The actual result of the mapping experiment at Art in Action, however, was much more free-form than its organizers had envisioned—rather than a chart of the physical or political geography of the city, the maps gave subtle hints at how different people understand the same environment. One impressive twelve-year-old submitted a detailed map of the El, while another participant mapped out good South Side coffee spots, explaining in a note, “I added Powell’s because it’s nice to browse books after you’ve had coffee at Istria.”

Mark Hopwood, a third-year UofC graduate student in philosophy from northern England, started thinking about common University perceptions of the neighborhood when he, like so many UofC students, was cautioned against walking from campus to 65th and Cottage Grove. Being the “kind of person who’s always been curious about my local neighborhood,” he did it anyway. In February of this year, Hopwood attended a presentation by the Counter Cartographies Collective (3Cs) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where they displayed the alternative maps they’d created of their campus. Hopwood cited the 3Cs as the impetus for the Chicago project and found maps particularly appealing for this kind of experiment because, as he noted, “representing something visually lets people find their own entry point.” Because they are visual tools, maps present multiple perspectives and allow viewers to interpret and form their own impressions. For this reason, maps have an incredible potential to influence social consciousness. Hopwood references both the Mercator Projection and the iconic London Tube map as examples.

The ultimate goal of the project is to visually represent different sides of the local community and challenge the assumptions behind them, with a particular emphasis on life at the UofC. Hopwood’s vision of the project is fairly nebulous, and he hopes that in time, an organizing principle will arise through the project.

An incredible number of people from both the University and the broader community around it have expressed interest in the mapping project. Commenting on the impressive response, Hopwood says, “I love maps, and it turns out I’m not the only one.” The participants bring diverse perspectives to the project, and include both campus and local residents, activists from the Southside Solidarity Network and Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL), geography majors, and artists, who have come together as a group of people that Teddy Kent, a first-year at the UofC, describes as “absolutely passionate.”

During a mapping brainstorm session, the group proposes ideas for maps, such as foreclosures on the South Side, where StreetWise vendors sell and stay, and the extent of the University’s land ownership. During these discussions, the group grapples with the issues of access to information and controversy. Particularly with regard to the land ownership map, Kent has had trouble locating in public records the information necessary to create the map and anticipates pushback from the University if he pursues the subject further. Hopwood concedes that controversy might be inherent to this project because these maps could serve as an alternative to the image that the University of Chicago presents of itself and the surrounding community. He elaborated, “The University produces…perfectly accurate, perfectly serviceable maps of Hyde Park. What’s also true is that they produce a narrative of the community that’s not exactly false, but it’s not exactly the whole picture, either. All of us have the sense that our community is healthier when people have a wider range of perspectives to draw.” The first major project Hopwood hopes to put together will consist of several physical maps that will assist incoming UofC first-years in interpreting the many sides of their new home.

More than controversy, Hopwood wants to encourage residents of the South Side, particularly students, to learn about the community around them and reevaluate their impressions of neighborhoods that are—and in some ways are not—their home. As Hopwood says, “Maps are never just maps—they’re stories, they’re landscapes, they’re histories. They’re a way of accessing those stories.”

Art in Action will take place this Saturday, May 29th at First Presbyterian Church in Woodlawn from 11 am to 7 pm. The festival is full of music, art, vendors, and workshops. This year’s musical acts include Queen Portia, a local blues singer, jazz pianist Paris Smith, hip-hop artist and activist HB Sol, and Lakesigns, a student rock band. The event also features workshops for belly dancing and slam poetry. In addition to the entertainment, there will be discussion groups focused on South Side issues, like the impact of the 2016 Olympic Bid, a financial literacy workshop, and a discussion exploring the nature of racism. “There’s a hell of a lot of talented people but there isn’t a place to sell their art,” University of Chicago graduate student Mark Hopwood says. He gestures to a woman in the planning committee, “Dessie Williams is a great example. She makes jewelry, paintings, and children’s toys. Art in Action is somewhere she can sell it.” This year, Art in Action will include a free barbeque lunch and dinner.

Advertising for the festival has been almost entirely word of mouth, but the word has spread. What started as a 70-person event five years ago drew over 400 people last year. “I think this will be our biggest year yet,” Carol, a South side resident says confidently. This time around the committee is planning for about 500 visitors. Art in Action began with the partnership between the Southside Solidarity Network (SSN), a University of Chicago student run organization, and Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP), a community advocacy group from Woodlawn. The two groups found they had overlapping goals: SSN, a student group at the University, seeks to facilitate connections between the University of Chicago and the South Side; STOP aims to encourage political and economic awareness among South Side residents. Art in Action was a way to encourage the dialogue that both groups want to see.

