Marisa Morán Jahn Artist as Instigator Updates
Marisa Morán Jahn is an NYC-based artist whose artworks — designed with public housing residents, new immigrants, and working families — redistribute power. Her public artwork, films, toolkits, and collaborations have engaged millions.
She was chosen as our Artist as Instigator due to her lived experience in affordable housing and creative interventions in housing policy. Marisa collaborated with the Seattle Public Library in the Summer of 2022 to pilot a newspaper authored by teens in a Seattle public housing complex.
With architect Rafi Segal and developer Ernst Valery, she is also designing, co-founding, and is soon building Carehaus, the U.S.’s first intergenerational, care-based co-housing project, opening in Baltimore in 2024
"As the daughter of parents who came from Ecuador and China, I am inspired by the second generation immigrants who were committed to rebuilding the U.S. after the Great Depression and strengthening our social fabric. It's their dedication and artistic skills that created the beautiful WPA Era art, architecture, and design that still endures today."
-Marisa Morán Jahn
Winter 2023 Update
Marisa has had an incredibly productive winter season, and we are excited to share her latest updates.
Animal Court Coloring Page
One of her new projects is a coloring book page and series of wallpaper that features the larger-than-life animal sculptures created for the courtyards of public housing across the United States. Archival photographs of children from public housing homes across the U.S. over multiple decades are scaled to convey the outsized presence of the beloved sculptures. Cuddling, crooning, and petting the inanimate animal sculptures, the children’s affection invokes memories of childhood imagination.
Marisa notes, the series of work is inspired by the WPA era designs integrated into public housing before the 1950s, during a time when recreation, joy, and play were valued as essential aspects of a community and home.
Marisa says, "These artworks celebrate play as essential aspects of well-being, cognitive development, and both individual and public health. We all deserve equal access to recreational spaces which have been systematically underfunded in public housing since the second half of the twentieth century. As an artist, I am inviting viewers to tap into their memories about childhood wonder and play in order to help reverse this inequity."
Coloring Book Page by Marisa Morán Jahn.
Museum Wallpaper Project
Marisa is also currently dedicating her efforts to creating wallpaper that will adorn the walls of select spaces at our future museum site, set to open in 2024. Stay tuned for a longer blog post that goes behind the scenes into her process this spring!
Photo of Marisa Morán Jahn’s studio with hand dyed paper used in her Animal Court wallpaper process.
Rendering of the Animal Court wallpaper by Marisa Morán Jahn.
Marisa’s Inspiration
Marisa took direct inspiration from archival photographs of the Animal Court Playground. Edgar Miller's concrete sculptures at Animal Court Playground in the former Jane Addams Homes were iconic since their installation in the late 1930s, serving as a popular play area for nearby children. Removed in the 2000s during CHA redevelopment, they're now being restored and will be displayed outside the museum. The reinstalled sculptures will undoubtedly serve as a source of inspiration and joy for future generations, allowing them to feel the same sense of wonder that the residents of the Jane Addams Homes and their neighbors experienced. Learn more about the Animal Court sculptures in Lee Bey’s article for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Marisa is also inspired by archival film footage and an audio collage. The film footage contains scenes from the early days at the Jane Addams Homes, including footage of children sledding at the Animal Court Playground.
The audio collage weaves together oral history memories from community members reminiscing about the sculptures. Narrators include Desiree Davidson, ABLA Homes, 1974-2000, Dennis O'Neil, Near West Side resident, 1980-Present, Mary Baggett, ABLA Homes, 1970-Present, Ida Brantley, ABLA Homes, c1970s-Present, and Blanche Wilson, ABLA Homes, 1976-Present.
Meet Marisa: Design and Solidarity Book Launch Event
April 10, 6-8 p.m.
Haymarket House
800 West Buena Avenue Chicago, IL 60613
Design & Solidarity emerges from conversations led by the book's authors — architect Rafi Segal (MIT) and artist Marisa Morán Jahn (Parsons/The New School) — dialoguing with leading thinkers including social movement leader Ai-jen Poo, who joins Marisa and Rafi in conversation at Haymarket House, along with real estate developer Ernst Valery and anthropologist and architect Iván Arenas, who will moderate.
NPHM Executive Director Lisa Yun Lee will open the event with introductory remarks. A book signing/celebration with light refreshments will take place immediately after the event.
November 2022 Update
In mid-November, NPHM and 2022 Artist As Instigator Marisa Morán Jahn kicked off her residency with an online artist talk and a series of in-person community engagement events in Chicago.
During her Artist Talk on Tuesday, November 15 Marisa shared a presentation about how she uses art and design to create civic innovations and tackle public policy issues with a national audience of artists, cultural workers, and housing organizers.
The following day, she and collaborator architect Rafi Segal shared more about their work to create Carehaus, the U.S.’s first intergenerational care-based co-housing project, with a University of Chicago graduate business class, called Development without Displacement, taught by real estate developer and social entrepreneur Ernst Valery, Jahn and Segal’s third co-founder on Carehaus.
On Friday, November 18, Marisa led a workshop called, Games and American Housing: Rewriting the Rules at the Chicago Public Library Little Italy Branch near the Museum’s permanent site. Marisa, NPHM staff and local community members played games, shared stories, and reflected on how we might rewrite the rules of the American housing system.
Would you like to learn more or contribute to how Marisa and NPHM use art and storytelling to impact public policy during her year-long residency with the Museum? Use the feedback form to share your questions, feedback, and ideas.
NPHM receives program and general operating support from key donors including the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events City Arts Grant, Illinois Arts Council Agency, Illinois Humanities, Landau Family Foundation, Leonard C. Goodman, The Kresge Foundation, The MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince, National Endowment for the Arts, Polk Bros. Foundation, and the Builders Initiative. "