique on 63rd and Woodlawn, also welcomes such development.

“Owning a business close to the area, it would definitely drive traffic, drive more, bigger business who would want to come in the area which will, for me, bring growth and potential. It would just be a better fit, for me, and beneficial for everybody,” Jones said.

The difference in the perceived need for economic development in the Washington Park community versus the Woodlawn and Hyde Park communities has also convinced business owners that the former would experience a larger economic and aesthetic impact with the addition of the presidential library. Both parks are home to well-known Chicago museums, but the popularity of Jackson Park’s Museum of Science and Industry, which saw over 1.3 million visitors in 2014, far outweighs that of the DuSable Museum of African American History, which welcomed approximately 118,000 last year.

“Jackson Park already has the Museum of Science and Industry, already has other things going on, it’s beautiful, lots of beau-

tiful places to go. But I feel like it would absolutely, it would change the landscape of the South Side, if [the OPL] were a little bit further in away from the lake,” Hamernick said.

There is excitement, then, for the library’s potential to inject capital into Washington Park. After all, the neighborhood lacks basic services; after the 2008 purchase by the UofC of the Washington Park Shopping Center, along with the March 2014 buy-up of Jardan Food and Liquor, the neighborhood lacks even a local grocery store.

Nevertheless, many business leaders and owners in the area are conscious of the threat that too much development could bring and wary of the ousting of residents.

“The only part that would be a big problem is that if it ends up not bringing up the community. If it doesn’t bring opportunity to the people that need it most, or if it just brings opportunity to the people who already have opportunity, then it’s a waste, in my mind. It has to be given to people who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity,” said Hamernick.

Concerns about development have always circulated throughout the neighbor-

MAY 20, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

DEVELOPMENT

“So, residents who say it's gonna change the neighborhood, they're absolutely right. It is going to change the neighborhood. The question is, how can they be involved in that change, and how can the change be beneficial for new opportunity and established opportunities.” hood, especially in regards to the UofC’s presence south of the Midway. As a result, it is important to entrepreneurs like Foreman and Jones that residents recognize the ongoing nature of this conversation, and take steps to embrace the opportunities that the library could present rather than shy away from the possibility of gentrification.

“The university is already buying up all of the property in the area, so I feel like it’s a movement that’s already taking place with or without the library, you know what I mean?” Jones said.

Foreman believes that residents can retain their homes in these neighborhoods despite rising property values; as residents, their roots in the community and the support structures already in place will enable them to retain their homes and, by extension, the character of their neighborhoods.

“So, if community members are truly concerned about, ‘Oh, I don’t want to gentrify,’ don’t sell your property! Improve your property, rehab your property, get some loans, get some help,” he said. “You know

14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 20, 2015

there are organizations out here like Neighborhood Housing Services. It has loans to help you get a new back porch, to get a new roof, to get some energy-efficient windows.

Let’s take advantage of some of these,” he said.

However, without channels of communication between community members, businesses, the UofC, and the Foundation, the OPL could create a Washington Park sprawling with museums and adjacent to a first class university, but devoid of the communities that provided the nominal impetus for the Foundation’s decision to locate the library on the South Side in the first place. Residents and business owners of the neighborhoods that will be directly affected by the library want the current rhetoric of cooperation from the UofC to continue to characterize the relationship between the institution and the neighborhoods.

“So, residents who say it’s gonna change the neighborhood, they’re absolutely right,” Wallace Goode, executive director of the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce, said. “It is going to change the neighborhood. The question is, how can they be involved in that change, and how can the change be beneficial for new opportunities and established opportunities.”

Two organizations have attempted to open up these channels, both before the announcement and in the few days afterwards. In November 2014, the Washington Park Advisory Council and the Washington Park Residents’ Advocacy Council drafted a twenty-seven-point Community Benefits Agreement. The majority of the agreement addresses tensions in the relationship between Washington Park and the UofC, which far precede any talks about a presidential library, and demands greater support from the university in terms of job training, job creation, health care, and other pro-

grams.

Shortly after the announcement from the Foundation last Tuesday, the Bronzeville Regional Ad Hoc Collective also released a Community Benefits document, which outlines the expectations for the relationship between local neighborhoods, their leaders, and the Foundation. The creation of blackowned local business is a recurring concern throughout, as is the support of residents and their families.

The question of whom the library will benefit isn’t just an economic one. In the announcement video, Michelle Obama said that she considers herself a “South Sider,” just as her husband reminded audiences that he built both his personal and political lives here. To many residents, the OPL represents a landmark that will instill a sense of possibility within the communities surrounding the library.

“Educationally, whether it’s field trips, whether it’s understanding civic engagement, whether it’s recognizing as a young African American that you, too, could be president, the list goes on and on from an educational standpoint,” Goode said of the unique opportunities that the library could provide to the region.

After the talks about economic development, the role of the University, and the fear of pricing residents out of the neighborhood, pride remains a central tenet of the support for bringing the library to the South Side, one echoed by business owner Jones.

“You always have to bring home these points that, you know, we have one of the best schools in the country on the South Side,” Jones said. “The president of the United States is from the South Side, you know, I just feel like it’s just another driving point for me to say you know, I’m from the South Side.”