Within the university community, regions south of the campus have traditionally been represented as uniformly dangerous, and students have been discouraged from venturing outside of typical University stomping grounds. “The mentality was that if you cross the Midway, you were going to get killed,” says STOP community liaison Wardell Lavender. The same sentiments ring true in the other direction as well—there has been mistrust in the Woodlawn community with regard to the University. “The University and the community were just never together,” Lavender says. “But then guys from the University came to the community and said ‘Look, we want a festival where the community mingles with the University.’”

Art in Action has grown out of a belief that the presence and practice of art can be a form of activism by breaking down cultural barriers and forging relationships with the community. “This event is meant to give students a different view of Woodlawn,” says Hopwood. “It is not a threat, but a community with a history, and it is possible for a relationship with the residents.”

For more information about Art in Action visit artinactionchicago.com

Many things have changed in the forty-four years since. Having abandoned its adversarial stance, TWO now works closely with the University, collaborating on the design and implementation of a “Quality of Life Plan” for Woodlawn as part of the citywide New Communities Program. Completed in May 2005, the five-year plan encompasses essentials like housing, education, and job creation, using input from involved residents and community groups like Woodlawn East Community and Neighbors (WECAN). According to Brazier, who works closely with the UofC as chair of the NCP committee, “The University is almost like a junior partner. It is helping the community stabilize itself. It has no desire to take over parts of Woodlawn.”

Nonetheless, the UofC campus is gradually creeping up on its southern boundary. A year from this September, more than 800 University of Chicago students will move into a new dorm on the northeast corner of 61st Street and Ellis Avenue. They will eat at an expanded version of the Burton-Judson dining hall, which lies just to the north. A couple blocks west, at 61st and Drexel, a 1000-space parking garage has sprung up to accommodate the recent growth of the UofC Hospitals. Starting soon, it will also serve as the new headquarters of the University’s police department.

This is all part of the University’s “Master Plan” for what it calls South Campus, its property between the Midway Plaisance and 61st Street. (The plan also includes projected constructions for West Campus, the area from 55th to 57th Street between Cottage Grove and University Avenues.) It has been in the works for a long time, though it’s hard to say exactly how long; plans were officially unveiled in a PowerPoint presentation at a community meeting in September 2004. “The University has made a commitment to being a good neighbor during the construction,” says Sonya Malunda, Assistant Vice President and Director of Community Affairs. She names a number of community initiatives: a new charter high school at 64th Street and University Avenue, the extension of the UofC Police Department’s patrol area, and an employment program called the Career Pathways Initiative. With these, she says, the University is helping to put Woodlawn’s Quality of Life Plan into practice.

Not everyone is satisfied with these efforts, however. “They pay lip service, but when it comes to actual things they could do more,” says Deborah Taylor, a tenant in North Kenwood. “I think they tend to gobble up what they need to the exclusion of everyone else.” Taylor worries that the University’s expansion might displace people from the Woodlawn community, a concern that is echoed by others. “It’s already having a huge impact,” says WECAN founder and president Mattie Butler. “Woodlawn is gentrifying anyway—poor people are being moved out, and people who are more affluent are being moved in.” She acknowledges that the University has “done an elaborate kind of outreach” to the community in order to form the NCP committee, but she remains skeptical: “My grey elephant at the planning committee table is affordable housing and people in the community—how will they be able to stay?” She appreciates that “the University has been stepping up to the plate when we ask them to provide services” like education and job training, yet she harbors no illusions about its participation in the Quality of Life Plan: “They have their own agenda, which has nothing to do with the reality of this community, except that they are part of this community.”

“Community” is always a nebulous thing, and this is especially the case in Woodlawn today. Gone from here is the grassroots unity that once characterized TWO; in its place, the organization has gained the kind of entrenched power regarded as more typical of the Establishment than of its 1960s activism. As resident and blogger the Woodlawn Wonder describes, “They’ve been doing this for a long time…[Reverend Dr. Leon] Finney [president of TWO] has currency with the University, so they’re the ones in the driver’s seat.” Since the ‘70s, TWO has been channeling federal funds into social services like health care and early childhood development programs. It also owns and manages housing for more than 10,000 residents through its development branch, the Woodlawn Community Development Corporation (WCDC). One result is a strange reversal: many Woodlawn residents now know TWO primarily as their landlord. “The WCDC has a lot of buildings now that are project-based subsidies,” explains Butler. “They control those people’s households—they have the say-so whether they’re going to keep them subsidized.”

