Online Workshop: Making it What We Need

Making it What We Need
Cultural ReProducers + Mother Creatrix Collective
Thursday, April 18th
7pm Eastern Standard Time
   

We're excited to present our Making it What We Need workshop online for the very first time! No matter where you are, join forces with other parents in the arts to help create the art world you'd like to be a part of. Making it What We Need is a generative workshop considering alternate models for living, making, and making a living as artists, led by Cultural ReProducers organizer Christa Donner. The workshop is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Mama Needs a Raise at the Old Stone House in Brooklyn, NY, and will be followed by a Q and A with New York's Mother Creatrix Collective as a real-life example of artist-mothers making it what they need.

If you'd like to join us, please Pre-Register for more information and to access the Zoom link.

Events: Graham Foundation Series

Tatiana Bilbao Estudio, from Unraveling Modern Living, digital collage, 2019

Cultural ReProducers is excited to share a new series of events created in collaboration with the Graham Foundation this Fall, in conjunction with the exhibition Estudio Tatiana Bilbao: Unraveling Modern Living. The Mexico-City based architecture office transforms the former domestic space of the Graham Foundation's historic Madlener House to explore new forms of collectivity. CR and other groups will activate and intervene in these spaces throughout the season.

Alberto Aguilar, "Portal Court" (detail), sidewalk chalk, bean bags, rubber
balls, and public participation, 2019

Portal Court
Alberto Aguilar

Sunday, September 15, 2019
1:00pm

Graham Foundation, 4 West Burton Place
Chicago, Illinois 60610

To join us, RSVP HERE

Using pavement, chalk, bouncy balls, and bean bags, artist Alberto Aguilar transforms the sidewalks surrounding the Graham Foundation's Madlener House into a floor game court and participatory performance. This event is designed as an outdoor program for children and families though participants of every age are invited to join in.

Alberto Aguilar is a Chicago based artist. He has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit; El Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Havana, Cuba; Palo Alto Art Center; National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, IL; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Minneapolis Institute of Art: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; and The Art Institute of Chicago. His work is held in the collections of the National Museum of Mexican Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Soho House Chicago; and the Chicago Cultural Center. Aguilar is the recipient of the 3Arts Award.

Cultural ReProducers, Making it What We Need at Glass Curtain Gallery, 2014

Making it What We Need
Christa Donner
Saturday, November 23rd, 2019
9:30am - noon
Graham Foundation
4 West Burton Place
Chicago, Illinois 60610

Help create the creative community you'd like to be a part of - in conversation with curators, artists, arts administrators, and others. Making it What We Need is a generative workshop considering alternate models for living, making, and making a living as artists, led by Cultural ReProducers organizer Christa Donner. Non-parents are welcome to join the conversation, which will be relevant to anyone working toward a sustainable life in the arts. Free, on-site childcare will be available through pre-registration. Space at this event is extremely limited. If you'd like to join the conversation, please fill out this Participation Form by November 7th.

Christa Donner is an artist, curator, and mother who incorporates drawing, participatory performance, and small-press publications to create multi-layered projects that are both intimate and community-centered. Donner’s work is exhibited widely, including projects for the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin, Germany); BankArt NYK (Yokohama, Japan); Chiaki Kamikawa Contemporary Art (Paphos, Cyprus); Yale-NUS (Singapore); the Museum Bellerive (Zurich, Switzerland), and throughout the United States. In 2012 Donner helped launch the collaborative platform Cultural ReProducers, providing skillsharing, critical dialogue, participatory events, and an international community supporting the dual work of artists raising children. 

Exploring the Grahamlener Bilbraoducers Commons

Hui-Min Tsen, view of the Graham Foundation, 2019

Hui-Min Tsen

December 7, 2019
10am
Graham Foundation
4 West Burton Place
Chicago, Illinois 60610

Come explore the Graham Foundation! Participants will be given a diverse range of prompts and sent out to interact with the historic Madlener House and Tatiana Bilbao's exhibition, "Unraveling Modern Living." What will you discover? How will you perceive the building? On return from your explorations your tales and impressions will be woven into the broader story of the building and some of Tatiana Bilbao's ideas.

 This intergenerational program is open to participants of all ages.

Hui-Min Tsen   is a photo-based, interdisciplinary artist whose work contemplates the spatial and mental landscapes residing in the gap between Here and There. In projects ranging from walking tours to boat building to works on paper, she uses research and observation to interweave stories of history and the collective imagination with our everyday experience of place and the unknown. Tsen received a BFA from the Tisch School of the Arts, and an MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited and published with the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago Artist's Coalition, MDW Fair, and Sector 2337, among others. Her book, "The Pedway of Today" was published by Green Lantern Press in 2013. She currently teaches photography at Loyola University.

Events: Extended Practice Series

Cultural ReProducers is thrilled to join forces with Extended Practice, a new project merging professional skillsharing, exhibitions, and programming with on-site childcare for artist-mothers organized by Angela Lopez and Sara Holwerda. The event series, supported by the  Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, picks up where CR's Childcare-supported series left off, and features on-site childcare, exhibitions and screenings of recent work by mother-artists, and professional practices events with networking lunches for participants. 

