Category: community organizing

  • Erick Lyle talks Streetopia at Quimby’s 10/20

    streetopia

    After San Francisco’s new mayor announced imminent plans to “clean up” downtown with a new corporate “dot com corridor” and arts district–featuring the new headquarters of Twitter and Burning Man–curators Erick Lyle and Chris Johanson brought over 100 artists and activists together with residents fearing displacement to consider utopian aspirations and plot alternative futures for the city. The resulting exhibition, Streetopia, was a massive anti-gentrification art fair that took place in venues throughout the city, featuring daily free talks, performances, skillshares and a free community kitchen out of the gallery. This book brings together all of the art and ephemera from the now-legendary show, featuring work by Swoon, Barry McGee, Emory Douglas, Monica Canilao, Rigo 23, Xara Thustra, Ryder Cooley and many more. Join Lyle to consider the effectiveness of Streetopia‘s projects while offering a deeper rumination on the continuing search for community in today’s increasingly homogenous and gentrified cities.

    “Streetopia’s projects were futuristic, idealistic, historically sensitive, and surprisingly practical. They offer enough ideas to keep anyone who cares about public life, culture, and art busy for the next decade.” –Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick, and Where Art Belongs

    “Streetopia is a squat, dense little brick of a book, loaded with colorful photographs and reproductions of documents from the exhibition…Reading Streetopia will prepare you to think about what such an exhibition would entail, and why it’s so necessary.” — Seattle Review of Books

    Erick Lyle is a writer, curator, musician, and underground journalist. His work has appeared in Art in America, Vice, California Sunday Magazine, Huck, LA Weekly, Brooklyn Rail, the San Francisco Bay Guardian and on NPR’s This American Life. Since 1991, he has written, edited, and published the influential punk/activist/art/crime magazine, SCAM. More info: onthelowerfrequencies.com

    Share this event with Facebook and get your friends to come here!

    Thursday, October 20th, 7pm – Free Event

  • Offsite: Chicago Zine Fest Valentine’s Day Karaoke Fundraiser at Beauty Bar Chicago 2/14

    cfz karaoke 2016 gina wynbrandt

     

    Show your love through song this Valentine’s Day, Sunday, February 14th as you help raise funds for the independent literary event Chicago Zine Fest, at Beauty Bar, 1444 W Chicago Ave. (NOT AT QUIMBY’S.)

    For their fifth annual karaoke fundraiser, Zine Fest partners with Shameless Karaoke with a songbook of karaoke favorites from Blondie, the Smiths, James Brown, Madonna, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Prince, The Clash, Elvis Costello, the Kinks, Kiss, Britney Spears, Roxy Music, the Sex Pistols, classic punk and new wave and more. You can voice your feelings about Valentine’s Day with your song selection, whether it’s “Addicted to Love” or “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”

    Bring some extra dollars as Beauty Bar offers unique drink specials all night long, including a signature martini and manicure to make sure you look your best this holiday.  Plus Zine Fest will hold a 50/50 raffle, splitting the pot that night with one lucky winner. Purchase raffle tickets for a chance to take home a nice holiday gift.

    There is a $5 admission which will benefit the 2016 Chicago Zine Fest. The event beings at 8pm and is 21+.

    About Chicago Zine Fest: Chicago Zine Fest (CZF) is a celebration of small press and independent publishers. CZF’s mission is to showcase the culture and accessibility of zine-making through workshops, events, and an annual festival that welcomes artists and creators to share their stories, knowledge, and love of zines. Chicago Zine Fest 2016 takes place on April 29th and 30th, 2016. Visit chicagozinefest.org for more information.

    Join the event on Facebook and invite your friends: https://www.facebook.com/events/545483928934905/

    About Shameless Karaoke: Visit www.facebook.com/ShamelessKaraoke/

    See the Shameless Karaoke list here to think about what song(s) you want to do!

    Artwork by the lovely and talented Chicago artist Gina Wynbrandt (Big Pussy).