In light of TWO’s transformation and, some might say, ossification, a number of smaller groups have sprouted up in Woodlawn: some, like the Grove Parc Tenants Association, have coalesced around a specific issue or need, while others such as Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) pursue a more general goal of community self-determination. If the kind of spirit that galvanized the protests of the ‘60s is still present in Woodlawn, it is among these groups that one is most likely to find it: the same sort of grassroots organizing is taking place in the campaign to save Grove Parc Plaza, a 504-unit public housing complex on Cottage Grove Avenue from 60th to 63rd Street. “It’s a lot of door knocking, passing flyers, planning meetings,” explains tenant Dessie Williams. Last August, she and about thirty other activists protested the possible demolition of the complex with signs, chants, and linked hands in a demonstration they called Hands Around Grove Parc. The fate of the buildings has yet to be decided; because of their deteriorated condition—Williams recalls the roof falling in on her neighbors—some residents will have to move off-site. However, along with many of those involved, Butler believes that the University is “not happy with 300 poor families still living on that property—they’d probably like to see that disappear.”

For some, it is the Grove Parc situation—not the NCP program, its job training, or charter schools—that represents the future of University-Woodlawn relations. “At the core it’s a land grab,” insists Bronzeville tenant and activist Alan Thomas. To him, the University’s intentions are no better than they were back in the ‘60s. “It’s been a long time coming, but you can see it coming to fruition now,” remarks Deborah Taylor. Other Woodlawn residents disagree. “This is 2008,” says Wallace Goode, director of the University Community Service Center and Woodlawn homeowner. “Expanding southward done the right way can be mutually beneficial. There are enough people in the University who will raise questions.” The Woodlawn Wonder agrees: “I’ve lived here six years, and from what I’ve seen their expansion can’t hurt the neighborhood in terms of what’s there now. For the past thirty or forty years [the community] has tried one way, and now we need more options…The University is a wildcard—you don’t quite know what you’re going to get.”

The uncertain nature of University initiatives can be seen in the controversy surrounding the Woodlawn Collaborative, a proposal that has garnered both revolutionary idealism and skeptical distrust. About a year ago, several interested organizations approached Goode with the idea of creating a place in Woodlawn where, as he describes it, “students and the community could interact in a non-threatening space.” Such a place was located last fall in the First Presbyterian Church at 64th Street and Kimbark Avenue; all it required was a donation in the form of a grant from the University, and a written proposal that would warrant such a grant. However, by the time student Greg Gabrellas submitted a twenty-five-page plan in April, many of the original groups had bowed out. Some, such as the Southside Solidarity Network, were unwilling to back what they saw as a potential tool of the University, a first step south of 61st Street into Woodlawn. Moreover, the proposal failed to live up to Goode’s standards; he maintains that he “will not support an activist center that does not open its doors to community service and non-activist groups.” For now, he says, the WC is “on the back burner.”

Speaking to the attendees of last Saturday’s Art in Action festival, however, one gets the sense that the Woodlawn Collaborative already exists—if not in a space, then in the students and community members who have already begun to collaborate. “The University has a long way to go in community relations,” says Woodlawn resident Travis. “It seems like the Woodlawn Collaborative is doing the University’s work [for them].” In the sense in which its current participants view it, the WC represents another, more complicated model of University-community interaction—one in which students join residents in subverting their University’s expansionist agenda.

At the moment, the University has no public plans to move south of 61st Street, but that it will do so eventually seems almost inevitable. Of the 1964 agreement, Sonya Malunda says, “There may have been a gentleman’s handshake about University acquisition some years ago, but I don’t think there was ever anything in writing.” Wallace Goode frankly states his belief that the University will cross the line in the coming years, and Mattie Butler points out that “the people who initially made the agreement [TWO] since that time have rethought their strategies.” Those strategies no longer include places like Grove Parc; instead, they now focus on the development of middle-income housing—a decision many interpret as promoting gentrification.

