Happy Earth Day from Hull-House! April 23 was the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day. While social distancing, we can still show love and care for our planet and our communities. Jane Addams fought municipal neglect that left her immigrant neighbors with rat-infested alleys and putrid streets. She become the first official garbage inspector of the 19th Ward in 1895 and forced the City of Chicago to provide services that supported a safer and healthy environment for immigrant populations. Give the earth a break where you can, and let's do our part!
Hull-HouseArtists Respond to COVID-19
Hull-House artist Sarah-Ji, "#FreeThePeople Decarceration Caravan," outside of Cook County Jail, Chicago, IL. April 7, 2020.
What would the world look like without creative makers, doers and visionaries? In this newsletter, we feature Hull-House artists who respond to the pandemic in creative and resourceful ways. It is no accident that the artists that Hull-House works with are also activists! We deliberately choose to collaborate, because they share our vision of being responsive to the concerns and needs of our communities, they demand justice for vulnerable and neglected populations and they take action to create interventions that are useful and encourage meaningful change. During this particular crisis, racial disparities and many other inequities and injustices have become amplified. Artists respond with calls for justice, solidarity for the vulnerable and with craft ingenuity designed to champion love, collective help, access, fairness and
wellness.
Homemade Help: Textile Artists Share Resources and Knowledge
Hull-House Artist Aram Han Sifuentes' homemade masks. Learn how to make them in an upcoming workshop.
To further support the health and safety of people who are moving and working in public spaces, Hull-House textile artists are responding by creating homemade masks based on CDC specifications. Alexandria Eregbu is designing homemade masks with West African textiles. Aram Han Sifuentes will lead a remote mask making workshop this weekend hosted by the Chicago Cultural Center and 6018North. No experience required, just gather your own materials and register here.
Alexandria Eregbu wearing the homemade mask she is making.
Aram Han Sifuentes, "Protest Banner Making Workshop" for Protest Banner Lending Library. Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Jan. 19, 2017.
#FreeThePeople Solidarity Caravan:
De-incarceration and Stopping COVID-19 in Jails and Detention Centers
Above and below: Hull-House artist Sarah-Ji, "#FreeThePeople Decarceration Caravan," a view of a window at Cook County Jail, Chicago, IL. April 7, 2020.
A coalition of advocacy organizations who support imprisoned individuals across the state of Illinois formed the #FreeThePeople Coalition to respond to the public health crisis in jails and detention centers. On April 7, as a part of a week of action, the coalition called for a decarceration caravan to demand mass release of vulnerable individuals, sufficient sanitation and protection for those still incarcerated and for free access to communication with family and friends. The decarceration caravan protested outside the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, ICE Headquarters in Chicago's Loop and Chicago Cook County Jail, one of the largest epicenters of COVID-19 infection in the United States. Hull-House artist and contributor to the current exhibition True Peace: The Presence of Justice, Sarah-Ji was on site with her camera in hand to witness the demonstration. See some of her documentation below.
Sarah-Ji speaking at the opening of True Peace: the Presence of Justice, Sept. 19, 2020 (JAHHM/Brandon Fields)
Sarah-Ji is a member of Love & Protect, a prison abolitionist collective that supports those who identify as women and gender non-conforming persons of color who are criminalized or harmed by state and interpersonal violence. Love & Protect is a #FreeThePeople coalition member. To learn more about #FreeThePeople and how to take action click here.
Love in the Time of COVID:
Community Care Coloring Pages
Community Care Coloring Pages by Hull-House artist Nicole Marroquin from Chicago Act Collectives "Love in the TIme of COVID" project (2020).
Hull-House artist Nicole Marroquin, a print and ceramic artist and educator, worked with the Chicago Act Collective to create a print-at-home coloring book. Love in the Time of COVID: Community Care Coloring Pages keeps your imagination and hands busy while you observe the stay-at-home order. The coloring pages are a form of education, resistance and share messages of community support. Print Nicole's pages and a dozen others at home by clicking here!