    Quimby’s is proud to co-sponsor Chicago Zine Fest, which is April 29th-30th, 2016.

  • Include Your Zine or Comic in Read/Write Library's Pop Up Library!

    RewritableWP_Poster copy

    Read/Write Library will be hosting a month-long Pop Up Library as part of the City’s new Activate! initiative in partnership with Latent Design: http://www.activate-chi.org/boombox/.

    Drop your zine or comic off at Quimby’s for it and we’ll pass it along!

    Throughout November, community members will continuously rewrite the cultural history of Wicker Park by adding their stories and publications to the shelves, as well as learn how to uncover and document their histories through public programs.

    The goal in all Read/Write Pop Up Libraries is to connect community members across cultural and generational lines, making their histories visible and helping to make cultural participation more accessible. Read/Write Library is currently the only library of its kind in the world.

    You can find full details here: http://readwritelibrary.org/rewritable-wicker-park-pop-up-november-2015

    And a Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1724108804486364/

    Info as per the Read/Write site:

    Rewritable Wicker Park is a month-long Pop Up Library and public program series that will showcase and connect the cultural contributions that generations of community members have made to establish the neighborhood as an internationally recognized creative engine. By adding the stories of their organizations, families, galleries, publications, parishes, classrooms, theaters, neighbors and more to the Library’s shelves throughout the month of November, community members both past and present will come together to craft the historical and cultural narrative of one the city’s most dynamic areas.

    This Pop Up Library will be the first resident in the new Boombox kiosk on Milwaukee Avenue’s Mautene Court, part of Activate! Chicago’s programs for bringing public plazas to life through culture and entrepreneurship. It will be the largest Pop Up Library to date for Read/Write Library as the nonprofit approaches its 10-year anniversary in February 2016.

    Beginning with media drawn from the collections of Read/Write Library and neighborhood organizations, the Pop Up Library will feature a diverse array of publications including decades of community newspapers, artist books, music and culture magazines, poetry chapbooks, comics, zines, family memoirs, handbills, community plans, and more — representing Wicker Park’s history through the first person, creative expressions of those who have lived, worked, and studied here.

    Reflecting the interconnectedness of neighborhoods in the West Town community area, the Pop Up Library will welcome Library contributors to determine their own relationship to and definition of the neighborhood as it intersects with Bucktown, Humboldt Park, Noble Square, Ukrainian Village, West Town, and other areas.

    Public Events

    The Pop Up Library will be open during regular browsing and reading hours (to be posted on readwritelibrary.org), and will host public events and workshops each weekend. Food trucks will have warm food and drink for purchase at each event. All events are free and welcome to all ages.

    • Opening & Collection Kickoff — Saturday, November 7th 3-5pm
    Performances, readings, storytelling, and interactive neighborhood history discussion.

    • Neighborhood Research & Documentation — Saturday, November 14th 3-5pm
    Workshop to learn fun and useful techniques for discovering the history of your neighborhood through interviews, research at community institutions, and making connections with your neighbors and local businesses.

    • How and Why to Preserve Your Family & Community Media
    Saturday, November 21st 3-5pm
    Hands-on workshop to learn about saving the documents of our past (and present).

    • Final Friday Celebration — November 27th — 5-7pm
    Activate!, Read/Write Library and partner organizations present closing performances for Rewritable Wicker Park.

    ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS

    WHAT IS READ/WRITE LIBRARY?
    Read/Write Library invites you to rewrite your city’s history by putting your story on the shelf. In our public Humboldt Park location, neighborhood Pop Up Libraries, and workshops, we use community media to highlight a region’s creative and political interdependencies, creating a visible network of primary sources that make cultural participation accessible and honor the contributions of all of Chicagoans. Formerly Chicago Underground Library, Read/Write Library will celebrate our 10th anniversary in 2016. www.readwritelibrary.org | @TheChibrary