Gentrification is another word that means different things to different people; in the case of Woodlawn, its connotation generally corresponds to how one views the TWO-University partnership. For Goode, it can be a true “win-win relationship”: he pledges, “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure this growth is a partnership. And I absolutely believe that is possible.” Alan Thomas, on the other hand, flatly rejects this possibility: he sees the University as a party in an “overarching plan” to buy up property along the lakefront and, in collusion with major developers, “to turn the whole South Side white.” The solution, he insists, is “a concerted effort” amongst tenant associations and other community organizations to help South Side tenants own their buildings.

The Woodlawn Wonder might agree with him on this point, since she considers herself “a big fan of affordable home ownership.” However, she regards gentrification as “not necessarily a bad thing,” especially in light of the fact that Woodlawn has long been “seemingly isolated socially and economically,” with an enduring lack of supermarkets, dry cleaners, and other retail. Likewise, Mattie Butler acknowledges that gentrification has the potential to be a positive force, yet “too often the outside market comes in and has no compunction about poor people—they don’t want to see poor people at all.” It is possible to gentrify in a way that includes poor people, she says, “but it’s harder to do. People don’t want to spend the time or the money.”

The Meadville Lombard Theological School is set to become the first UofC affiliate to move south into Woodlawn when it gives up its Hyde Park location for a larger area south of the Midway; this fall, it will include community service in its ministerial students’ curriculum. Though its aims may differ markedly from those of the University, the move is sure to further dissolve the 61st Street line that currently divides campus from community. This begs the question: will the line lose its symbolic meaning—in terms of mistrust and fear—or will it simply move further south with University construction? Malunda predicts that the current 61st Street construction will “give students and the community an opportunity for much more interaction.” As Goode points out, there are already a wide variety of ways for students to get involved in the surrounding neighborhood, from working with the Neighborhood Schools Program to attending Art in Action. But there are still those students the Woodlawn Wonder has seen fall asleep on the 6 bus who wake up in terror when they realize they have “passed 57th Street.” There are still the “half” Dessie Williams describes, who “seem like they try to ignore me, like I’m not there—like I’m invisible.” In spite of this, alliances between students and Woodlawn residents are growing—often in opposition to the University itself. Uniting behind the Woodlawn Collaborative or the campaign to save Grove Parc, it is they—not extended police patrols, or even detailed PowerPoint presentations—who are fulfilling Travis’s hope: “I want to think that something can happen so that one is not afraid of the other.”

Photos by Lisa Bang

As Clare Johnson, one of the students involved in organizing the event, explained, the festival has grown since its first installation as a student project; these days its organizing committee consists of students as well as other members of the Hyde Park, Woodlawn, Kenwood, and Bronzeville communities. Deborah Taylor, a Kenwood resident, is one such member and described the festival as a first step in improving the relationship between the University and the surrounding neighborhoods, which she characterized as strained.

While the general sentiment of the festival was one of cooperation—the ambiance was both relaxed and cheerful—there was nonetheless an underlying tone of cynicism coming from certain students who implied that this was all “idyllic in theory” but that it didn’t serve any practical purpose in improving the University’s relationship with the community. But the fact that a couple hundred students were able, if only for a day, to meet and bond with local residents served as proof that some members of the University are not only aware of and sensitive to their surroundings, but are also interested in taking the first step in bettering their relationship with their neighbors.

Art’s always been important. Not just music; all kinds of art. It’s spiritual. I mean, it’s hard to explain: it’s just a feeling. I’d be creating music…Right now, I’m creating music and it depends on how I’m feeling. Everyday is different. The whole picture is relative.

You need art everywhere. It keeps us alive. We just happen to be on the South Side. If we’d be on the North Side it would be the same.

…We need art. Art has always been. We develop and play music here [at the Velvet Lounge] and some musicians might not go far, but some will.
- Fred Anderson
Velvet Lounge

Pilsen has given me a great opportunity to interact with the public directly from my art studio. Living and working within the Chicago Arts District for the past four years has helped me actively put my work out on the Chicago scene. Being able to work full-time on my art and support myself is important. I definitely have been lucky, but utilizing the tools that surround me has aided my pursuits.
- Gabe Lanza
Lanza Studio

Art matters because at its core art does not matter. That’s what I love about it. Our lives are full of things that “matter,” be it our jobs, our family and friends, the things going on in our city, not to mention the country and the world. Art is an oasis. It is the open and empty space we can fill with whatever we want. And the beauty of it is that at the end of the day what we put on that blank canvas does not matter (except maybe to our ego). It does not matter whether we like it or not. It does not matter whether we understand it or not. It doesn’t even matter whether we pay attention to it or not. And so we can say, “try it, do it, why the hell not!” We need art because we need the blank canvas. We need empty spaces to experiment, to explore, to be bold, and most importantly make mistakes and fail. It is how we learn and how we grow.

