In the past two weeks alone, I’ve found myself at Wrightwood 659, the Renaissance Society, the Leather Archives & Museum, and the Smart Museum. All varying in public prominence, I feel lucky to know these spaces, to really get inside of them, to see show after show come in and out. And these are just a few of the hundreds of impressive DIY spaces, commercial galleries, and large museums that we have in this City of the Big Shoulders.
“Still Here: Torture, Resiliency and the Art of Memorializing” opened at the Arts Incubator in March with six commissioned design proposals. Juan Chavez‘s glass structure with aloe vera plants in the center symbolized healing, while Sonja Henderson’s piece featured rows of chairs that memorialized each torture victim. The designs were meant to be spaces for people to sit, heal, and honor the victims who suffered at the hands of the Chicago Police Department. The designs were also considerations for the permanent Chicago Torture Justice Memorial, which will bring awareness to the torture of more than 120 Black men and women by the Chicago Police Department from 1972 to 1991. In June, it was announced that artists Patricia Nguyen and John Lee’s stone design was chosen for that monument.
