ALLCITY | a bookwork of Chicago Art Education stories

On December 14, 2024--in conjunction with Gallery 400’s germinal exhibition "Learning Together: Art Education and Community"-—Jorge Lucero and Paulina Camacho Valencia invited  all of Chicago’s teachers, artists, teaching artists, community engagers, museum practitioners, professors, stakeholders, policymakers, administrators, art therapists, students, caregivers, socially engaged artists, and all other intersections throughout to gather at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) to co-construct a bookwork of all of our Chicago art education stories—from start to finish—in just three hours (180 minutes).

The idea was an ambitious attempt to quickly—-and with minimal demand on the participants—-produce something like a time capsule (in the form of a bookwork), that archives a pile of entangled personal narratives, memories, and dreams about art education(broadly defined)in Chicago (also broadly defined). This was done as one response to the curatorial proposals of the "Learning Together" exhibition, which in many ways are understandably limited since there is no way that an exhibition—-even a collection of a hundred exhibitions—-about Chicago’s art education could be wholly comprehensive. Even if it was possible, an attempt at bringing all of those histories, happenings, and humans together would be a cacophonous--albeit potentially glorious--mess!

Well, that's what this book is.

It's an invitation to produce the biggest, fullest, most glory-filled bookwork without too many gates of who can be "in" or "out".*

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

SO, HOW DO WE DO IT?

If you are gathered at UIC on Saturday December 14, 2024, within the three hours (and following some of the minor coaching of Jorge and Paulina) contribute at your leisure to any or all of the prompts found below with as much or as little written input as you wish. Certain prompts contain additional suggested parameters about length or specificity, but like all things, those parameters are left for your interpretation.

We loosely planned the day in this way:

12 to 1:30pm, WRITE.

1:30pm, HAVE A SMALL Group CHECK-IN (tips and reflections).

1:40 to 3pm WRITE MORE.

[TAKE BREAKS AS DESIRED.]

If you have received the link to this page and are not gathered with us during the Saturday that we met at UIC, please engage with the same exact prompts and directions as if you had attended, especially the parameter of the three-hour work session. Be strict about adhering to the time limitation.

Things to remember while working:

+ Submit as you go along. Don't fill out all the prompts at once. If there is an internet outage you could lose all your work. Instead, once you've written whatever you want in response to a prompt, submit it. Your name will be connected to everything you submit, so submit as many times as you need to so that your work is preserved.

+ After the initial three hour writing session, our editorial team will collate the entire book, copyedit it and return it to everyone who participated for a final check that could allow for some minor edits. So don't freak out too much at this point about mistakes that might occur. Our hope is to catch as much of that as we can in the post-production stage.

*Here we acknowledge that the three-hour co-constructing constraint and the parameter of having to physically gather at UIC on a given winter Saturday are "gates" in and of themselves, but these are gates that we accommodated for in every instance where their obstruction was pointed out.

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

Please respond to any or all of the prompts below.

Submit any pertinent images here.

ALONGSIDE

Starting from a horizontilization of teaching and learning where reciprocity, care, and agency have been prioritized, and then thinking back to your personal Chicago art education memories, who and what have come alongside you to form you as a creative practitioner? NOTE: Here you can think of your creative practice as everything on the spectrum from being a member of your communities (like when you're a teacher or an activist) to your artistic endeavors (when you're taking up all the materiality of your world as a means to "say" things you want to express and ask questions that are important to you and yours).

ART EDUCATION FUTURES

In a speculative realm, where resources and support are—if not abundant, at least adequate—what does Chicago's art education look like in your area, amongst your communities/groups, and within the institutions that your work touches? See if you can speak to this prompt beyond generalities.

ARTIST TEACHER IDENTITY

Although it is never the same for any two people, how did you deal with the perennial identity crisis that many art educators experience, where they're constantly negotiating between how they think they should be as artists and how they think they should be as teachers? If you find the wording or inferences of this prompt problematic or flawed, please feel free to address that in your writing (of course you are invited to do that to any of the prompts in this activity).

FLOWERS

Give someone from your past their due flowers. This is a chance for you to gush, testify, memorialize, cast a spotlight, or show your appreciation. If you could, try to keep this tied to Chicago, even if just tangentially. This/these person or people do not need to be folks you personally know, but also, they do not need to be people anyone but you knows. Feel free to praise your elementary school art teacher that ONLY you might have memories of! SPECIAL INSTRUCTION: Keep this response short, maybe no more than one paragraph. Still, do whatever you have to do to keep your writing tenderhearted and specific in this instance.

LEGACY

How would you describe Chicago's art education legacy in the world? Don't be shy, say what you think or know it has done! How have you seen it ripple out? How far has it reached?

PLACE

Where are ideas co-created and exchanged to grow and sustain art education’s interrelational webs? Consider the places, spaces, feelings, conduits, containers, and sparks that have, do, and could continue to shape your art education journey as it is crafted in community and geographically situated with those who you think and work with.

Email

Please provide an email in case there are any editorial questions about what you have written. This email will only be used for matters concerning the creation of this book. If you choose to not provide an email, we will do our best to interpret and present what you have submitted with fidelity.

Mailing Address

If you would like, please provide a mailing address where we can send you copies of the book when it is printed. Although we will not attribute specific writings within the book to any one author, we do need a name/place here to send the books to the contributors.

IMAGE SUBMISSIONS

If you have images that go with any part of your contribution (or if your entire contribution is images), please upload them to the link near the top of this page. If it is important, in the space below, please tell us where--approximately--you would like us to place the images. For example, say that the image should be near a specific response of yours (e.g. "my contribution to Prompt 3"). You can also free us to put the images wherever we think would work best in the bookwork. Because the layout and design of the bookwork is yet unknown, all we can say is that we'll try our best to make your directions a reality. Our apologies in advance, in case that doesn't happen.

Name

Please provide a name as you would like it to appear in the bookwork. If you wish to use a pseudonym, you may. You may also write "anonymous" if you wish. Unless you tell us otherwise, the name you enter here will be how we attribute your writing to you in the sections of the bookwork, the cover of the book, and the promotional materials about the book.

First Name

Last Name

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

First Image is a manipulated royalty free image from a search for the term “Chicago” on the website Unsplash. Second set of images are the four images we used to promote the collaborative writing event on social media, one week before it occurred. Last image is a screen print created by Jorge Lucero and William Estrada during a 2022 Art Educators Institute at UIC in anticipation of the “Learning Together” exhibition.

Username: gallery_507

Password: cun5defy