This is why I love being an artist in Chicago. Chicago is a city characterized by its empty spaces and “blank canvases,” where art can happen in this unique way. Whether it is the physical space of our raw, empty lofts and industrial spaces, the mental space marked by the lack of the “industry” mentality that dominates other cities, or even our Midwestern sense of humility, sincerity and accessibility, Chicago’s artistic culture is infused with a spirit of “it does not matter.” It’s why many of America’s greatest artists and entertainers got their start in Chicago. It is a city in which artists can feel free to explore, develop and find their artistic voices while testing that voice in the arena of a great city. And while we lament that our artists often leave Chicago for greener pastures, I know that these same artists take pride in saying they are from Chicago—even going so far as to still call it home. I’d like to think that, like home, it is that place of comfort. It is that place you can always return to. To create art that does not matter.
It’s not that Chicago needs art. Art needs Chicago.
- Nat Soti
Chicago Art Department

On the “South Side” we would say your question is bogus!

The purpose of art is linked with the purpose of human life. Human beings make, and have always made, meaningful and communicative marks on all types of surfaces within their environments. It is a defining feature of our species. Art matters if we matter. So why is there today a question coming from the University of Chicago community on the purpose and need of art on the “South Side”? What branch of intellectual study questions the need of essentials in a geographical area? All of us need art to be human.

Art is being created on the “South Side” of Chicago and has been created continually on the south side of every other place since ‘day one.’ What type of being questions art’s significance for a particular area of the globe? … Are they dismissing an area as devoid of art, and in dire need of art, because they have not ventured into that area to see the marks that are made there?… Or are they actually questioning the significance/existence of art in those areas because they see the residents as “others” incapable of producing “art”?… Or worse are they anti-intellectual and have never fully studied their own art history, its borrowings, influences, cross fertilizations, and believe theirs is the only evolved significant art? If they didn’t do it, no art exists?

I am part of an organization (Diasporal Rhythms) that promotes the collection of contemporary art produced by artists of African descent (others?). What we find is that art has always been produced, collected, and appreciated on “every” side and that the appreciators of such have an obligation to hold it up for acclaim. If it isn’t held up, it is usually lost. Our organization is within a long art appreciation tradition stretching back to the founder of this city. The art history of the “South Side” needs to be carefully studied.

The questions posed to your University audience should, more appropriately, be (a) how do we assist in the promotion of art creation and art appreciation activities that are already occurring in and around the University and (b) how do we leverage the material and intellectual resources of the University (without changing its mission) in concert with those of community individuals and cultural institutions to read, study, and preserve the artistic marks produced, and being produced, and thereby foster a fuller understanding of local art history and reduce the concept of “otherness” in this community?
- Patric McCoy
Diasporal Rhythms

I will mention only the relevance in terms of art’s audience. One thing art does is to attract and affect an audience. What the members of the audience discover is that they are together in their appreciation of the art, and this is of enormous importance in their coming to understand that they have things in common with one another, and to that degree that they are alike. Of course this happens with things besides art, but it is especially pronounced in the case of art, and often most complicated and textured there.

The South Side art I’m most familiar with is jazz. The role it plays here, in addition to what I noted above, is an extremely important interracial role. Oddly, ironically, and somewhat sadly, although historically jazz is very much the creation of black artists, of late its principal audience is mostly white. On Chicago’s South Side, however, both the musicians and their audience are racially mixed. The commonality thus engendered is enormously valuable, and it can lead to much more. This is perhaps not so very different from the racially mixed audiences for sporting events, and the fans of Chicago teams, but here, somehow, the object of interest seems more subtle and deep.

