This interview is part of Anchor Editorial, a collaboration between Sixty Inches From Center and Anchor Curatorial Residency. This five-part series is co-created and written by Carlos Flores, this year’s Curatorial Resident, and Tiffany M. Johnson, who co-designed the residency with the Chicago Park District and was Anchor’s 2022 Curatorial Resident. Together, they will be publishing conversations with fellow curators, artists, and collaborators, as well as experimental essays and archive dives that explore the topics that impact their curatorial practices.

To read this article in Spanish, click here.

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The Anchor Curatorial Residency facilitates the exploration of collective ways of supporting already-existing neighborhoods and communities and challenges participants to rethink what public art can be. Taking place over the course of 18 months, the residency moves away from traditional art spaces and instead focuses on cultural centers in the Chicago Park Districts. Currently in its second iteration, this year’s residency takes place at West Lawn’s Marquette Park, with curator-in-residence Carlos Flores. For his residency, Flores put together an exhibition titled diversión, which incorporated historical aspects of Marquette Park while reclaiming public space as places of leisure. 

This multi-level exhibition had many moving parts, both indoor and outdoor. The outdoor elements included the photographic installation Border Cruzados; Destiny’s Grab N’ Go, an installation created by Flores and Deon Reed that invited artists to respond to the question, “What futures do you envision for public space?”; a changeable marquee sign by Titus Wonsey; and one of Flores’ wheelbarrow installation Porta(til) in collaboration with Marimacha Press. The main greenhouse in Marquette Park contained the three remaining indoor elements of diversión: another Porta(til) activation holding Marylu E. Herrera’s ofrenda, another piece by Herrera using her corona-making style utilizing recycled potato chip bags; and a sound sculpture by Titus Wonsey. [Please see map below for a layout of the exhibition components.] 

All in all, Flores wanted more than one portion of the park to be activated in order to speak to the multiple surrounding communities and also to bring to light important topics such as immigration, rituals, and native plants. In addition to the exhibition, Flores also set in motion the building of a semi-permanent structure that would give back to the surrounding communities. Because Marquette Park has an existing band program, an outdoor arts and performance space for the park was made with the Chicago-based design firm Human Scale. Flores took the surrounding area and already existing programs into consideration to center the community. 

Flores’ vision was to utilize this residency to uplift the already existing communities and greenery by building connections, creating an outdoor art and performance space, and organizing a final exhibition at Marquette Park. In the beginning of the residency and throughout, Flores had conversations with community members in West Lawn, like myself, so that they could give their input pertaining to what it is that Marquette Park needs and what Flores’ curatorial work could offer. During these meetings, the community members, volunteers, park staff, Carlos, and anyone who wanted to participate had a chance to sketch out what they wanted this outdoor arts and performance space to look like and the location of where it should be placed. In order to bring this space to fruition, Flores facilitated these meetings and the design firm Human Scale provided design options after taking feedback from the community. There was much deliberation regarding the location, accessibility, and overall design of the outdoor art and performance space. The community agreed that we did not want it to feel like a sore thumb in the environment and that it should incorporate already existing greenery and native plants from the park. Throughout the Residency, Flores made it a priority to form relationships with neighbors, organizations, and anyone who would be impacted by this installation. He truly wanted to hear our feedback and take into account everyone’s opinions as much as he could so that it would benefit the community. Currently, Flores and the architects are working on incorporating all suggestions into the final design.