STAGE

A new documentary play adapts oral histories of the Chicago housing projects

Revisiting The Project(s)

BY AMELIA DMOWKSA

photos courtesy of american theater company

P

eople and space are inextricably interwoven—buildings, streets, and cities often define the formation of neighborhoods and communities. Sometimes experiments and new projects are undertaken; boundaries are redefined, communities pried apart, and buildings built or torn down. In the case of Chicago’s housing projects, the “project” was not contained to a classroom or laboratory but rather exerted tangible and long-lasting influences on the course of Chicago history and especially on the city’s residents.

In order to capture these residents’ stories, American Theater Company’s Artistic Director, PJ Paparelli, and co-writer, Joshua Jaeger, conducted over one hundred interviews over the span of five years with current and former tenants of Chicago’s public housing, as well as university scholars and

public city officials. From these spoken and written accounts, they created The Project(s), a two-hour-long documentary play which encompasses almost a century of the Chicago Housing Authority’s public housing saga—decades of planning, building, tearing down, and rebuilding.

“Before we sat down to interview these residents, they didn’t know that their stories were valuable,” says Kevin Dorff, the ATC’s Artistic Fellow and one of the assistant directors for the show. “They didn’t know that someone wanted to listen to them.”

With a self-reflective title that hints at its untried nature, The Project(s) is almost as experimental as the subject matter it tackles. Although the play utilizes some typical components of a modern theatrical production—a barren wooden stage lit with bright circles of light, eight actors, sparse props

that include aluminum chairs and boxes, a cappella singing—The Project(s) embraces its unconventional documentary style by abandoning typical stage dialogue. Standing somberly in a line, the actors preface the opening act by announcing that the content of the play is entirely factual, composed of texts taken from interviews, oral histories, newspaper articles, city documents, and books. Although the play is structured in a question-and-answer format, no single character is assigned the role of interviewer.

Instead, the actors’ voices meld together to produce a neutral, external voice. The sound is collective, almost as if the audience as a whole is joining in to ask the questions, creating the impression of a conversation between the audience and characters rather than a one-sided show.

Each actor assumes a variety of roles, MAY 20, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

STAGE

With a self-reflective title that hints at its untried nature, The Project(s) is almost as experimental as the subject matter it tackles.

including professors, police officers, and public housing residents who range from well-known, outspoken individuals such as Timuel D. Black to everyday mothers, fathers, and children. These stories both complement and are juxtaposed with the factual narrative that is woven between them, further supporting the notion that history may never be singularly defined by a textbook, but is rather a collective agent composed of diverse voices. In addition to the question-and-answer format, the voices also blend together through performances of song, stepping, and dance.

When families first moved into the public housing units, many declared that it was “paradise.” With song and step, the actors express the initial energy these residents had. A moving scene is enhanced through complex interwoven beats of packing boxes and clapping hands. Destruction of the projects’ buildings is emotionally conveyed through the resounding clangs of chairs crashing to the ground. Later, the characters recount their experiences in the new, “transformed” CHA mixed-income public housing units. With strict regulations and screening criteria, many current residents claim that the transformations have mere-

16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 20, 2015

ly created impersonal neighborhoods, or a “ghetto with no name.” By tearing down the projects, many families, friends, and neighborhoods have been dislocated, shaking up already-existing communities.

The Project(s) attempts to convey these individuals’ stories while simultaneously grappling with the long and convoluted history of the projects. “First we needed to create a skeleton of the historical moments to create the structure of the play,” says Sarah Slight, the play’s dramaturg and the ATC’s Literary and Grants Manager. “Then, this skeleton was filled in, fleshed out, with the human stories.”

Based on this framework, the play frequently returns to a factual sequence of events as told by the figure of a public housing scholar, a professor from Roosevelt University. With the use of a large display screen behind him, he tells of the rise and fall of public housing, listing facts and figures related to the projects. 19,000 youth, twenty-eight high rises, 4,415 units in Robert Taylor Homes alone, considered the largest public housing development in the United States. In Cabrini-Green, 15,000 people in 3,607 units. In total, twenty-nine traditional housing projects scattered among different

neighborhoods.

The CHA was initially created through the Housing Act of 1937 with the purpose of providing low-cost housing for families who met numerous criteria. In the beginning, the majority of residents who lived in CHA housing were white, employed, married with children, and making no more than five times the cost of rent. Due to racial discrimination and restrictive covenants, most of the African-American population that moved to Chicago from the South began to move into public housing units like Cabrini-Green Homes and Ida B. Wells Homes after World War II, and later into even larger units like the Robert Taylor Homes in Bronzeville, built 1960–1962.

The play illustrates the transition from a safe, comfortable space for many families to the homes’ deterioration into restricted, confined areas lacking access to resources.

After several highly publicized incidents of violence and crime, including the death of Eric Morse, a five-year-old boy dropped from the 14th floor of the Ida B. Wells complex, authorities decided to tear down the projects and replace them with low-rise, mixed-income public housing. The so-called “Plan for Transformation” began in 2000

under Mayor Daley, aiming to renovate or build 25,000 units of public housing, but it has been controversial among current residents, whose voices often aren’t heard in the greater political debate.