The University does what it can, I suppose, and lately it has been doing more. No university can do everything, and traditionally the University of Chicago is academically conservative. This is its strength, no doubt, but it means that the University cannot afford heavy investments in things outside canonical academic pursuits. There is no strong tradition here, for instance, of the performing arts. It is nearly impossible for students to earn academic credit in the performing arts. This isn’t such a bad thing. It means that the opportunities for amateur artistic activity are extensive, and the room is not being taken up by professional and pre-professional artists.
- Ted Cohen
Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago

People trying to make positive change in poor neighborhoods often seem focused solely on providing basics like improved housing or after school programs or health care. There is no question that services of this kind are crucial, but it is equally as important to remember that having access to things that are beautiful is part of what makes life worth living. One reason that Art in Action is so valuable is because it helps, in a small way, to satisfy this very real need for pleasure, fun, and loveliness in Woodlawn. Moreover, I think that making and enjoying art is something that speaks to most everyone, regardless of age, background, or socio-economic status. In this context, Art in Action unites citizens of the University and the surrounding neighborhood by illuminating what we have in common, and providing a safe forum for the discussion of how we can all come together over making the area we share the best it can be, regardless of our differences. The experience of creating art with people who we don’t typically relate to or empathize with helps us all to deconstruct the traditional boundaries, misunderstandings, and stereotypes that keep University students, faculty, and staff separate from our neighbors to the south. Even if it is just for a day, Art in Action draws us together as one community, and ideally, equips us to better understand and relate to one another even after it has come to an end.
- Hannah Birnbaum
Southside Solidarity Network, a University of Chicago club that organizes the Art in Action Festival every spring

I think [art] is very significant, the artists that create works of art are a voice to the public speaking on different issues—especially in the African-American community. It gives people a visual opportunity to conceive the concerns they’re dealing with on an ongoing basis, and see how people view the world at a specific point in time…what I create in 2008 can be looked back at in 2048. Art provides a historical point of view for the future. And from there we can see how things are constantly repeating themselves…like education, politicians have been talking about how we have to fix it for the past 200 years, but if I cover it in an art piece, it’s like, let’s get this thing fixed already.

[As for South Side art], I would have to say that from an institutional point of view the South Side art is primarily African-American, and in Chicago the institutions that support art are not primarily African-American—they show African-American art, but it’s not an institutionalized thing, you can’t see it on an everyday basis…it’s not [accessible] over a period of time and you don’t have that tangential access to it. If we didn’t have these institutions [on the South Side], a lot of people would have to go downtown—we need to spread these institutions across the city, get more people access to it. [When you can only view art downtown], people get intimidated—like you have to have a certain status to [view] it…I want it to be an ordinary process, get people’s mindsets to change a little bit, have people feel like it’s no big deal.

We look at our lives in the world as certain things we know we need for sure like shelter, or food and water…but just try to image a world without art—no music, no theater, no visual arts—what would you be doing? It’d be outrageous, it’d be like having no water…we need to get art into people’s lives, give people a way to express themselves.
-Bryant Johnson
Steelelife Gallery

Reported by: Sam Feldman, Laura Harmon, Yennie Lee, Julia Pagnamenta, Sean Redmond, Rachel Reed, and John Thompson

It’s 10pm on a Sunday night and Todd Frugia, proprietor of Rooms gallery in Pilsen, had just gotten home after a long day at work on the set of a McDonald’s commercial. Unlike some of his peers who complain about the need to do corporate work to pay the bills, Frugia doesn’t despair. “There’s a point where, in that realm, I’m pleasing my client, and I need my paycheck! I will acquiesce there, and do what they want. And then when I come home [to my studio], no one tells me what to do!” Frugia and his wife, Marakesh, have worked and lived in Pilsen for about ten years. The second floor of their gallery, called Rooms, is their home. “One of the guys I hired to do my camera operation is from the South Side; there’s a group of us (here) that are sort of professionals, sort of artists—there’s a real community.” Indeed, a “personal connection” between artists and their galleries distinguishes the community in Pilsen.

“It’s different from the intimidating galleries in the West Loop; they do great work, but I go in and I feel separated from it. And I come down here and see Gabe Lanza’s illustrations and I meet his family and his cats, and he’s (also) worried about bills; and his work is outstanding and it’s right there and I could buy a piece! It’s that personal connection. Even the MCA or the Art Institute, I go and expect beautiful pieces, but it’s so far away…” In regards to his experience as an artist on the South Side, Frugia ruminates, “we came here and met some friends who are photographers and video artists and almost immediately they took us in and we began to collaborate—that’s the spirit here.” Once Rooms Productions settled into its home on West 18th Street and built a small inventory of actors, camera crew, etc, Frugia noticed “…a texture to this environment, it’s just addictive: you want to stay here and work and create… It’s such a welcoming community: you can come in on any level, and if you’ve got good ideas you can work. That’s what’s unique to the South Side, and Pilsen in particular.”