To understand Flores’ exhibition diversión, it is important to know what makes up Marquette Park. It is located in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood on 6743 S. Kedzie Ave. At about 315 acres, it is the biggest park on the southwest side of Chicago. The field house has two gymnasiums, auditoriums, multiple multi-purpose rooms and even a woodshop. The outside has a garden, four multi-purpose fields, an artificial turf field, a nine hole golf course, a lagoon, baseball fields, basketball courts, and a giant playground. Marquette Park has also been a site for activism throughout history. Martin Luther King Jr. ‘s 1966 campaign and march for desegregation and equitable housing took place in the Marquette Park neighborhood. He called the march, “The first step on a 1,000 mile journey” (Chicago Public Art Group). To commemorate and historicize the work of civil rights activists such as MLK Jr., religious leaders, and citizens, and community groups throughout Chicago created The Martin Luther King, Jr. Living Memorial Project. In response to this, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A Living Memorial was created and placed at the front of Marquette Park. You can find it right next to the parking lot for the Marquette Park Fieldhouse. This memorial, designed by Sonja Henderson and John Pitman Weber, consists of “three, 4-sided steles made from nearly 800 over-sized bricks and limestone – a reference to the construction materials of Chicago bungalows” (Chicago Public Art Group). There’s various people and references in the three steles. In the second stele, you can see MLK speaking along with portraits of Rabbi Robert Marx, Reverend Willie Barrow, and Imam Warith Deen Muhammed in the center wall. In the third stele, you can see MLK being protected by marchers. Other portraits include Al Raby, Rev Jesse Jackson, Edith Robles, Imelda Salazar, Fatima Abu-Eid, Camille Ode, Sister Margaret Zalot, and Sister Immacula Wendt. 

The designer of the monument, Sonja Henderson, attended some of the talks that took place and gave her input when envisioning an outdoor art and performance space for the park. Flores did a great job of incorporating anyone and everyone from the community. This aided in making the connection between the political moments that took place in Marquette Park in the past and where the exhibition manifested. It was important for Flores to be able to tie in those past elements to what he was trying to create communally. Much of the residency actually consisted of Flores taking the time to just have conservations and hear community members out. The extended time of the residency really helped with fostering new and empowering old connections. For the opening celebration of diversión, the main fieldhouse and the connecting green space itself were activated. The park is already very accessible so Flores wanted to amplify this by making the works on view as accessible as possible. A great aspect of the residency is the way it helps us move away from white-cube gallery and museum settings where art is often heavily guarded. Instead, the community can care for and enjoy the art in these public spaces.

 What futures do you envision for public space?

Along with curating diversión, Flores also created Destiny’s Grab n’ Go, an outdoor installation included in the exhibition in Marquette Parks that looks like a corner store facade. In collaboration with artist Deon Reed, Flores created this installation based on the businesses along 63rd Street near the park. Flores’ intention for Destiny’s Grab N’ Go was to amplify and bring to the forefront topics that are afflicting the surrounding Black and Brown communities. The installation piece confronts food scarcity and the practices used within communities of color. Instead of having accessible healthy food, often folks only have access to junk food in corner stores. For this project, Flores and Reed invited local artists and residents from Marquette Park and West Lawn to respond to the prompt: “What futures do you envision for public space?” Some of the responses were then plastered on Destiny’s Grab n’ Go with wheat paste, which included information on compost, Free Palestine, and Camomile Not Capitalism, just to name a few. These responses demonstrated that artists want to confront these issues and push for better community access to healthy food, resources, and tackle injustices. The responses came from such artists as Angelina Nguyen, Natalie Ayala, Ari Franco, Carlos Barberena, Jasmine Roman, Oscar Solis, Angela Davis Fegan, Maya Kasover, Viola Larios, Latham Zearfoss, Hent Henderson, Dud Lawson, and Depression Press. Additional folks are still able to add to it during the remainder of the exhibition. Flores used this residency as an opportunity to talk about these prevalent issues in communities, but also offered something other than the art itself by providing free food and groceries to anyone that needed it during the exhibition opening.

Near Destiny’s Grab N’ Go was Borders Cruzadas: A Welcoming Place. Installed behind the Marquette Park Fieldhouse as an outdoor component to diversión, the installation showcased photography by Oscar B. Castillo and Wil Sands, and was organized by ART WORKS Projects, a Chicago and the Hague based visual arts non-profit that advances social justice and human rights issues through photography and documentation. Because of the large immigrant population around Marquette Park, Flores felt that these stories of immigrants and their journeys, told through photography, would resonate with the local community. Questions of belonging and what immigrant populations bring to communities arose as I was viewing this photographic installation. By documenting everyday experiences and giving the audience an insight into everyday immigrant life, the photographs create a more inclusive conservation around immigration issues while also challenging our understanding of what that looks like. 