Find out more about the project at ExtendedPractice.com, and mark your calendars.

September 17th, 2017
11am-3pm

The Art of Making it Work: Reimagining Participation and Production as Artist Parents

Registration Fee $10 (includes childcare and lunch - vegan and gluten free options available)
Chicago Family Picnic
3711 N Ravenswood Ave #105, Chicago, IL
On September 17th, artist and Cultural ReProducers organizer Christa Donner will lead an idea-generating conversation and strategy-building workshop on 'making it work' as a parent and artist. Participants will explore existing artist-led initiatives that address the challenges of artist-parenthood, and will reflect on their own experiences with balancing art-making and child-rearing. Through individual and collaborative activities, participants will identify key needs and desires of artists parents and will develop new models for creating a more sustainable artistic life in Chicago. Space is extremely limited, so reserve a spot for yourself and your kids right here.

Saturday, October 7th, 2017
Video Screening (Time TBD)

The Nightingale Cinema
1084 N Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL
Suggested Donation: $7- $10
An intergenerational screening of animated works by filmmakers and artists who are mothers. 
Bring the kids! Are you an animator and a mother?
Extended Practice is Accepting Submissions until September 16th!

Monday, October 30th, 2017
Ways We Make: Mothers of Color Nurturing and Building our Creative Communities 
Part 1: Childcare-Supported Gathering and Potluck 5:30-7pm
Experimental Station
6100 S. Blackstone Ave, Chicago, IL
The first of two interconnected events organized with artist Wisdom Baty, Ways We Make is a childcare-supported gathering of mothers who make. As children engage in supervised play and art making, mothers will connect with each other over a shared meal and guided conversation. Together, we will discuss the challenges of making while parenting, share strategies for how to carve out the space and time we need, and question traditional artist spaces. Registration is required: https://extendedpracticeprojects.wufoo.com/forms/extended-practice-ways-we-make/

Sunday, November 5th, 2017
Professional Practices Workshop by Selina Trepp + All-ages Performance by Spectralina
Experimental Station, workshop will be from 11am-2pm with a live performance from 2-3pm
6100 S Blackstone Ave, Chicago, IL

Registration fee: $10 (includes childcare and lunch - vegan and gf options available)
Artist Selina Trepp will give an artist talk and lead a discussion about how she empowers herself as a mother and artist. She will discuss her multi-disciplinary art practice, and will go into detail about how parenthood has affected her artistic production. Trepp will explain how she navigates  logistics, politics, and money in her practice, and her interactions with institutions. Following the talk, participants are invited to a networking lunch - and brainstorming session - guided by founders of Extended Practice, Sara Holwerda and Angela Lopez.

Afterwards all ages can enjoy a live performance by SPECTRALINA, the collaborative audio-visual performance project of artists, musicians and parents Dan Bitney and Selina Trepp. Working with an improvisational structure, Spectralina combines singing, percussion, electronics and real-time video processing. Together, Bitney and Trepp create an engaging image and sound relationships in their performances, in which projected animation and improvised sounds come together as visual music.

Tuesday, November 7th, 2017
Ways We Make: Mothers of Color Nurturing and Building our Creative Communities  
Part 2: Intergenerational Exhibition / Sharing, 5:30-7pm
Experimental Station
6100 S. Blackstone Ave, Chicago, IL
At the second of two interconnected events organized with artist Wisdom Baty, we will celebrate the creative work of mothers of color. Everyone is welcome to join us for this free, one-night exhibition and sharing: families and extended support networks of friends, fans and supporters. Mothers - and children - are invited to share and discuss their work at this informal, intergenerational event.

Coming in 2018...

Exhibition + Community-Building Events
Roman Susan Gallery
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago, IL
A rotating exhibition and weekly meet up featuring work by artists who are new moms. 
 

Free and open to the public. Children and families welcome.

Participate: Artists Raising Kids Project

Here's a chance to exchange artist-parenting experience with artists from everywhere: Artists U, a free professional resource for artists working in any discipline, is working to compile a free PDF booklet of advice and parenting hacks by and for artists raising kids, and they want to hear from you. Click HERE to participate through their short, two-question survey.

For those of you in or near Philadelphia, PA, this survey will also be part of an upcoming workshop and conversation on Artists Raising Kids next week! Here's more information on the event:

Artists U will host a workshop/conversation
for artists raising kids AND artists thinking of having kids
. Come together with other artists for a look at challenges and possibilities raising kids as a working artist.This is not a gripe session. We will look realistically at the challenges facing artist parents, always with an eye toward possibility and solutions.

Artists Raising Kids Workshop
Monday, December 2, 5:00 pm-8:00pm
Christ Church Neighborhood House
N. American St and Filbert St, Philadelphia 19106
RSVP here (and let us know how many kids/what ages you will bring)
Artist Parent? Take our two question survey to help us gather information for the workshop
Childcare and Pizza will be provided!

UPDATE: you can now find a report from this event and a link to the free, downloadable booklet right HERE.