National Public Housing Museum and Marisa Morán Jahn Announced as
Recipients of the 2023 Joyce Award
The $75,000 award will support the creation of an imaginatively expanded permanent outdoor basketball court shared by the National Public Housing Museum and a new mixed-income housing development on the site of Chicago’s first federal housing project.
A process image for HOOPS, a permanent basketball court located outside Chicago’s National Public Housing Museum that will be created by artist Marisa Morán Jahn codesigned with local residents, neighbors, and architect Rafi Segal. Marisa Morán Jahn, Re/creation 2, 2023. Mixed media (remixed photos by John White, courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times/Chicago History Museum, and David Schalliol). Courtesy of Sapar Contemporary.
Chicago, IL — June 6, 2023 — Marisa Morán Jahn and the National Public Housing Museum were announced as recipients of the Joyce Foundation's 2023 Joyce Awards. Since 2004, the Joyce Awards have supported the creation of innovative new work by pioneering artists of color working in collaboration with arts and community organizations to foster more culturally vibrant, equitable, and sustainable communities in six Great Lake cities: Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis-Saint Paul.
Supported by the $75,000 grant, multidisciplinary artist Marisa Morán Jahn will co-design HOOPS, a permanent outdoor basketball court located in a space shared by the National Public Housing Museum and a new mixed-income housing development on the site of the first federal government housing project in Chicago’s Near West Side. In HOOPS, the linework of the basketball court will blend with the geometries of other street games—hopscotch, foursquare, checkers—and extend into other seating areas and walkways, extending the space of play and imagination. HOOPS is inspired by Jahn’s own experiences living and working in public housing as well as the Museum’s oral history archive, coupled with a series of codesign workshops with residents and neighbors of varied cultural and economic backgrounds. Demonstrating the possibilities of art as a social and political practice, the project will mobilize the community to collectively reshape the rules of public play and build a shared space that reflects a diverse set of interests and needs. Aiming to reframe the public understanding of subsidized housing and illuminate the stories of community members, HOOPS will preserve and promote the rich history of basketball and other forms of recreation in public housing communities—joyfully creating a place for empowerment, civic participation, and new social relations.
“What I remember most vividly from my experiences living and working in public housing is children playing all around me,” said Jahn. “These memories of joy and laughter counter the image that many Americans have had in their mind—and this is a result of the government’s disinvestment in public housing starting in the 1960s. So HOOPS is about dignifying and humanizing public housing residents through play, and inviting the public to learn through participating. HOOPS is a mediation and celebration of ‘re/creation.’”
The only regional program dedicated to supporting new commissions by artists of color in major Great Lakes cities, the Joyce Awards have provided $4.4 million for the development of 82 new works of visual, performing, and multidisciplinary art presented in collaboration with organizations in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis-Saint Paul. While the Joyce Foundation’s grantmaking has a regional focus, its work has national impact, demonstrating the capacity of the arts and artists to inspire and mobilize social change. The Joyce Awards act as a catalyst for artists’ creative practice, as well as fostering culturally vibrant, equitable, and sustainable communities in the region. The other 2023 awardees are: Regina Agu with the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago; Sonny Mehta with Mandala South Asian Performing Arts; Marlena Myles with Franconia Sculpture Park; and Julie Tolentino with SPACES.
“The Joyce Awards are a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the ambitious vision of artists and organizations committed to creating new work that represents and engages community,” said Joyce Foundation President and CEO Ellen Alberding. “We are proud to announce the 2023 awardees, who join a circle of eminent artists who have had a lasting influence on their communities and on the arts.”
“The 2023 Joyce Awards support ambitious and inventive projects by artists and organizations who are deeply committed to exploring new modes of creation and collaboration,” said Mia Khimm, Culture Program Director of the Joyce Foundation. “Each of this year’s projects brings together communities across the Great Lakes region to reimagine the world we live in and reshape how we relate to one another.”
The Joyce Awards have provided catalytic support for the careers of pioneering artists of color working across genres and disciplines, with many alumni receiving distinctions at the highest national and international levels. Past recipients include Nick Cave, Terence Blanchard, Sanford Biggers, Camille A. Brown, Larissa FastHorse, Theaster Gates, Rhiannon Giddens, Seitu Jones, Bill T. Jones, Kaneza Schaal, Julie Mehretu, Jessie Montgomery, Lynn Nottage, Nari Ward, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. The 2022 recipients were Nancy García Loza with the National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago), Nabil Ince with the Harrison Center (Indianapolis), Michael Manson with Living Arts (Detroit), Aram Han Sifuentes with the HANA Center (Chicago), and Pramila Vasudevan with Public Art Saint Paul (Minneapolis-Saint Paul).
About the National Public Housing Museum
Over the past century, more than 10 million people across the United States have called public housing home. In the late 1990s, as thousands of public housing units across the country were being demolished, public housing residents began to dream about creating a museum to preserve their collective voices, memories, and the histories of public housing across the nation. They wanted their children and grandchildren, and the public at large, to know more about their place in the American experience and to understand the public policies that helped to shape their families. In 2007, civic leaders, preservationists, historians, cultural experts, and many others joined with residents to help incorporate the National Public Housing Museum, which has since then offered transformative programs that connect the past with contemporary issues of social justice and human rights. The Museum's permanent home is under construction at the historic Jane Addams Homes at 1322 W. Taylor St. in Chicago's Near West Side and is set to open to the public in 2024.
About the Joyce Foundation
The Joyce Foundation is a nonpartisan private foundation that invests in public policies and strategies to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region. Joyce supports policy research, development, and advocacy in the six program areas: Culture, Democracy, Education & Economic Mobility, Environment, Gun Violence Prevention & Justice Reform, and Journalism. For more information about the Joyce Foundation, please visit www.joycefdn.org.
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For more information, please contact:
Emily Breidenbach, Director of Communications
National Public Housing Museum
ebreidenbach@nphm.org / 847-997-3790
Meg Fennelly / Lucy Duda / Francesca Kielb
Resnicow and Associates
mfennelly@resnicow.com / lduda@resnicow.com / fkielb@resnicow.com
212-671-5181 / 212-671-5187 / 212-671-5152