Opening Reception for History Lessons: Everyday Objects from Chicago Public Housing

S A V E   T H E   D A T E

EXHIBIT OPENS MAY 30TH

The National Public Housing Museum is pleased to announce the opening reception for our newest exhibition, History Lessons: Everyday Objects from Chicago Public Housing on May 30th.

The exhibition, which features ordinary objects from public housing residents that share with us amazing stories of personal endeavors, as well as commemorating those that were most important in shaping their lives. The objects are described by the residents themselves, giving visitors a first-hand account of how these items played a part in their lives. The labels were created during writing workshops with Audrey Petty and Nate Marshall or during interviews with Rich Cahan.

The opening will take place on May 30th at the NPHM offices, which are located at 625 N Kingsbury St, from 5:30-7:30 PM. Refreshments and drinks will be served.

This event is wheelchair accessible. Individuals requiring Sign-Language Interpreters, Real-time captioners, or other accommodations should contact Mark Jaeschke at (773) 245-1621 or mjaeschke@nphm.org at least one week in advance of the event.

Housing and Racism in the Age of Trump Roundtable Discussion

                   RSVP today!

Join us at the NPHM offices on May 15, from 5:30 to 7:00 pm for a roundtable discussion on housing policy, race, and racism in the age of Trump. The discussion will feature Glyn Robbins, author of There’s No Place: The American Housing Crisis and What It Means for the UK, along with moderator Rob Chaskin, Professor & Deputy Dean for Strategic Initiatives, University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, and panelists Ianna Kachoris Ori, the Director, Strategy, Research Initiatives and Philanthropic Partnerships at UChicago Office of Civic Engagement, Janet Smith, Professor of Urban Planning and Policy at UIC, and our Associate Director, Robert Smith III.

The event will bring together Chicago's housing, research, and activist communities for a conversation about housing as a human right, in an era of populism and disinvestment in public housing policy and infrastructure.  

Based on field-research in eight US cities, Dr. Robbins discusses how the battles of working class communities in the US to save their homes are mirrored by the UK experience. These issues assume greater resonance in the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump and the Grenfell Tower disaster. The panelists will look comparatively at the US and the UK, with particular attention to the public housing context in Chicago.

RSVP here!

History Lessons Writing Workshop

The NPHM hosted a label writing workshop on March 21st for residents that are loaning objects for our upcoming show, History Lessons: Everyday Objects from Chicago Public Housing. The exhibition features a wide variety of ordinary items that tell extraordinary stories of public housing and will feature labels that are written by those that are closest to them, the residents themselves, along with interviews conducted by Rich Cahan. 

The workshop itself, which was run by Audrey Petty, author of High Rise Stories was the first of two which led residents though how to write effective labels for their objects through historical and poetic lenses.

The second meeting was April 18th and was led by Nate Marshall at Annie Stubenfeld’s Legends classroom.

Shaq McDonald writing a label for a metal airplane given to him by his uncle.

Oral History Corps Interview Representative Bobby Rush

Shakira Johnson, of the Museum's Oral History Corps, along with Executive Director Lisa Lee, visited Representative Bobby Rush in Washington D.C. to interview him for our on-going oral history project. 

Rush, who grew up in Chicago public housing, was a co-founder of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers and worked on creating non-violent, community-centric projects to help African Americans living in Chicago. We are excited to add Bobby Rush's invigorating stories to our archives for future study.

Kali Akuno Roundup

In conjunction with the University of Illinois-Chicago's Social Justice Initiative, the NPHM hosted economic activist Kali Akuno from Jackson, Mississippi to talk to residents and allies about cooperative businesses.

The focus of the talk was to begin our work for establishing an Entrepreneurship Hub, comprised of the Social Justice Business School, Office Hours, and the cooperatively run Museum store that will be run by residents. The conversation, co-hosted by Teresa Prim, centered around the history of Jackson's project and other cooperatives, as well as the power of solidarity economies that bolster horizontal power structures that enrich the lives of those involved. 
 

All ears on Kali Akuno as he discusses the cooperative business model to public housing residents and allies.

The Museum is currently planning our next steps for the Hub. We are hosting a lunch discussion on May 4th, from noon to 1:30 with public housing residents and allies to begin imagining how the co-op will best serve the community.

Kali Akuno Lunch Discussion on 4.10

WORKER COOPERATIVE – A business that is owned and controlled by the people who work in it

The National Public Housing Museum is beginning to the creation plans for a museum store that is owned and operated by public housing residents.

Join residents (and allies) at the National Public Housing Museum offices for a free lunch discussion with Kali Akuno on April 10th as we work with you to envision this cooperative business. We will be learning about worker co-ops, their role in advancing racial and economic justice — and how to build this business together from the ground up.

RSVP today at rsvp@nphm.org!

Robert Smith III on Museum Archipelago Podcast

Our Associate Director, Robert Smith III, was recently interviewed by Ian Elsner of the Museum Archipelago podcast. The conversation touches on the power of place, the museum's future at the Jane Addams Homes, and our ongoing mission to propel the conversation that housing is a human right. 

You can listen to the podcast here. Thanks to Ian for having us!