    WHAT IS ACTIVATE?
    Activate! Chicago is a new initiative from the City of Chicago in partnership with Latent Design that transforms underutilized public plazas into cultural and economic catalysts.
    Activate! will curate unique cultural experiences in neighborhoods across Chicago. This is a multi- faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Capitalizing on a local community’s assets, inspiration and potential, placemaking creates public spaces that promote people’s health happiness, and economic well-being. www.activate-chi.org | #ActivateChi

    WHAT IS BOOMBOX?
    Boombox is a prefabricated micro retail kiosk installed in high volume public spaces to provide short term pop up retail opportunities for local entrepreneurs and community activators.
    Boombox combines the successful features of pop-up shops and festival booths. It provides innovative transitional retail spaces at affordable weekly rates. This exceptionally designed space will become an iconic attraction that will rival coveted storefront locations without the capital commitment.
    #Boombox

    WHAT IS FINAL FRIDAY?
    Final Friday is our signature event series bringing small and large scale performances to select sites across the city. We curate work in partnership with our community partners that is provocative, hilarious, emotional, but never typical to break the routine with a moment of reflection and wonder. #FinalFri

    WHO IS LATENT DESIGN?
    Latent Design specializes in ideation, strategy, and execution of scalable and highly experiential architecture and urban design. Our participatory approach to design creates new social impact systems by leveraging creative disruption in our urban environments.www.latentdesign.net @latent_design

  • Fire Relief for AK Press & Friends

    akfireOur friends at AK Press and 1984 Printing had a fire. AK Press is a publisher and distributor of many subversive zines and books that we carry here at Quimby’s, and they share a building with 1984 Printing, as well as other residents. Help them get back on their feet by contributing to their relief fund on GoFundMe.

    Here is what they posted on their GoFundMe site:

    In the early morning of March 21, the building behind ours caught fire. Two people lost their lives. The fire  moved to the mixed-use warehouse building we share with 1984 Printing and 30+ residents. Everyone in our building got out safely, but several units were completely destroyed. There was extensive water and smoke damage to other units, including the ones occupied by AK Press and 1984 Printing.

    On the afternoon of March 24th, the City of Oakland red-tagged our building, which prohibits us from occupying it. We don’t know how long this will last, but it obviously means we can’t conduct business as usual.

    We know how many of you support what AK Press does and the important role it plays in independent and radical publishing. A lot of you have been asking what is the best way to help us in the midst of this chaos and disruption. In fact, the outpouring of support and mutual aid has been pretty damn amazing. There was a small army of people here helping with clean-up over the weekend, and we’ve already raised some emergency funds from generous donations via PayPal (thank you!!) while we were working out the logistics of coordinating a larger fund drive.

    But we and our neighbors can all still use help, and we want to make sure everyone affected benefits from the same kind of mutual aid we have seen. In our case, while we have lost thousands of books and pamphlets, our first concern is the smaller presses who we distribute. Several of them had inventory damaged. We want to make sure we are able to pay them so that they can keep going and reprint their books. Second, we are concerned about all the work we are currently unable to do: the books not being shipped out, the files not getting sent to the printer while we are kept out of the building. We are working out the details of our insurance, of what stock is and isn’t covered, but we won’t see any insurance money for quite a while and we’ll definitely need some support until that happens, and to make sure our losses aren’t passed on to other publishers we distribute.

    Our neighbors at 1984 Printing had a ton of paper, materials, jobs in progress, and computers damaged. Residents of the building lost varying percentages of their belongings. Some lost everything.

    So, if you can help, it’s pretty simple: whatever you donate will be evenly split three ways between AK Press, 1984 Printing, and our affected neighbors.

    And all of us will be very, very grateful.

    Solidarity,
    The AK Press Collective

    Click here for the link where you can donate and also read updates.

  • Zine & Comics Events: Making Magic Happen Librarians & Zinesters, at Quimby’s 1/30

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    Join librarians and zine enthusiasts at Quimby’s Bookstore to discuss running a successful zine or comics event – whether it’s a one-hour DIY workshop for teens or a festival with thousands of attendees. Librarians, zinesters, and comics makers will share stories and tips about developing community through events, and then open the floor to your questions. This workshop to learn about promoting comics and zines from successful planners from the Chicago Zine Fest, Chicago Public Library and more.

