The Art of Flocking, Burnham Wildlife Corridor, 2018


ArtSeed is an expansion on KidsMobile, a mobile creative play program engaging culture, nature, and art with youth and families across Chicago. ArtSeed engages over 2,000 young people (ages 3-12) across 35 parks evenly distributed across Chicago’s North, West, and South Sides for two hour bi-weekly pop-up art-making sessions. Youth participate in storytelling, music, movement, and nature play rooted in neighborhood stories. Children explore the histories and legacies of Chicago's community-based artists and imagine creative solutions to challenges in their own neighborhoods.

 

2023 Programming

ArtSeed was inspired by Afrofuturist author Octavia Butler's EarthSeed Trilogy. In this series, the main character is a Black teenager who guides her people to freedom by learning how to collaborate with the elements of earth, air, water, and fire. Her journey inspired our programming as we focus on climate justice, racial justice, and community healing through the arts. 

ArtSeed engages youth ages 5-15 across 24 public parks and 5 community gardens through storytelling, music, movement, and nature play rooted in climate justice and community healing. This summer we're offering programming in 6 community areas based on our relationships with park staff, BIPOC land stewards, and community organizers working towards climate justice. These neighborhoods include Albany Park, Little Village, North Lawndale, Back of the Yards, Englewood, and the Southeast Side. 

 

2021 Programming

In the Spring and Summer of 2021, ArtSeed & Young Cultural Stewards is partnering with Marwen on an initiative called Teaching Artist Mutual Aid, funded by The Field Foundation. 

Teaching Artist Mutual Aid is an intentional community of learning and care invested in and co-created by Chicago’s BIPOC & LGBTQIA+ teaching artists. Building on the principles of emergent strategy, Chicago Park District’s and Marwen’s teaching artists will build relationships with each other, urban gardeners, community organizers, and participate in the reciprocal practice of mutual aid. After a month of hands-on community care work, teaching artists will collaboratively develop an emergent curriculum which will be the foundation for summer youth programming in Chicago parks and gardens. 

ArtSeed and YCS will be facilitating Pop-Up programming in Chicago Park District parks and community gardens on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays July 5th - August 13th. We’ll also be working with digital media artist Ireashia Bennett to produce a documentary film telling the story of Mutual Aid in our parks and gardens. A final curriculum and documentary film screening will be shared virtually in October, 2021. 

 

2020 Programming

ArtSeed & Young Cultural Stewards - Fall 2020 

This fall ArtSeed and Young Cultural Stewards are presenting two innovative virtual programs to engage youth, families, and communities. The first is Young Cultural Producers which is a creative incubator for youth thought and ingenuity placed into motion. Young Cultural Producers will launch a podcast featuring such topics as: healing through hip hop, Queering the Parks, storytime, and YCS En Espanol. In addition, we’re piloting a new virtual program called “small is all” inspired by the work of writer, pleasure activist, and organizer adrienne maree brown. This series will feature ecological artists as well as inspiration from our more-than-human siblings; flora, fauna, and natural environments. Youth will be invited to create ecological art responding to weekly prompts and creative invitations.
 

ArtSeed & Young Cultural Stewards - Summer 2020 

This summer ArtSeed and Young Cultural Stewards are teaming up to provide socially distant creative workshops across 20 parks and 5 community gardens while exploring our program theme, Reparations for the Earth. Young people will be working with highly trained teaching artists whose backgrounds include visual art, performance, hip-hop, theater, yoga, meditation, reiki, and special education. All curriculum and facilitation emerge from our ArtSeed and YCS community values: centering youth voice, safety and wellness, silliness, transparent communication, shared accountability, and moving at the speed of trust. 
 

Reparations for the Earth 

Reparations for the Earth builds on prior ArtSeed and YCS collaborations including: The Art of Flocking (2018) which incorporated adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy as platform for addressing biomimicry with youth; and Re-Imagining Belonging (2019) a partnership with Chicago-based artist and activist Tonika Johnson exploring the impacts of structural racism and segregation on young people and their access to the elements: earth, air, water, fire, and spirit. 

Reparations for the Earth asks: how do we transform the harm humans have inflicted on our planet? ArtSeed and YCS will explore this question by collaborating with community gardeners and environmental justice organizers including American Indian Center at the First Nations Garden in Albany Park, The Breathing Room Space in Back of the Yards, Earl’s Garden and Mae’s Kitchen in Englewood, South Merrill Community Garden in South Shore, and Urban Grower’s Collective in East Chicago. Young people will work alongside gardeners, teaching artists, and community organizers to create art that uses recycled and upcycled materials, invest in community-driven urban agriculture, and practice creating a world in which all living beings have access to safety, dignity, and joy. 

 

2019 Programming

In 2019 ArtSeed will collaborate with Chicago-based artist Tonika Johnson on an initiative entitled Belonging. This collaboration between the ArtSeed, YCS, Inferno, and TRACE programs will engage 3,500 youth across 80 Chicago parks to explore questions around belonging, acceptance, and interconnection. Youth will work in partnership with teaching artist to interrogate their parks and neighborhoods and critically reflect on boundaries and barriers as well as the places of welcoming and sanctuary within our hyper-segregated city.

 

Check out the ArtSeed PHOTO GALLERY here.