Near the end of the play, the Roosevelt University professor asks, “What went wrong?” A number of factors may have contributed to the ill-fated decline of the projects, but all in all, the play suggests that the greatest problem may be a general discomfort with actually assisting and empowering the poor in such a way that they are able to define their own communities and create their own homes, without the outside manipulation of government bodies or authorities. At the play’s end, audience members are left with one word reverberating in their minds. With lights slowly fading and voices softly chanting, the actors repeat, “Home... home...home....”

American Theater Company, 1909 West Byron Street. April 24-June 21, $38-48. May 24, free. Free tickets for former and current public housing residents. (773)409-4125 www. atcweb.org

CALENDAR

BULLETIN SBAC Hyde Park Happy Hour This Wednesday, the Small Business Advocacy Council (SBAC) and Business Spotlight Networking (BSN) will host alliteratively-named Hyde Park Happy Hour at the Hyatt Place. The event will both be an opportunity to network and a chance for business owners from the South Side to answer questions about how to create better support for commercial ventures in the area, such as, “How do we work with the new Governor to ensure legislative fairness for business owners in the community?” The speaker will be Emile Cambry, well-known Chicago entrepreneur and founder of Blue1647, “an entrepreneurship and technology innovation center” that works to encourage tech-savvy economic development. There will be free food and, as the name suggests, a cash bar. Hyatt Place Hyde Park, 5225 S. Harper Ave. Wednesday, May 20, 6pm-8pm.

Free. (630)728-2414. eventbrite.com (Christian Belanger)

Sending Kites: Letters and Poems to Incarcerated Youth In his poem, Dear Humanity, writer and activist Bobby Biedrzycki writes “I wanna crush out on you humanity / the way I crushed out on Stacey Henderson in the 8th Grade. / I wanna wait all day just to see you standing in the hallway at school / and as kids stream by us in both directions, faces blurring in smears of pink flesh.” It is presumably in something like this spirit of connection that attendees will work with Biedrzycki to write messages to incarcerated children in poems, prose, and letters this Thursday. The evening’s letters will be packaged up into a zine and distributed through the Liberation Library project, which sends books and other reading material to children in prison. Project NIA, whose broad interest in criminal justice reform includes youth incarceration, will host the event. It is part of the National Week of Action Against Incarcerating Youth. Jane Addams Hull-House, 800 S. Halsted St. Thursday, May 21, 5:30pm-7:30pm. Free. (312) 413-5353. http://savethekidsgroup.org/2015noyouthinprison/ (Adam Thorp)

Englewood Youth Talent Competition During the third week of every May, communities across the country rally to increase awareness of mental health issues and substance abuse. This coming Saturday, Englewood’s Children’s Home and Aid is hosting a youth talent competition as a means of encouraging dialogue on this heavy matter. Participants, who must be Englewood residents between the seventh and twelfth grades, will share stories about themselves, friends, family, and community, through mediums of song, rap, poetry, and spoken word.

Submissions must be original and relate to the theme of the competition, “It Only Takes One.” St. John Evangelist Missionary Baptist Church, 1234 W. 63rd St. Saturday, May 23, 12pm-3pm. Free. (Emeline Posner)

Out of the Rubble: A Chicago Benefit for the Children of Gaza On Tuesday, May 26, various Chicago groups come together to support an international cause. American Friends Service Committee-Chicago, along with various sponsors including Students for Justice in Palestine Chicago Network, Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine, and many more, is hosting a benefit in the assembly hall of the UofC’s International House to raise funds for children in Gaza. The event will include dinner from Haifa Café and will feature local speakers and performances in spoken word, singing, and oud, with proceeds going to the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA). MECA contributes funding and support to Gaza community organizations

that provide for the enrichment, education, and health needs of children, and also works to provide university scholarships and clean water. The organizers hope to raise $5,000, and you can donate to the event even if you are unable to attend. International House at the University of Chicago, 1414 E. 59th St. Tuesday, May 26, 6pm-9pm. $30 general admission, $15 for students and low-income attendees.

Purchase tickets online. gazakids.brownpapertickets.com (Mari Cohen)

Kick the Kickbacks Back in 2000, Martha Wright, a Washington, D.C. grandmother, petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to stop private prisons and telecommunications companies from conspiring to establish exorbitant rates for phone calls in and out of prisons—in certain cases, families had to pay a dollar an hour to speak with inmates. Nearly a decade-and-a-half later, in early 2014, the FCC capped interstate phone rates at $0.25 per minute; nevertheless, many people still struggle to pay rising in-state rates. On May 23, the Illinois Campaign for Prison Phone Justice will host a screening of Kick the Kickbacks, a new documentary on the issue. A panel featuring some of the people appearing in the documentary will take place after the screening, moderated by Mariame Kaba of Project NIA, an organization working to reform criminal justice and prison practices. Little Village Community Church, 2300 S. Millard Ave. Saturday, May 23, 2pm. Free. (773)277-2185. nationinside.org (Christian Belanger)

