Scenes of the Neighborhood
An Art Walk Through Ukrainian Village
Tuesday, December 9, 12:20-1:30
Visitors will participate in a curator-led art walk in the unique and historic Chicago neighborhood of Ukrainian Village. Taking inspiration from the sights around them, participants are invited to photograph, draw, or write about their surroundings. Note, participants will need their own camera, phone, sketchbook, etc. Based on their experiences in the exhibition, viewers are encouraged to think about the mundane and banal, what catches their attention that they might have overlooked before. Subjects can range from buildings, to infrastructure, to plants, and anything else seen on the street. At the end of the walk, participants will be invited to speak about their experience and share their photographs or drawings with other participants and the curators. What did they notice? What caught their attention? How did they bring the unseen to light? After the discussion, visitors are invited to re-explore the exhibition with fresh eyes.
Agenda:
Exhibition viewing: 12:15 - 12:30 pm
Explanation of the program: 12:30 - 1:00 pm
Curator-led art walk around the neighborhood: 1:00 pm - 1:20 pm
Discussion and collection of works created on the walk, End 1:30
UIMA Art Walk Sign-up
Goal/Outcome:
After discussion and reception of the works created on the neighborhood walk, the curators of the exhibition will compile the photographs, writings, and drawings into a mini exhibition to be shared online or social media.
Sights, Seen, and Never Seen explores the imagery found in the urban environment and the representation of urban life that are often ignored or hidden. Among the rush hours and countless telephone poles, we aim to magnify the mundane, to look at the bigger picture, not for what it is, but for what makes it. Bringing to the forefront things forgotten, we pull together the edges of the urban landscape into curious treasures that deserve a closer look beyond the periphery. Motivated by the endurance of Ukrainian artists during times of upheaval, these artists have remained deeply rooted in the material and the everyday, transforming the debris of history into objects of memory and resilience—reminding us that even in moments of erasure, creation persists. Artists featured within this exhibition come from a variety of disciplines and cultures, but a commonality can be found in any community's reliance on the simplicity of daily life. Sights, Scenes, and Never Seen pushes the mundane forward, taking another look at sites often passed by.
Curated by Students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Curatorial Practicum Class.
The course is led by UIMA’s Curator, Adrienne Kochman, PhD, Lecturer in the Department of Art History, Theory & Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.