High-Risers Book Release Recap

We had such an amazing evening last night with Ben Austen, Audrey Petty, J.R. Flemming, and Dolores Wilson as we celebrated the release of Ben's new book, High-Risers: Cabrini Green and the Fate of American Public Housing. We are so grateful to all who were in attendance last night and we are happy to share a few highlights from the evening below!
 

REMINDER: High-Risers Book Release Party

Today's the day! Come visit us this evening at 625 N Kingsbury St for a conversation with High-Risers author, Ben Austen, along with Audrey Petty and Cabrini Green activists.

The even begins at 5 pm with a free dinner, and the discussion will start at 6. We are expecting a packed house, so come early, as seating will be limited. There will be extra room for people to listen and engage with the discussion as well.

We'll see you there!

Snow Day: February 9, 2018

The Museum will be closed on Friday, February 9, 2018, and will re-open on Monday, February 12, 2018 at 10 AM.

NPHM Awarded NEA Grant

The NPHM is excited to receive an Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts of $30,000.00 for the restoration and return of the enchanting New Deal animal sculptures by Edgar Miller to the Museum’s Courtyard at the historic Jane Addams Homes located at 1322 West Taylor Street. 

“We have assembled a dream team that includes acclaimed landscape designer Ernie Wong from Site-Design and Andrzej Dajnowski from the Conservation of Sculpture and Object Studio to restore and install these sculptures” says Lisa Yun Lee, the Executive Director of the NPHM, “and we are thrilled that these works of art will once again create a vibrant public space in their original historic setting, exemplifying the core belief that art and design create livable communities.”

The seven-piece public sculpture Animal Court by Edgar Miller was central to the design of the Jane Addams Homes, one of Chiago's most ambitious public housing projects.  Miller's sculptures were commissioned by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and, from 1938 to 2006, functioned as a gathering place in the courtyard of the housing project, where people crossed boundaries of race and class to build community.  As one of Chicago’s most innovative and multidisciplinary artists, Miller recognized public housing as a space for artistic experimentation and a platform for expressing democratic values—a place where an artist could realize the ideal of accessible art for all people.  

NPHM at NAHRO Conference, October 27-29th

NPHM is hosting a booth at NAHRO. 

The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) is a professional membership organization comprised of approximately 20,000 housing and community development agencies and officials throughout the United States who administer a variety of affordable housing and community development programs at the local level. NAHRO works to inspire and engage professionals in housing, community development, finance, government, and social services in collaboration with residents to create attainable and sustainable housing and communities for vulnerable families and individuals.

Partner with us!  Please visit nphm.org or email info@nphm.org to learn more.

Artist as Instigator: William Estrada

The National Public Housing Museum is collaborating with William Estrada-- a dynamic artist, educator, activist, and cultural worker for Artist as Instigator Residency.

Working collectively with artists, activists, and cultural workers, NPHM hopes to provide opportunities for artists and makers to incubate ideas and produce new work, while giving the Museum’s stakeholders opportunities to express their creative rights - expanding the notion of who is an artist and a maker.

William will work with Museum staff to create socially engaged projects and opportunities that help bridge the divide between the arts, culture, and innovative public policy around the Museum’s mission to preserve, promote, and propel housing as a human right. These projects will be integrated as part of exhibits, public programs, and/or events at the Museum or in surrounding communities. The residency is informed by the Museum’s resources and knowledge, oral history archive, staff, and public housing resident expertise, and community and advocacy networks.

---

William Estrada was born to immigrant parents and grew up assembling memories in California, Mexico, and Chicago. His teaching and art making practice focuses on engaging the complex experiences within marginalized communities and contested spaces. He documentsand analyzes public/private learning spaces to transform, question, and make connections to established and organic systems through discussion, creation, and promotion of counter narratives.

William's work is a discourse of existing images, text, and politics that appoints the audience to critically re-examine the meaning of their surroundings. As a teacher, artist, cultural worker,  and urban anthropologist he reports, records, reveals, and imparts experiences you find in academic books, school halls, teacher lounges, kitchen tables, barrios, college campuses, and in the conversations of close friends. 

William has presented in various panels regarding community programming, arts integration, and social justice curricula through the Illinois Art Education Association, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois Humanities Council, Smart Museum of Art, the National Guild of Schools in the Arts, National Art Education Association, Teachers for Social Justice San Francisco, Iowa University, and Grand View University.  In 2016 he was awarded the Teaching Artist Community Award from 3Arts Chicago.

His current research is focused on developing community based and culturally relevant programs that question power structures of race, economy, and cultural access.

October 19th Opening Reception for Housing as a Human Right: Social Construction

This event is wheelchair accessible. Individuals requiring Sign-Language Interpreters, Real-time captioners, or other accommodations should contact Shirley Alfaro at (773) 245-1621 or salfaro@nphm.org at least one week in advance of the event.

September 14th Opening Reception: Women's Rights are Human Rights

This event is wheelchair accessible. Individuals requiring Sign-Language Interpreters, Real-time captioners, or other accommodations should contact Shirley Alfaro at (773) 245-1621 or salfaro@nphm.org at least one week in advance of the event. 

