Tag Archive
Best of the South Side 2008: Bridgeport
Historically, Bridgeport has been known both as a working-class Irish neighborhood and a home to well-connected politicians, including both Mayors Daley. However, there is another side to Bridgeport: a diverse, artistic neighborhood that welcomes outsiders without losing its strong community feel. A study, conducted by the Chaddick Institute at DePaul University, ranked Bridgeport the... »
Zine Scene: Exploring the South Side’s self-publishing community
“Chris” is 37 years old; he’s a high school English teacher, a husband, and a father. And last month, he added one more accomplishment to this already rather impressive list: zine maker. Granted, on first glimpse it might not seem like an achievement worth meriting—after all, the idea that “anyone can make a zine”... »
Home Sweet Version
Lumpen’s eighth annual Version festival kicked off with a welcoming on Thursday night, with a one-night installation and show by Lumpen and Philadelphia-based artist collective Space 1026 at the Country Club gallery in West Town. It marked the launch of Version ‘08 with a union of the two art collectives that will continue at... »
Dark Matter: Lumpen’s annual Version festival comes back for year eight
Leave the pearls and Lily Pulitzer at home: Thursday evening, the Version festival begins at Country Club, a gallery in Wicker Park. According to the festival’s website, “Version is an annual springtime convergence that brings in hundreds of artists, musicians and educators from around the world to present some of the most challenging ideas... »
Bad Trippin’ at Lumpen
March 22 marked the end of the “Radar Eyes” exhibition hosted by Seripop and Reuben Kincaid, two Canadian printing hotshots, in the Lumpen art collective’s Co-Prosperity Sphere. This Canadian print duo sought to harbor a good portion of experimental printmakers’ works, which “depict distortions of perception” and “altered states of awareness.” On the whole,... »
Blogspotting: Highlighting the blogs that talk the most on community development, local art scenes, and everything else essential to living on the South Side
Hyde Park Progress: When someone asks what Hyde Park Progress is all about, “chicago pop,” one of the blog’s three contributors, makes a plea for his community’s development. Hyde Park used to be pretty awesome when it was bustling with commerce and public transportation. Since World War II and the racial and social changes... »
One Flew into the Cuckoo’s Nest: A photography exhibition documents the forgotten history of mental hospitals
The abandoned mental asylums in Shawn May’s photographs are filled with rusted gurneys, exposed pipes, cracked paint, and bird droppings, but May wants viewers to take away more than just a sense of awe at the magnificently decaying vistas. He wants to cast a light on “a part of U.S. history that’s being lost”:... »
Party Planet
Depending on how naïve you are, calling a dance party celebrating gay life in Bridgeport the “Snow Ball” is either seasonally appropriate or disturbingly indecorous. Lumpen, the party hosts, probably intended the title to be both, but it indicated neither, since there was no snow on the ground last Friday night and a decidedly... »