Frugia recently returned from teaching an acting class at Colorado College. He thought it might also be a good opportunity to get some work of his own done. He admits it was a meaningful teaching experience, “but as far as writing or creating—I wasn’t like Walt Whitman, I just wanted to ski and relax. And then I come home and back to the texture.” He added, “I’ve never created as much as I have down here, it’s important to foster that. The key for me here is there’s a lot of energy…The South Side helps bring art out of you.” So for Frugia, the need is not bringing art to the South Side as much as bringing people to the South Side to see it. Those people comprise essentially two groups. On the one hand, those who live on the South Side but “feel intimidated by the gallery, as if it wasn’t for them.” On the other hand are artists on the North Side that show reluctance to trek down south, with excuses like safety and parking, despite support from artists in this area. “It’s about making the neighborhood more comfortable with that, but (also) making those North Siders more comfortable with it.” While Frugia doesn’t view art on the North vs. South Sides as a competition, “you start rooting for the South Side [all the same]” he admits. “On the one hand there’s a logical, aesthetic piece of me that says it’s great to bring [art] to this area; the North Side has this great history of art and theater but…something in the air down here, it’s more energized.”

When asked about incentive to work on the South Side, his response was anything but martyrdom. Quite the opposite, “I just saw it and thought wow, that looks like a great place to create… There’s just that right mix of grittiness, life, art and vibrancy that makes this area so vivid…it’s not about bringing art to the South Side, art already lives here, we just need to bring it out…” Every third Thursday Frugia personally helps bring art out rather than to the South Side, when he opens Rooms gallery for “Salon.” This is an impromptu performance, essentially prepared by forming a list of individuals from whom Frugia has received interest. It is an outlet for aspiring artists to perform or display any form of art. This in part responds to his “gripe” concerning the South Side: “When I was on the North Side, I kept feeling like I needed a lucky break.” Frugia noted numerous organizations that help showcase South Side art: the South Side Arts Network (which his wife Marrakesh recently joined), the Mexican Cultural Center, and the integral “Second Friday” event in Pilsen. The proximity of artists to their art is unique to the South Side, and for Frugia this is an important goal of art. “People like us who have to go during the day do the corporate work but come back to your gallery and do what you want.” (Rachel Reed)

For Sociology professor Terry Clark, art is part of “making culture into magic.” It fulfills the aesthetic demands of particular social groups and serves as an integral part of the rise of “scenes,” an increasingly vibrant unit of social activity. With post-industrial trends like a general increase in education, income level, individualism, and social tolerance, individuals come to regard art as a valuable amenity, not just a peculiar or interesting aspect of cultural life. This trend makes art socially meaningful not just on an individual level, but on the broader level of community cohesion, political action, and economic development.

“Traditional models of urban economic growth point to production, land, labor, capital, management, and later, human capital. But as these new post-industrial, post-modern cultural trends take place, cultural amenities such as art become increasingly important elements of economic growth as they attract the creative, young classes who have the human capital necessary to fulfill the needs of the new creative, service-based economy. But,” he clarifies, “it is not art in general that inherently holds social value, it’s about the kinds of art and scenes in specific locations and how they cater to the different aesthetic styles and cultural values of individuals.”

Particular local cultural preferences manifest themselves in “scenes,” which can be described in terms as diverse as “Disney Haven” and “Cool Cosmopolitanism.” Art acts as an essential part of these scenes, attracting individuals who want to consume particular kinds of culture and participate in new kinds of social interaction as well as tourists. From the local to the global level, the growing importance of art summed up in scenes is reshaping political and economic trends, as governments must respond to scenes as important social entities and businesses must respond to the cultural sensitivities they demand. (Laura Harmon)

The eight-member panel, which was organized by the Southside Solidarity Network, included both those with an interest in preserving Hyde Park’s past and current diversity and those focused on economic development. The Hyde Park Historical Society, the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference (HPKCC), the University, the Hyde Park Art Center, and the 53rd Street Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district were among those represented. While it would be impossible to divide them neatly into two camps, since many have overlapping interests and concerns, the organizations themselves seem to have been disconnected from opposing viewpoints. “These enclaves are voicing their opinions in vacuums,” said Susan Campbell of the University’s Office of Community Affairs. “We need to make sure everyone has a say if we want to maintain diversity.”

