AFIELD Events are in-person gatherings organized in collaboration with members of the network in different parts of the world. They are aimed at making new connections and facilitating mutual support across the globe.
Anchored around the belief that artists are essential to the fabric of society, as thinkers, visionaries and changemakers, AFIELD and Gertie are excited to co-organise an afternoon, within the framework of EXPO CHICAGO, centered around the vital but often overlooked and under-resourced socially engaged practice of artists in Chicago.
Rooted in a long history of socially engaged artistic thinking and practice with John Dewey and Jane Addams setting up experimental schools combining social and educational services for immigrants with an art gallery, performance space in the 1890s, Chicago’s legacy of socially engaged art has become integral to the city’s contemporary cultural consciousness as an embodied site of spatial-political imagination and care.
We are extremely honored to have the opportunity to share the projects of incredible artists and thinkers based in Chicago: Andrea Yarbrough (AFIELD Peer) with in ℅: Black women (in care of Black women), Ricardo Gamboa with Storyfront and Hoodoisie, and Rebuild Foundation at Stony Island Arts Bank founded by Theaster Gates.