Sun Ra: Astro Black Mythology and Black Resistance Celebrating the 101st birthday of Sun Ra—poet, composer, band leader, and self-professed member of the “Angel Race”—the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the UofC will host a screening of the film Space is the Place and a symposium reflecting upon his life. A pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement, Sun Ra infused his art with traces of science fiction, Black nationalism, and religion. Space is the Place, a 1974 science-fiction film written by and starring Sun Ra as a fictional version of himself, exemplifies his unique vision and unorthodox style. The symposium will explore Sun Ra’s philosophy and mythology and reflect upon their influence on contemporary resistance movements. Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Screening Thursday, May 21, 7pm; symposium Friday, May 22, 1pm-9pm. csrpc.uchicago.edu (Peter Gao)

Bars Against Bars Sponsored by Chicago Save the Kids and Sugar Baybe Management and Promotion, this event during National Week of Action Against Incarcerating Youth brings awareness to incarceration of youth in Chicago and the problems that it causes for communities everywhere. Formerly incarcerated speakers as well as artists from Chicago and Milwaukee will be featured in the family-friendly Bronzeville community garden. If your first impulse when reading the name of the event was to think of martinis and daiquiris, the details for the night event are still TBD. Bronzeville Community Garden, Southeast corner of 51st St. and Calumet Ave. Saturday, May 23, 11am. Free. (Lucia Ahrensdorf )

The Baltimore Rebellion! Revolt Against an American Nightmare Last month, Baltimore saw weeks of protest and much-reported rioting, sparked by the death of twenty-five-yearold Freddie Gray after he suffered fatal spinal cord injuries shackled in the back of a police van. Since the state’s attorney announced charges against six officers on May 1, the mayor has rescinded the city’s curfew, and the governor has lifted the local state of emergency. But all is not quiet in Baltimore. Revelations of widespread police misconduct

continue, and coverage of and reaction to the city’s unrest have highlighted schisms in the way the country understands policing, race, and violence. Thursday at La Catrina, the Chicago Socialists will host an event with activists from the protests to argue the wider roots and implications of the protests in Baltimore. La Catrina Cafe, 1011 W. 18th St. Thursday, May 21, 7pm. Free. (312)473-0038. (Hannah Nyhart)

MUSIC House Priority at The Promontory The Promontory will be showcasing Chicago’s beloved this Thursday. No, not deep dish and no, not dirty machine politics—but our own house music at their House Priority event this Thursday with DJ Brown Suga, DJ Vince Adams, and DJ Mickey Calvin. Brown Suga stands out for her ability to mix both the mainstream and the underground, while Vince Adams hits us with his jazz-infused, soulful hip-hop numbers. Mickey Calvin rounds out the group out with his ability to produce some of the funkiest house sets around. Come out and listen to some fun music and help celebrate House Priority’s own Timothy “Big Tim” Miller’s birthday in the process. The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Thursday, May 21, 8pm. $5 until 9pm. (312)801-2100. promontorychicago.com (Patricia Nyaega)

The Ori Naftaly Band at Reggies It isn’t often that an Israeli blues group makes it to the semi-finals of the famous International Blues Competition—in fact, the Ori Naftaly Band, based out of Memphis, is the first ever. Striving, as bandleader Ori Naftaly puts it, to “bring the blues from Israel to the world,” the unique blues band has done just that, playing in over thirty states and touring Europe twice while garnering international recognition. Comprised of Eleanor Tsaig on vocals, Eren Szendri on bass, Yam Regev on drums, and Naftaly on guitar, the band released A True Friend (Is Hard To Find) in 2012 and Happy for Good in 2013. Despite its members’ Israeli heritage, the band’s sound is unequivocally American, borrowing inspiration from icons like Muddy Waters while integrating funk, soul, and rock to powerful effect. In only a few years, the Ori Naftaly Band has gained acclaim and recognition, and they show no signs of stopping. Catch them this Friday at Reggies along with PJ & Soul, a jazz bassist and performer from Chicago’s West Side. Reggies Chicago, 2105 S. State St. Friday, May 22, 8pm. $10. 21+. (312)949-0120. reggieslive.com (Clyde Schwab)

Thundercat, Sicko Mobb, and Leather Corduroys at Thalia Hall LA multi-instrumentalist Thundercat, exceedingly happy North Lawndale singer-rappers Sicko Mobb (notable, most recently, for “Fiesta Remix,” which features New York MC A$AP Ferg), and Leather Corduroys, two members of Vic Mensa and Chance the Rapper’s Savemoney Crew, will be appearing at Thalia Hall on May 23 as part of Red Bull Sound Select. Now that Chance and Vic have ascended to a whole new level of fame and Towkio’s made it onto the cover of RedEye, it looks like Joey Purp and Kami de Chukwu of Leather Corduroys are the latest Savemoney members to begin the launch into the big time. Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport S. Saturday, May 23. $3 with RSVP, $10 without. (312)526-3851. thaliahallchicago.com (Sam Stecklow)

Jody Watley at The Shrine Hailing from Chicago, Grammy Award-winning Jody Watley was one of the first female African-American artists to bridge gaps and create ties between music, dance, fashion, and even exercise. Her signature was “waacking,” a

freestyle dance style she describes as “showing the music.”