Food sponsored by Wow Bao

NPHM partnered with ACE Mentor Program Chicago

Throughout the summer, NPHM partnered with ACE Mentor Program Chicago, an organization dedicated to providing high school students career opportunities in architecture, construction and engineering, to create an on-site installation at the future home of the museum. 

The ACE Summer Design team, comprised of rising high school seniors and professional mentors, unveiled the design project that has been in the works for 8-weeks on Friday August 11th. The design reflects the opening of the museum and extends to the surrounding community a glimpse of what is to come. The installation will stay standing throughout the construction of the museum. 

As NPHM works to build a strong community within and for the museum, we understand that often young people are at the forefront of these efforts and issues. This project showcases just that.

You can visit the installation at 1322 W. Taylor St.

National Public Housing Museum is a Finalist for ArtPlace America's 2017 National Creative Placemaking Fund

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 7, 2017----Extremely competitive national grant program will consider 70 projects  

Today, ArtPlace America announced that National Public Housing Museum is one of 70 finalists for the 2017 National Creative Placemaking Fund (NCPF).  ArtPlace selected these 70 proposals from 987 applications, making National Public Housing Museum’s project one of just 7% of the projects across the country to make this cut.

ArtPlace’s National Creative Placemaking Fund is a highly competitive national program, receiving 987 applications this year. Investing money in communities across the country in which artists, arts organizations, and arts and culture activity help drive community development change across 10 sectors of community planning and development: agriculture and food; economic development; education and youth; environment and energy; health; housing; immigration; public safety; transportation; or workforce development.  

The Entrepreneurship Hub at the National Public Housing Museum will be located at the future home of the Museum at 1322 West Taylor Street, the last remaining structure of the 1938 historic Jane Addams Homes public housing development. The project is inspired by the resilience of Chicago’s public housing residents who have worked in informal economies as artists, hair stylists, food purveyors, fashion designers, and social entrepreneurs. The Entrepreneurship Hub focuses on Chicago’s homegrown talent and invests in the innovative potential of public housing residents by providing support, resources, and collective imagining as they move their businesses from the kitchen table to the storefront and beyond. The Museum will use its cultural capital as well as its existing relationship with Chicago Housing Authority to nurture and grow the social and economic capital of low and very low-income people by providing gathering space to share knowledge, giving opportunities to build business skills through workshops, and offering creative, cultural, design, and architectural services to public housing residents in a dedicated effort to help realize their fresh, dynamic ideas. The Hub will be, as one resident put it, “a hand up, not a handout.” Rather than individualism or self-reliance, the Entrepreneurship Hub at the NPHM emphasizes community, interdependence, and the common good in order to advance sustainability and strengthen the city’s economic, social, and cultural fabric.

"The National Grants Program is actively building a portfolio that reflects the full breadth of our country’s arts and cultural sector, as well as the community planning and development field,” said ArtPlace’s Director of National Grantmaking F. Javier Torres.  “Knowing that these projects, and the hundreds of others who applied, are using arts and culture strategies to make the communities across this country healthier and stronger is inspirational "

“We believe that these projects, when added to our tremendously strong portfolio of demonstration projects, will inspire, equip and connect members of the arts and culture field, the community planning and development field and those who are working to make healthy and equitable communities creatively across the country,” said ArtPlace America Executive Director Jamie Bennett.

The complete list of the 2017 finalists for ArtPlace’s National Creative Placemaking Fund may be found here.

The power of the human voice...

Deadline to apply is July 5th. Acceptance notifications by July 10th. APPLY NOW

 In partnership with Oral History Summer School. 

Have you ever used a housing choice voucher? Come and tell us about it!

A new year, A new partnership

Actors from the American Theater Company production of "The Project(s)" perform the newest iteration of the work. (From L to R: AnJi White, Linda Bright Clay, Joslyn Jones, Kristin Ellis, and Maurice Demus.); Actress Joslyn Jones, who plays character Miss Beatrice Harris in the production, with the real Miss Harris. Photos courtesy of the National Public Housing Museum

The National Public Housing Museum is excited to deepen our relationship with the American Theater Company to co-create a curriculum around the hit play The Project(s) which brought the voices of public housing residents to the stage to rave reviews in 2015.

The curriculum and a condensed touring version of the play will be coming to Chicago Public Schools beginning this spring through American Mosaic, a program pairing teaching artists with ninth-grade English teachers to deliver an intensive six-week arts residency in Chicago Public Schools. In addition, the ATC’s Youth Ensemble will perform The Project(s) this summer.

NPHM will contribute to the curriculum in order to give teachers the resources they need to lead conversations about the fundamental role that housing plays in building thriving communities.

The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times recently covered the collaboration. Click here to see the original coverage of The Project(s) by the Chicago Tribune. 

At a press conference on Wednesday, we got a sneak peek at the touring version, timed to fit inside of a class period, and actor Joslyn Jones, who plays Miss Beatrice Harris in the production, got to meet her character’s namesake.

Toward our mission to preserve, promote, and propel housing as a human right, will you help us invest in the next generation of civic leaders?