    Featured speakers include: Johnny from Chicago Zine Fest, Julie Koslowsky (Outreach Coordinator for YOUmedia at the Chicago Public Library and CZF) & Joshua for Mid-Michigan Zine Fest.

    Coordinated with the 2015 American Library Association Midwinter Conference, this is your chance to meet and talk about zines with some of the 12,000 librarians who will be in Chicago. After the event (and time for browsing), head around the corner to Dimo’s for vegan-friendly pizza (1615 North Damen Avenue).

    This event is free and open to the public – anyone interested in zines or libraries is encouraged to attend!

    For more info:

    Violet Fox (violetfox(at)gmail(dot)com)

    Log in to Facebook for event page here.

    Friday, Jan 30th, 7pm – Free EventUntitled1

  • Hurricane Sandy Damage Updates – Help Save Printed Matter!

    The store Printed Matter in New York reaches out. If you want to support the importance of print, take a look at this e-mail from Printed Matter’s executive director James Jenkin.

    Dear Friends of Printed Matter,

    On behalf of the whole team here at Printed Matter I wanted to say thanks to the many of you who have reached out over the past few days–the response has been a bit overwhelming. I’m sorry we have been unable to respond directly to everyone, but I wanted to update everyone briefly on the situation here. Like much of Chelsea, our non-profit store was hit rather hard. While thankfully we were spared ground-level flooding, our basement storage facility took on more than 6 feet of water and as a result we have lost a sizeable amount of our inventory, including large quantities of Printed Matter publications, fundraising editions, as well a range of other stock, much of historical interest and value.

    Unfortunately, the Printed Matter Archive was also badly damaged, a portion of it irretrievably. Compiled since the organization’s founding in 1976, the archive held important documentation pertaining to the field of artists’ books as well as a record of the non-profit’s own history. This included early ephemera relating to exhibitions and programming that was important to the field, printed catalogs featuring now rare artist books, and correspondence between the organization’s founders. In addition, an extensive collection of slides and photographs providing a visual history of the organization’s programs and activities was also damaged, including, notably, a full record of the window exhibition program organized by Lucy Lippard. About 20 boxes with archive material deemed to be possibly salvageable has since been sent for emergency conservation. While we are hopeful these efforts will be successful, we expect that it will be a difficult and costly process.

    And yet, while this has been a difficult week, the overriding feeling at the shop today has been a positive one. During the week we have received a humbling show of support from artists in the community, local gallerists, ex-employees, present and former interns, passersby, our non-profit peers, and other volunteers. Friends and strangers have biked in and walked from Brooklyn and elsewhere to lend a hand with the daunting and rather messy clean up. This has meant so much to us. We would also like to thank those who have sent messages of support from all over the world. It has been of great comfort to hear that our small organization means so much to so many people.

    We have also been grateful for the kindness shown by individuals and organizations that have already approached us to offer support in various ways. Many others have asked how they can help. While we are still wading through the mess, getting a full sense of the damage, and planning our next steps, we do know that our first hope is to save what we can from the archive. We would like to see this material digitized, so that it continues to exist in some form, even if the printed version has been lost to water and mold. If anyone would like to contribute towards this urgent initiative, please feel free to reach out to me directly, or contributions are kindly accepted via our website, using the “donate” button on the right hand side.

    Rest assured we are working hard to get Printed Matter open as soon as possible and are hopeful this will be soon. You will have to please excuse the mess (which is far worse than our usual).

    I hope you are all getting by okay. We know many others in our community have been equally affected and Printed Matter wishes everyone the best getting back on their feet.

    Sincerely,

    James Jenkin
    Executive Director

  • Martha Bayne Discusses The Soup & Bread Cookbook 2/9

    Everybody loves soup. But why?

