Photo of Jellystone Robinson.
Jellystone Robinson (he/they) has joined our team as assistant curator and registrar! Jellystone is a Black trans-agender lesbian from the Ida B. Wells Extensions on the South Side of Chicago. In his creative practice, he is attempting to retrieve ancestral memory and self actualization through due diligence, time travel, self expression, love and pleasure. This manifests in his work as a creative producer, filmmaker, poet, oral historian, sibling, friend and boyfriend.
In a recent museum blog post, “Hey Love, Got Some Sugar? Meditations on Ms. Beauty Turner, Valentine’s Day, and Communal Love,” Jellystone reflects on different forms of love, kinship, and community. Jellystone’s blog post gives us a peek into a memorial luncheon we held last month for Ms. Beauty Turner, namesake of our oral history academy and housing activist, award-winning journalist, poet, and resident of the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago for 16 years. Along the way, jellystone takes us through memories of his Granny (the original “it girl” of Ida B. Wells E.X.T.s in Chicago!), the museum’s 36 Questions for Civic Love toolkit that bring sstrangers together, thoughts on a neighborhood package thief, and musings on putting timidness aside for love.
Read Jellystone's new museum blog post here!