- Q1: Who is your audience and how does your work mobilize them toward strategic local concerns?
- Q2: Given that the ways we make money impacts the type of culture we produce, how does the local economy effect your art practice? How do you work to obtain and share resources?
- Q3: Describe a local cultural event that productively expanded the social networks that your practice operates in? That is to say, the event produced a new sense of community that had political potential.
- Q4: As a politically engaged artist or organization how does your practice relate to existing social movements?
- Q5: These conversations come out of a nation-wide concern about the fate of democracy. How do you see your projects tying into a larger national structure? Is organizing nationally productive? What are its limitations?
Featuring Interviews with:
Mike Bancroft (Co-op Image), Wafaa Bilal, Sara Black (Material Exchange), Brett Bloom (Temporary Services), Aquil Charlton (Crib Collective), Salome Chasnoff (Beyondmedia), Marianne Fairbanks (Mess Hall), Edra Soto Fernandez, Nicole Garneau, Theaster Gates, Amanda Gutierrez, Craig Harshaw (Insight Arts), David Isaacson (Theater Oobleck), Jennifer Karmin (Anti Gravity Surprise), Nance Klehm, Edmar and Rachael Marszewski (Lumpen), Mark Messing (Mucca Pazza), Anne Elizabeth Moore, Sonjanita Moore (Kuumba Lynx), Laurie Palmer, Amy Partridge (CAFF Collective), Mary Patten (Feel Tank Chicago), Coya Paz (Teatro Luna), Dan Peterman (Experimental Station), Jon Pounds (Chicago Public Art Group), Aay Preston-Myint (Chances Dances), Toufic El Rassi, Laurie Jo Reynolds, Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa (Polvo), Deborah Stratman, Shannon Stratton (threewalls), Brad Thomson, travis (American Veterans for Equal Rights), Dan S. Wang, Rebecca Zorach (Feel Tank Chicago), and more.
1 response so far ↓
1 Cathleen Schandelmeier // Jan 22, 2009 at 4:15 am
Hello! As an artist/educator myself, I feel it is essential to have dialogues like this, especially about our art and it’s impact on society. There have been many challenges on my life journey that have forced me to grow, especially the loss of my first-born son. At that time I really looked at my life and decided on a mission statement to give me focus, and my mission statement is: to make the world a better place through my art.
I do this in a variety of ways: from teaching my craft (I work as an artist/educator and am currently at work on my MAT - Master of Arts in Teaching), through the Beach Poets, (which I have been hosting since 1990) and beyond, to the p lays which I have written and produced all of which have human issues to resolve that transcend race, in my plays I have the ideal world, where we have moved into racial harmony. I like to believe that my work has opened minds and caused people to rethink what they do; the effectiveness of this, I believe, can be seen in the awards which I have been given: A Certificate of Leadership in Racial Justice (YWCA DuPage County, 1994), the title “Outstanding Leader in Peace” (the Peace Museum, 1994), and being named one of the “100 Women Making a Difference”, haveing been awarded the “Jane Addams Scholarship” towards my MAT degree this year was also a tremendous honor and validation of the work I am doing and will accomplish yet. I must mention that special concerns to me right now are the maintenance of the glorious biodiversity of our verdant waterways and the overall health of our planet. I am the mother of a validictorian (Class of ‘09) whose advocacy also includes that of animal rights, my son, Vincent and my daughter, Katie, have gone on to transcend the place where I’m at by dedicating themselves to animal rights and veganism.
I’ll quote from my most recent book “Chicago Phoenis”:
“We rise;
human
each of us vulnerable in our medicine bag
of skin…”
Just as we are vulnerable, so, too, is our planet, and our relationship to it is intrinsically sacred, precious and valuable. Thank you for your kind contribution to the health and welfare of our community and the world, AREA Chicago!
I’ll be there for the event on February 1st!
Peace & love,
Cathleen Schandelmeier
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