     

    Sure, it’s nutritious, affordable, and infinitely variable. Soup can be a rustic meal in a bowl or a dainty palate cleanser. It can showcase the pure flavors of fresh spring peas or provide a last-ditch use for tired celery and the stalest bread. From borscht to pozole to udon, it’s the hallmark of home cooking across cultures. It soothes the sick, it nourishes the poor–and it can trick children into eating their veggies. And, alone among foods, a pot of soup can be a powerful tool to both draw people together and help them to reach out to others.

     

    The Soup & Bread Cookbook, inspired by author Martha Bayne’s Soup & Bread series at Chicago’s Hideout, aims to explore this social role of soup, in the midst of a collection of terrific, affordable recipes from food activists, chefs, and others, providing a quirky exploration of the cultural history of soup–and its natural ally, bread–as a tool for both building community and fostering social justice.

     

    The social functions of soup don’t stop at the soup kitchen door. Everyone’s familiar with the “stone soup” fable — the tale of a hungry town that feeds itself when every citizen contributes something to the pot. But have you heard about Re-Thinking Soup, a weekly free soup lunch started in Chicago by Sam Kass, the Obamas’ personal chef? Or about Empty Bowl, a nationwide grassroots effort to raise money for hunger relief by partnering with local arts groups?

     

    Soup has a powerful effect on how people gather, eat, and share. A few years ago in Seattle, Knox Gardner had a brainstorm. Eating your way through a pot of soup day after day can get boring–why not get together and swap some with friends? The idea took off like chicken and noodles, and now neighbors across the country are getting together regularly for home-based “soup swaps,” with a date at the end of January annually designated (by soupswap.com) as National Soup Swap Day.

     

    In Chicago, the arts collective InCUBATE uses soup as a microfunding tool. Each month since the Sunday Soup project launched in 2007, the group hosts a casual soup dinner for members and likeminded friends; the proceeds to go fund a different art project each month. And of course, soup can be a political statement: The radical volunteers of Food Not Bombs have been providing free vegetarian soup to the hungry as a protest against war and social injustice since 1980.

     

    These are just a few examples of the stories Bayne wraps around a collection of delicious, accessible and tested soup recipes, the diversity of which epitomizes the wide-ranging potential of soup as a community building tool. “Celebrity” chef contributors share the pages with food activists, farmers, writers, soup geeks, and regular folks involved in grassroots food projects around the country.

    For more info: soupandbread.net

    One of the top ten essential cookbooks for fall 2011.
    -Time Out Chicago

    Beautifully written, generous and honest, the book looks at community building through lenses as various and diverse as the country has to offer. Bayne finds people of many kinds – immigrants, nuns, urban farmers, artists and activists – each using soup to bring people together and knit up what has become unraveled.

    -Eiren Caffall, Tikkun Daily

  • Hear Ye: Another Work Submission Opportunity with Woman Made Gallery

    Woman Made Gallery 685 N MILWAUKEE AVE, CHICAGO IL 60642, TEL: 312 738 0400

    We’ll paste it in directly from their site at womanmade.org/entryform.html

    (scroll down to where it says “Underground”)

    CALL FOR ARTWORK:
    Underground – Publication Submission (pdf)
    Underground – Art Submission (pdf)
    Exhibition Dates: July 8 – August 18, 2011
    Open to women, transgender, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming people from the international community who make self-published zines, comics, and chapbooks, as well as print, graphic, and comic art in all media. This exhibition will include both a pop-up library of zines, comics, and other self-published works, and a show of installed artworks in all media. Apply to show in one or both exhibition components, but please create separate entries for each.
    For publication submissions: Enter one to three publications following the guidelines on the publication submission form (pdf link above). Mail-in or drop off entries only.
    For art submissions: Use the online entry system (link below) or for mailed entries follow the guidelines on the art submission form (link above). Include an artist or project statement and a $30 entry fee.
    Online Entries Submit jpgs of three of your works on our website.
    Curator: Ruby Thorkelson
    Ruby Thorkelson is WMG’s Gallery Coordinator. She is also a visual artist working in drawing, comics, book-making, and collaborative projects, as well as a 2010 recipient of a Community Arts Assistance Program Grant from the City of Chicago. For more information, visit Ruby Thorkelson’s Webpage.
    Entry Deadline: May 31, 2011
    Notifications: June 4, 2011
    Further questions? Contact Ruby: admin@womanmade.org or 312-738-0400.