Watley became a master at creating an all-encompassing experience of the senses, both as a sight on stage and a voice through the speakers. She may have made her debut in the ’80s, as a stage-stunner on Soul Train and the lead female in the breakout group Shalamar, but since then she has collaborated with numerous groups, including the French Horn Rebellion, and has also had a robust solo career. Even after thirty years in the industry, this self-described “not just a dreamer, but a girl always trying to do and be something” still has music and moves that make you want to jump up and dance—and you will have the chance to do so next Saturday. The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Saturday, May 30, 9:30pm. $30. 21+. (312)753-5681. theshrinechicago.com (Cristina Ochoa)

Beenie Man and Shawnna at The Shrine Erstwhile dancehall king Beenie Man and famously filthy Chicago-bred rapper Shawnna will be playing The Shrine on May 31. Beenie Man, known best for both his rowdy dancehall and his violently anti-gay lyrics (as well as many back-and-forths in the press about whether or not he’s apologized for them), hasn’t released an album since 2006.

Since becoming bogged down in the PR battle over his lyrics, his only notable semi-recent appearance was on Kanye’s “Send It Up.” Shawnna, similarly, hasn’t released anything since the 2012 mixtape She’s Alive. Here’s hoping they both try out some new material. The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Sunday, May 31, 10pm. $35. 21+. (312)7535681. theshrinechicago.com (Sam Stecklow)

Sticks and Stones Debuts at the Promontory This Thursday’s concert at the Promontory will see the debut of jazz combo Sticks and Stones, led not by a saxophonist or a drummer but by vibraphonist (and composer) Preyas Roy. What is a vibraphone, you may ask? (I certainly did.) The name may not be familiar (vibraphonist Jay Hoggard joked that he would ask his co-instrumentalists, “What is that thing called that you play?”), but the percussion instrument, similar in appearance to a xylophone but with a far more complex and sophisticated sound, has been around for over a century. Roy, for his part, has been playing the vibes for close to two decades. With Brent Griffin Jr on the alto sax, Scott Hesse on guitar, Andrew Vogt playing the bass, and Vince Davis at the drums, Sticks and Stones should be able to weave a rich musical tapestry out of Roy’s rhythmic innovations. The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Thursday, May 14, 8pm, doors 7pm. $10.

(312)801-2100. promontorychicago.com (Olivia Stovicek)

STAGE AND SCREEN Sun Ra: Astro Black Mythologies & Black Resistance One hundred-and-one years ago, a mortal boy named Herman Poole Blount was born in Birmingham, Alabama— this boy would eventually come to be known as the cosmic entity and jazz musician Sun Ra. A pianist, bandleader, and pioneer of the Afrofuturist movement, Ra is known for his heady, improvisational fusion jazz as well as his cosmological personal mythology (he claimed he was of the “Angel Race”). On the occasion of his birthday, a symposium organized by artist David Boykin in collaboration with the University of Chicago will explore the connections between Ra’s astral mythology and ideologies of Black resistance in the contemporary context of movements such as Black Lives Matter. After the symposium, stick around for a reception and concert to celebrate the memory of the influential musician and Man from Saturn. David and Reva Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Friday, May 22. Symposium 1-6pm, Reception and Concert 6-9pm. Free.

MAY 20, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17

(773)702-8574. arts.uchicago.edu (Lewis Page)

The School Project Episode 6: Teaching Roosevelt High School in Chicago has faced an uphill battle in improving its students’ test scores in mathematics.

Thanks to a new, group-based math curriculum, however, students who found themselves below grade level in math are getting on the right track. Find out how Roosevelt High’s new curriculum has been helping its students at the world premiere of Gordon Quinn and Rachel Dickson’s ten-minute documentary Teaching, the last episode of The School Project. Conceived after the closing of fifty-four Chicago public schools in 2013, The School Project is a documentary series consisting of six individual episodes that focus on efforts to improve Chicago’s public education system. Following the screening of Teaching, education news organization Catalyst-Chicago will host a panel discussion until 7:30 p.m. Conference Chicago at University CenterLake Room, 525 S. State St. Thursday, May 21, 5:30pm. Free.

(773) 472-4366. www.kartemquin.com (Cooper Aspegren)

Stop Making Nonsense: Japanese Surrealist Films, 1960-1964 Surveying the experimental films during the wave of avant-garde cinema movement in Tokyo during the 1960s, the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago will sponsor a screening of four Japanese surrealist films. The series features films made by members of the famous “Group of Three,” including Obayashi and Limura, directors hailed for their eclectic productions made with the 8mm format. The first film is Obayashi’s Complexe, which focuses on a man whose mundane walk turns into a surreal dreamscape representative of the manic pace of modernity, a theme complemented by Obayashi’s use of stop motion animation. Second is Jonouchi’s Pou Pou, which documents a burial ritual performed by children.