The discussion allowed a wide range of opinions to be expressed, many in conflict but some in general agreement. The establishment of a new retail corridor on 53rd Street is a top priority for several of the panelists, though the type of retail to solicit remains a matter of dispute. Architect Aaron Cook suggested the Gap, eliciting a murmur of disapproval from the audience. Most panelists seemed in favor of a healthy mix of local and national, cheap and high-end establishments, but a number of audience members voiced fears that Hyde Park could lose its diverse, eclectic character if it becomes the site of too many upscale chains.

Most panelists also agreed on the need for increased residential density, which allows for greater sustainability in terms of both businesses and the environment. As Irene Sherr of Community Counsel explained, “In the ‘60s, Hyde Park had 65,000 residents. Now it has 44,000.” She argued that taller buildings would allow for a larger population, which would translate into a larger market and draw more businesses into the area. But as several other panelists pointed out, Hyde Park’s problem may not be the size of its market so much as its ability to exploit it: currently, many students choose to spend their money elsewhere in the city. Perhaps this is because, as HPKCC president George Rumsey remarked, “There’s no entertainment here beyond browsing the bookstore.” Even University of Chicago students need something more than that—just as long as the bookstores don’t all become Borders.

Last spring, Clare Johnson and her boyfriend went bike riding on the North Side in search of a neighborhood that wasn’t undergoing gentrification. Johnson, at the time a third-year undergraduate at the University of Chicago, was looking for someplace she could live without contributing to the controversial process whereby working-class, often physically dilapidated neighborhoods are redeveloped and then shoot up in property value. Although gentrification can bring benefits to a neighborhood, from better city services to more extensive retail options, it often has the effect of displacing the current residents, whose families may have lived in that area for generations. Johnson’s four-hour bike ride yielded disappointing results. “Some places are a little worse, some places are a little better,” she says, but nowhere is exempt. “Every neighborhood is in some process of gentrification,” agrees Rebecca Shi, Johnson’s friend and fellow UofC fourth-year.

When Johnson realized she couldn’t escape gentrification, she decided instead to make a positive impact, or at least avoid a negative one. Johnson currently heads the Responsible Housing Guide project for the Southside Solidarity Network (SSN), a student club at the UofC. The project was conceived by Jenny Akchin, a former student involved with SSN. While selling anti-gentrification T-shirts at an SSN event last year, Akchin heard students express frustration about their roles as unintentional gentrifiers. Together with Johnson and other students, she decided to put together a guide to help such students move off campus without disturbing the communities they moved into. Since then, the project’s target audience has expanded to include graduate students and more. “When the University is trying to bring professors to Chicago and offering them housing options, [it could] give them a copy,” offers Daniela Petuchowski, a fourth-year student involved in the project.

Johnson expects the guide to come out the first week of May in a magazine-like format. Its thirty or so pages will include tips on subjects from choosing a landlord to buying local and avoiding “big box” retail. On the former subject, for example, the guide will urge readers to rent from a local rather than an absentee landlord and to consult an online database that lists landlords across the city who have committed crimes from illegal evictions to zoning violations. The guide will also urge potential gentrifiers to pay attention to the average rent in an area and try to stay within that range. This makes it less likely that landlords will dump established residents for better-paying students and graduates, and can help prevent an upwards re-evaluation of real estate value, which can cause the whole area’s property taxes to increase.

While interning last summer for Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP), Johnson interviewed community organizers and human rights activists and asked them for advice for the Responsible Housing Guide project. “What I kept hearing was, ‘Talk to your neighbors. Be part of the community,’” says Johnson. “That was the most common reaction to the guide that we got.” This focus on community involvement helped Johnson realize that “it’s less about where you live than how you live there.” She abandoned any idea of telling people which neighborhoods to live in and which neighborhoods to avoid. “It was absurd to think that students wouldn’t move to Pilsen. It’s just not realistic to expect people to choose what neighborhoods to move to based on this,” she reflects. And besides, it might not even be desirable to avoid neighborhoods struggling with the effects of gentrification. “There’s not a place you can move to that will keep you out of the fray,” says Johnson. “But maybe it’s better to move someplace where there’s a struggle, so you can make a difference.”

Despite the confrontational language, Johnson’s advice for potential gentrifiers is simple and far from radical. “What you can do [is] support the retention of the community that existed before you and respect it,” she says. “We don’t want everyone to be an activist—that’s absurd.” Instead, the Responsible Housing Guide project asks students, professors and others to simply be aware of the effects of their actions and try to minimize their harmful impact on their new homes and communities.