  • Hear ye Hear ye! Opportunities For You

    Here’s some oppportunities to submit your work or ideas that we thought you might appreciate:

    For Version 11 Festival and Related Activity:

    Version 11: The Community
    April 22 to May 1, 2011
    Chicago • USA

    A Call For Proposals.
    Deadline March 26, 2011

    “These years of recession, insolvency, uncertainty, and calamity have affected us in ways we couldn’tve imagined before. The debt crisis, atomized and divisive political culture, a lethargic economy that sees almost one of out of eight people out of work, and attacks on our collective social welfare can only mean one thing: It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.

    But there is hope. In the dusty corners of the world, individuals, friends, collaborators, and affinity groups are cementing bonds and creating methods for survival in this so-called “marketplace” where we all work, play, and inhabit. These artists, art workers, writers, activists, and organizers (also their enthusiasts, supporters, and fans) still believe in growing the gardens of our social and cultural ecology, despite the hardships we collectively endure.

    Version 11 is a celebration of the Chicago communities — projects, spaces, groups, individuals — creating their own strategies for participatory economies,  co-prosperity, and the pursuit of genuine happiness. Version will demonstrate the possible, celebrate the impossible, and showcase the ingenuity, spirit and passion that create The Community we aspire to take part in together. This is an invitation to share your community, your goals, your dreams for a better Community of the Future. It’s all we have left.

    Produced by the Public Media Institute, a non profit 501(c)(3) arts organization, Version is an annual arts convergence that brings together hundreds of artists, cultural workers, and educators from around the world to present some of the most challenging ideas and progressive art initiatives of our day. The ten day festival showcases emerging trends in art, technology and music.

    The festival presents a diverse program of activities featuring an exposition/art fair called The MDW Fair, guest curated exhibitions, a massive reenactment of the Haymarket Square riot, community garden projects, public interventions, video screenings, performances, live art, presentations, talks, workshops, art rendezvous and action.

    Email Proposals with Subject Line: Version 11 to edmarlumpen (at) gmail.com

    Please send us a 100-300 word description of your proposal.

    We are accepting proposals for these platforms:

    Free University (FREE U)
    Each year Version features workshops, presentations, demonstrations, talks, lectures and classes within the framework of the Free University platform. Ideas for provocations and projects as well as instructional guides, lecture and class ideas are welcome.

    Performance/ Interventions/ Mobile Projects
    Performance art in site specific locations, picnics, tours, public interventions, asphalt canoeing, anarchist marching bands, creative disturbances in public space are important components of the festival. Initiatvies by space hijackers and performance artists of all stripes welcome.

    Call for TEXTS Proximity 009
    This year     Proximity magazine will be releasing it’s Community themed issue covering the Chicago art worlds. It’s a revisiting of issues addressed in Issue #1. Send a proposal very very soon.

    The MDW Fair: visual arts landing in Chicago
    CHICAGO: threewalls, Roots and Culture and Public Media Institute announce The MDW Fair, a gathering of alternative art initiatives, spaces, galleries and artist groups from the Chicago metropolitan area. Held April 22-23, 2011 at The Iron Studios, 3636 S. Iron Street, The MDW Fair will demonstrate the diversity, strength and vision of the people/places making it happen in the art ecology of our region.

    The fair features for-profit, 501(c)3, and commercial and unincorporated galleries, independent curatorial projects and publishers and media groups in over 25,000 square feet of exhibition space that includes a 10,000 square foot sculpture garden with work by local artists. The MDW Fair is a manifestation of the collective spirit behind the region’s most innovative visual cultural organizers, focusing on the breadth of work done here by artists and arts-facilitators alike. Participants include: threewalls, Roots and Culture, Reuben Kincaid, ebersmoore, Antenna, OxBow, The Suburban, ACRE, Iceberg Projects, The Post Family and more.