Next, Limura’s Ai, is comprised of close-up shots of fragmented body parts and features sound by Yoko Ono. Last is Obayashi and Fugino’s An Eater, a macabre comedy about cannibalism. Afterwards, programmer Harrison Sherrod and SAIC graduate student Kara Jefts will host post-screening discussion to help provide context for the Japanese avant-garde cinema movement. Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan St. Thursday, June 4, 7pm. Free. southsideprojections.org (Clyde Schwab)

Sins of the Father at eta Creative Successful blues singer Calieb “Tigereye” Hamilton suddenly returns home to his adult son and aging father after a nine-year absence. However, the joy of his homecoming is quickly clouded over by family secrets past and present.

What dark truths must be revealed in order to save this family? And will they be able to forgive each other? Family drama and moody ballads prevail in Synthia Williams’s four-man production, Sins of the Father, a part of eta Creative’s 2015-2016 Season of Plays. eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. South Chicago Avenue. April 17 through June 7. Friday, 8pm; Saturday, 10am; Sunday, 3pm. $35 general, $25 for seniors, $15 for students. (773)752-3955. etacreativearts.org (Dagny Vaughn)

Secret Garden at Court Coming off an acclaimed adaptation of another popular book, the Bible, Hyde Park’s dependable Court Theatre will continue its successful season with an adaptation of the famous children’s book The Secret Garden. Like the Bible, but aimed for a younger audience, The Secret Garden is a well-loved story that features a dynamic cast of characters, a mysterious old house, and a blooming garden. The precocious protagonist is a surly little girl named Mary who

18 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ MAY 20, 2015

moves to a new home in Yorkshire with a magical secret.

Come for the childhood memories, stay for the weirdly talented child actress. Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. May 21 through June 21. Fridays, 8pm; Saturdays, 8pm; Sundays, 2:30pm and 7:30 pm. $48 general, $43.50 for seniors, $23 for children, $18 for UofC students. Ages 4+. (773)753-4472. courttheatre.org ( Jake Bittle)

The Thoughts That Once We Had Thom Andersen has spent most of his life loving, creating, and teaching the art of filmmaking—from his days as a cabbie to his position at the California Institute of the Arts—in that famed haven of the movies, Los Angeles.

He resolutely refuses to call it “LA.” His landmark 2003 film essay Los Angeles Plays Itself exhibits a knowledge of film and Los Angeles history that borders on the absurd: he splices together segments from hundreds of different films in order to discuss how Hollywood has portrayed or, in large part, failed to portray Los Angeles. In doing so he incorporates questions of politics, social issues, geography, and race in a way totally unlike most film criticism. His newest work The Thoughts That Once We Had, inspired by the film writings of Gilles Deleuze, presented with humor, and aimed at avid movie fans rather than academics, promises equal degrees of illumination and entertainment. Film Studies Center, 5811 S. Ellis Ave, Cobb Hall. Saturday, May 23. 7pm. Free. (773)702-8596. filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu (Robert Sorrell)

Susan Giles: Scenic Overlook In Susan Giles’ new exhibition, “Scenic Overlook,” one can view some of the world’s tallest buildings from above. Giles’ installation consists of large wooden sculptures modeled after the four highest observation towers in the world, the Tokyo Skytree, Canton Tower, CN Tower, and Ostankino Tower, all held up horizontally by steel structures. Giles takes advantage of the two-floor gallery space to allow observers to view these famous architectural wonders from above. Giles, a professor of art at DePaul University, got her MFA from Northwestern in 2009 and is known for her large-scale installations in venues across Chicago, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Elmhurst Art Museum. Visit the Hyde Park Art Center to witness Giles’s exploration of the power of perspective, tourism, and architecture. Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S Cornell Avenue. Sunday, April 19 through Sunday, July 26.

Monday-Thursday, 9am-8pm; Friday-Saturday, 9am-5pm; Sunday, 12pm-5pm. Free. (773)324-5520. hydeparkart.org (Clyde Schwab)

Project 1915 In 2012, artist Jackie Kazarian executed an intensely painful, personal exhibition in a hospital. Entitled “Breast Wallpaper,” her work drew on her own experiences with breast cancer, publicizing a personal trauma and offering an empathetic hand to others dealing with the disease.

This year she is working to address another kind of trauma: the 1915 Armenian Genocide in which one-and-a-half million Armenians were massacred. One hundred years after the genocide, Kazarian, who has Armenian heritage, has created a massive mural to commemorate the event and to explore the intersections of memory and trauma, again in a deeply personal way. The comparisons to Picasso’s “Guernica” are apt, but the artist is taking on this difficult subject in her own style. The piece will premiere in Chicago at MANA before touring nationally and internationally.

Mana Contemporary, 2233 S. Throop St. Through Friday, May 29. Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm; Sunday, noon-5pm. Free.