Nicole Marroquin speaking at the opening of Claiming Space: Creative Grounds and Freedom Summer School, September 19, 2017 (JAHHM/Brandon Fields)
Always Essential: Careforce, Caregivers and Coronavirus
Marisa Jahn leads members of the National Domestic Workers Alliance in the Careforce Disco at Jane Addams Hull-House Museum April 7, 2017 (Careforce One).
Hull-House had the opportunity two years ago to work with Marisa Jahn and Careforce One during the Open Engagement conference in Chicago. In 2017, Careforce One travelled across the country collaborating with workers from the National Domestic Workers Alliance and created a disco dance that incorporated common movements of domestic labor with movements that symbolized organizing for change. Artist Marisa Jahn and Careforce One respond to COVID-19: Caregivers play critical frontline roles in regular illnesses and especially in the Covid-19 pandemic. Largely comprised of immigrant women, caregivers bear the brunt of America’s already fractured public health policy and weak workforce protection — and this impacts us all. Because if we fail to care for our caregivers, we in turn impact the health and resiliency of our community as a whole. Through rapid response design collaborations with immigrant justice advocates and long-view approaches to redesigning the build environment, we ask, “What would it look like instead to value and design for care as a community investment? What if our infrastructure, built environment, and designs recognized careworkers as an important indicator of a community’s health, happiness, and
resiliency?
Careforce One visits Jane Addams Hull-House Museum historic Residence's Dinning Hall on April 21, 2017. (JAHHM/Ross Jordan).
To watch the first episode of Careforce One Travelogues, see the Careforce Disco and learn more about how artists can support organized labor click here.
For Artists: Find Support, Get Support
Arts for Illinois: Help is here!
To support artists, arts organizations and cultural workers that are struggling during the COVID-19 crisis, Chicago Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot and Governor JB Pritzker announced the Arts for Illinois Relief Fund. The new fund supports urgently needed individual grants up to $1,500 and larger grants for arts organizations. The fund is supported by a broad philanthropic community and administered by Arts Alliance Illinois, 3Arts and Arts Works Fund. Visit the new website artforillinois.org to apply for a grant and to donate to the fund. This site also features performances, poetry, videos and art workshops submitted by arts
organizations and artists from across Illinois that you can enjoy from wherever you are. Included on the site is Hull-House's Memo to the Mayor from the West Side produced with Hull-House partner BBF Family Services. Click below to watch, donate, or apply.
Americans for the Arts: Impact Survey for Artists and Creative Workers
Are you an artist, designer, dancer, writer, arts educator or administrator who has been impacted by COVID-19? Americans for the Arts, a national nonprofit that lobbies congress to support the arts, is inviting arts workers to help them measure the impact of COVID-19. Take their survey here.
Artist Relief: Financial and Information Resources for Artists
To support artists during the COVID-19 crisis, a coalition of national arts grantmakers have come together to create an emergency initiative to offer financial and informational resources to artists across the United States. Click below to apply for a $5,000 grant for support. Applications for this grant close May 21 at 11:59 PM, the fund is also accepting donations.
(Image: JAHHM/Sarah Larson)
Give to Grassroots Organizations:
For the People Artists Collective
Looking for local Chicago efforts to support? Hull-House artist Monica Trinidad, whose work is featured in the current exhibition True Peace: the Presence of Justice, is the founder of For the People Artists Collective. The Collective started a fund for Artists of Color Emergency Grants. Click here to learn more
and donate.
Hull-House Updates about COVID-19
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum continues to monitor the COVID-19 situation and to stay alert and sensitive to the health and safety needs of visitors and staff. In accordance with Illinois Governor JB Pritzker's announcement on April 23rd about the expected stay-at-home order extension and aligned with the University of
Illinois' prescriptions for the remainder of the Spring semester, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum has cancelled all Spring events and will remain closed to the public through May 31, 2020. Current exhibitions have been extended through July 31, 2020. Continue to check our website for the latest updates. While the Museum is closed you can connect with us remotely by following Hull-House on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
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