Another outdoor component of diversión is Is This It Titus Wonsey. Using a marquee sign, Wonsey created poems that gave a voice to the park by displaying different phrases from the community, such as “protect” and “water is life”. I was able to see the sign on opening day, and after going back to the park, I experienced a change in words. Through these changes, the community has the opportunity to voice their needs and concerns for themselves and the park. Through this coupling of installation mentioned above, Flores wants us to confront issues pertaining to immigration, environmental justice and upkeep, and overall the reclamation of space for communities of color. In Wonsey’s installation, this is exactly what is being done–agency is being reclaimed when the community can speak for itself. 

Another portion of diversión is Porta(til), which utilizes freestanding wheelbarrows that can travel to any space as a mini exhibition. The wheelbarrow in Porta(til) also brings forth the labor of immigration. Through traveling with these wheelbarrows and installing them in various places, Flores demonstrates the invisible labor that immigrants are forced to do to survive. Flores then invited local Chicago artists and makers to add to them. So far, there have been two iterations of Porta(til). For the first iteration, Marimacha Monarca Press created care gathering / cultivo con carino, an altar inside of the wheelbarrow that drew inspiration from the surrounding native plants. A seed library and map were available for folks to take and learn more about the native plants that support monarch butterflies but also native prairie sights around Marquette Park. This touches on Carlos’ advocacy for environmental justice, especially for working-class communities. The second iteration of Porta(til), titled My Mother’s Door, was located in the main fieldhouse at Marquette Park. Here, artist Marylu E. Herrera takes elements of Dia de los Muertos like Cempazuchitl flowers, or marigolds, and creates an ofrenda inspired by her mother’s door in Queretaro, Mexico. Herrera has an additional work, Flaming Hot Cheetos in her style of reworking corona-making techniques by using recycled chip bags. 

Titus Wonsey also has an additional Untitled work, which is a collaboration with Marquette Park Youth Improv Band. Through this sound sculpture, Wonsey asked cultural workers, urban planners, and community organizers to respond to the question, “What does it entail to exist in a public space for you?” This is where the band took the responses and made them into music. A beautiful blend of collaboration and reflection was created that plays the sound out loud for the audience to take in. During the opening of diversión, Xochtl-Quetzal Aztec Dancers performed the Dance of the Hummingbird and there was an open mic for folks within the community. These semi-permanent installations along with performances made the atmosphere all encompassing of the multitude of cultures within the West Lawn neighborhood. The opening took into account the needs of the community, and the various programming throughout September and October aided to this. Flores went through this residency and made it about his respective communities. Through meetings and input from neighbors, Flores was able to take clear consideration into what the needs and wants of everyone are. Challenges do arise, as you can never satisfy everyone, but being mindful from the start and not assuming what people need is a step in the right direction. Through this curatorial residency, Flores was able to foster and continue relationships within his community by bringing forth a project that in the end is supporting the needs of the community. Through a culmination of art, activism, and leisure, we see the already existing elements of Marquette Park be uplifted. 

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Sources:

1. https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/foster-j-frank-park
2. https://chicagopublicartgroup.org/project/martin-luther-king-jr-living-memorial/

Exhibition:

September 21 – November 1, 2024
Monday – Friday (9 AM-9 PM)
Saturday – Sunday (9 AM-5 PM) 

Programming: 

Creatures Caring for the Land with Bee Rodriguez – September 27, 2024
Sun Printing Workshop with F – September 28, 2024 
Ethical Storytelling & Radical Listening with Yaritza Guillern – October 10, 2024 (2-4 PM)
Macroinvertebretes in Your Local Lagoon with Evelyn Alvarez – October 12, 2024 (2-4 PM)
Fall Migration BIPOC Birding with Chicago BIPOC Birders – October 25, 2024 (2-4 PM) 
Portals of Abundance with Silvia Gonzalez – October 26, 2024 (2-4 PM)

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