(312) 850-8301 manacontemporarychicago.com (Robert Sorrell)

Old Wicked Songs First produced in 1996 by Jon Marans, Old Wicked Songs is the story of an aging Viennese music professor and his prodigal but burnt-out piano student. In a story that takes teacher and student to emotional extremes while discussing the ramifications of the Holocaust in Austria, Old Wicked Songs shines as a valuable lesson that reflects the importance of healing, music, and remembering one’s past. The play closely follows the “Dichterliebe” (A Poet’s Love), a collection of songs by Robert Schumann. The play is presented by Provision Theater, a Chicago company that broke into the scene in 2004 with an acclaimed production of Cotton Patch Gospel. Provision has since followed with productions including Smoke on the Mountain, the Boys Next Door, and Gospel. Provision Theater Company, 1001 W. Roosevelt Rd. April 29-June 7. Fridays, 8pm; Saturdays, 8pm; Sundays, 3pm. $10-$32. (312)455-0066. provisiontheater.org (Clyde Schwab)

VISUAL ARTS No Longer Art What really is art? What isn’t? Can a piece of art ever stop being art? The exhibition “No Longer Art” is a collection of “salvaged art”: pieces of work removed from museum and gallery circulation due to accidental damage and complete loss of market value, but still culturally significant and relatively intact. Founded by the New York artist Elka Krajewska, the Salvage Art Institute (SAI) serves as a shelter for salvaged art and a stage for discussing the work’s cultural, visual, and—perhaps most importantly—fiscal value. “No Longer Art: Salvage Art Institute” is presented at the Neubauer Collegium Exhibitions in partnership with the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry with support from the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory. The Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, 5701 S. Woodlawn Ave. April 23 – June 26. Monday-Friday, 11:00am5:00pm. (773)702-6030. http://neubauercollegium.uchicago. edu (Alex Harrell)

Windy City Breakdown Ayana Contreras—DJ, radio show host, record collector, producer, blogger—was one of the Arts Incubator’s Artists-in-Residence during 2014-15. Her culminating exhibition, “Windy City Breakdown,” features locally-sourced records from her own personal collection, and will explore Black Chicago at the height of the Black Power movement, alongside its intersections with art and entrepreneurship.

Contreras hosts and produces a weekly show on Vocalo called “Reclaimed Soul” that is all about “taking old materials (records, buildings, ideas, et al) to push us all forward.” With Contreras being the all-around sound and audio Renaissance woman that she is, her exhibit is sure to be an unusual foray into Chicago, black resistance, and history. Not to mention, it’ll have a great soundtrack. Arts Incubator, 301 E. Garfield Blvd. Through May 29. Artist talk May 19, 6pm-7:30pm. Free. (773)702-9724. arts.uchicago. edu (Maha Ahmed)

The Ghost of Slavery in Corporate Chicago Buried deep in Section 585 of Chicago’s Municipal Code is the “Slavery Era Business/Corporate Insurance Disclosure,” which mandates that contractors with the city disclose any and all profits gained from slavery. Yet after two hundred years, several major Chicago companies have yet to disclose their profits from slavery. “The Ghost of Slavery in Corporate Chicago” spotlights the skeletons in these companies’ closets. In an exhibition of photographs and documents regarding the businesses’ hidden histories, images of corporate success and human suffering collide.

The exhibit is the first in a larger series at Pilsen’s URIEICHEN Gallery, entitled “40 Acres and a Mule: A Series of Visual Arts Shows and Discussions about Reparations for Slavery,” which will run until September. URIEICHEN Gallery, 2101 S. Halsted St. Through June 5, by appointment. (312)852-7717. Uri-eichen.com (Hafsa Razi)

Cosmosis Though most visibly a muse for artistic creation in the last few years with feature films and literature, outer space has mystified and inspired humanity for centuries. In the new exhibit at the Hyde Park Art Center, artists attempt to visually represent the deeper resonances of the cosmos through its intersection with different fields such as philosophy, anthropology, and physics. The exhibition examines the significance of space travel to modern culture as well as the role Chicago-based artists have had in interpreting this significance. This event promises to be full of thought-provoking discussion and haunting images of another world. Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Through August 23. Monday-Thursday, 9am-8pm; Friday-Saturday, 9am-5pm;Sunday, noon-5pm. Free. (773)324-5520. hydeparkart.org (Lucia Ahrensdorf )

.de.ma.rc.at.ed.

The main idea of this month-long showing in a new Hyde Park gallery is this: art does not exist in a vacuum, and neither does anything else. The work of Alberto Aguilar, presented at the 4th Ward Project Space with support from the UofC’s Arts + Public Life Initiative, explores the way different boundaries—art and artist, home and world, owner and object—work, both in themselves and in relationship to one another. This particular show, titled “.de. ma.rc.at.ed.,” decontextualizes functional household objects and presents them as “monuments” for the viewer to interpret. 4th Ward Project Space, 5338 S. Kimbark Ave. Enter on 54th St. Opening reception Sunday May 3, 4pm-7pm. Through May 31, 1pm-5pm on Saturdays and Sundays. (773)2032991. 4wps.org ( Jake Bittle)

Gabriel Sierra Swing by the Renaissance Society right after breakfast to see Gabriel Sierra’s “Monday Impressions” at ten in the morning. Visit right before your midday nap around two to experience “In the Meantime, (This Place Will Be Empty after 5:00 pm),” or maybe take in “Few Will Leave Their Place to Come Here for Some Minutes” around four, right before the gallery closes. The title of the exhibit changes each hour, but the work of the architecturally-trained Colombian artist will be consistently compelling. An interactive exploration of the ways in which the human body relates to and experiences temporal and spatial environments, Sierra’s installation consists of a series of constructions made with natural materials that have been isolated, processed, and domesticated. The exhibit emphasizes the presence and experience of the visitor, begging to be walked over, stood in, and experienced firsthand, whatever the time of day. The Renaissance Society, 5811 S. Ellis Ave. May 3-June 28, Tuesday-Friday, 10am-5pm; Saturday-Sunday 12pm-5pm. Free. (773)702-8670. www. renaissancesociety.org (Lewis Page)

Mirrored Infinity Inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim,” visual artist John Whitlock inquires into existentialism, spirituality, and reproduction through black and white collages that are scanned and crafted into mixed media compositions. These are accompanied by a video feed of evolving geometric patterns on an infinite loop. The work uses simple shapes to create elaborate and semi-religious iconography, gold—with its connotations of preciousness and implication of age—and geometric

CALENDAR

distortions. Whitlock works primarily in collage and assemblage and is influenced by the surplus of stimuli in our culture and society, particularly in popular graphic images. Join Whitlock at the Chicago Urban Art Society’s debut in its new McKinley Park space in a show “about finding yourself in the search for another.” Chicago Urban Art Society, 3636 S. Iron St. Friday, May 1, 6:30pm-11:30pm through Saturday, June 27. Free. (773)951-8101. chicagourbanartsociety.com (Clyde Schwab)

ARC 40th Anniversary Exhibit A 40th anniversary show in honor of ARC, one of the oldest female-run art galleries and exhibition spaces in the country, will begin this Friday at the Beverly Arts Center.

The show features over 120 current and former artists from the co-operative gallery in Chicago. Founded in 1973, ARC provides exhibition opportunities for emerging artists based on “excellence of artwork” and without discrimination regarding gender, race, class, and other factors.

While ARC is an internationally recognized exhibition space, it also serves as an educational foundation, providing opportunities for emerging artists. Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St. Friday, May 31, 7pm-9pm through Friday, May 1. (773)445-3838. beverlyartcenter.org (Clyde Schwab)

Imaginary Landscapes

Returning to a space of your past is the best way to wipe away the rose-colored nostalgia tint from your glasses.

Through Imaginary Landscapes, Mana Contemporary presents an exploration of the relationship between space, time, and memory. Four Midwest-based artists delve into the uncertain space at the nexus of the three, and the result is a collection of sculptures and images gathered by Chicago-based curator Allison Glenn. Lisa Alvarado’s work features elements of shamanism as she critiques cultural appropriation and assimilation; Assaf Evron toes the line between photography and sculpture; deconstructing the mundane, Robert Burnier explores failed utopia; and, last but not least, Caroline Kent harnesses narrative and storytelling to ruminate on what it means to be an outsider in another country. Delve into the uncertainty that spans space and time. Mana Contemporary, 2233 S. Throop St., 4th floor. April 4-May 31. Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm. (312)8500555. Free. manacontemporarychicago.com (Kristin Lin)

Nature’s Matrix Like many of their fellow artists, Charles Heppner and Diane Jaderberg have turned to nature for inspiration.

Instead of capturing the astonishing might of an ocean, or

the tranquility of a peaceful sylvan landscape, they channel elements from nature and turn them into visual motifs, repeating and abstracting them to create pieces which are not just strange but nearly unrecognizable. Also important for their work and their new installation is the interaction between technology and nature, which is mirrored in Heppner’s use of digital media and computer software to create prints. Their joint exhibition, “Nature’s Matrix,” is taking place at the Hyde Park Art Center, where the two have been studying and creating since the mid-2000s. Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. April 5-July 5. (773)3245520. hydeparkart.org (Robert Sorrell)

From the Hearth: A Home of Art, Education, and Community for 75 Years In 1940, the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project funded the creation of over one hundred centers for the arts nationwide. 75 years later, the South Side Community Art Center in Bronzeville is the only one that remains. Awarded Chicago Landmark status in 1994, the Art Center continually serves as a symbolic and historic site of the legacy of African-American art in Chicago. In collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Center presents a retrospective of a 75-year history of art, activism, and community-building. Curated by Lamar Gayles and Kara Franco—two young artists under the mentorship of the MCA assistant curator and the former director of SSCAC—the show will include the works of artists such as Archibald Motley and Margaret Burroughs as well as discussions on past and future of the SSCAC as a place of constant reinvention and innovation. South Side Community Art Center, 3831 S. Michigan Ave. May 9-June 16. Wed-Fri 12pm-5pm, Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 1pm-5pm. Free.

(773)373-1026. sscartcenter.org (Lewis Page)

The Break Age Having received his M.F.A in sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Benjamin Zellmer Bellas makes art that is, according to Slow gallery, “Art and not art at the same time.” His upcoming show at Slow in Pilsen touches upon themes of faith, mystery, and the origins of life, but also science, domesticity, and technology.

Though progressive in nature, the show draws upon traditional art-making processes. Bellas emphasizes that each of his works of art embodies its own transformation—who knows, maybe “The Break Age” will also change you. Slow, 2153 W. 21st St. May 23-June 13, 6pm-9pm. Free.

(773)645-8803. paul-is-slow.info ( Juan Toledo)

MAY 20, 2015 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19