    The MDW Fair is currently accepting proposals from independent curators due April 1st. Please send a project description and up to 10 images of proposed work to mdwfair@gmail(dot)com. “


    From The Wunderkabinet:

    “We’ve played our exhibitions close to the heart of late and forgone on the open calls, but the upcoming transformation of The Wunderkabinet into No. 3/The Reading Raum has us wanting to reach out to writers and zinesters around the globe. We’ll be splitting the kabinet into two components: ‘for sale’ & ‘read-only’. This means that if you’re more into the collecting than the making, you could lend or donate zines to the exhibition. Of course, if you’re a maker of zines, books, and related ephemera, we want to hear from you, too! The deadline to get in touch with us is March 25 – please do so if you have any questions. Submission guidelines can be found HERE! No. 3 will open in mid-May and run for the summer.”

    Thanks to Edmar  and Becky for the info!

  • Call for Proposals: AREA issue #11 – im/migration

    AREA Chicago is dedicated to gathering and sharing information and histories about local social movements, political and cultural organizations. They do a biannual mag and lots of events. They’re accepting proposals for their upcoming issue. Here’s their announcement:

    Chicago is a city shaped by movement and trade. First inhabited by indigenous peoples, the city was built through land speculation at the intersection of major waterways, and expanded as the intersection of railroads and highways. It became the destination for successive waves of new arrivals seeking opportunity: from those escaping the Jim Crow South and European fascism during the industrial era, to post-industrial rustbelt refugees and, most recently, those displaced from a structurally adjusted global south in the era of free trade. Today’s corporate towers tout Chicago’s preeminence as a hub for the non-stop flow of global capital. Mainstream media often couch these economic, demographic and spatial shifts within a partial and simplistic narrative of “progress”. AREA Issue #11 is calling for a range of contributions to support a more robust and nuanced discussion of human movement, and its impact on the political and cultural life of our city.

    The distinction between migration and immigration can be viewed and discussed via the concept of the nation-state. In recent decades, as globalization opened borders for the movement of goods, natural resources and currency, a call for national security is increasingly used to justify the policing of human movement. US international policy has resulted in the forced dislocation of peoples around the world, while the fear of losing jobs and social benefits to immigrants is used to criminalize migrant labor forces in the US. Meanwhile, domestic policies increasingly reinforce inequalities along race and class lines. These disparities take physical form in our cities and can be seen by mapping the distribution of social services, wealth and resources, and access to arts and culture. In our city political forces draw imaginary lines that have real, tangible consequences for those who must navigate them.

    How have internal migrations, such as the African American Great Migration and white flight, shaped the physical and psychological space of the city? How are race politics woven into the visible and invisible borders that crisscross the urban landscape? What are the forces driving displacement and gentrification, and how are they being resisted? Whose mobility is deemed “legitimate” and whose is considered a “trespass”? How is access created and redefined by im/migrants and people disabilities? Who is intentionally immobilized and by what forces? How does human movement impact the natural environment—from animal migration patterns to invasive species?

    As immigrants arrive in Chicago from around the globe, what do they carry with them and what is left behind? How are language, food and music preserved as transmitters of culture, and how are they transformed? What is shared in the experience of immigrants from different countries of origin and what is particular? How does the immigrant experience differ according to age and place in life? How does identity shift in relation to where one stands at any given moment and to whom one speaks? How does media focus on Latina@ immigrants affect the discourse around immigration in the US? How does immigration reform reinforce the legitimacy of borders and the increased militarization of society?

    While issues central to the theme of im/migrations are among the most talked about political issues in the country today, it seems that remarkably little is actually being said. In Im/migrations we invite contributors to depart from the mainstream discourse, to traverse the blurry line between personal and political experiences of movement.

    We hope the issue will be an opportunity to explore the diverse politics of the individuals and organizations working for the rights of the undocumented. We invite contributors to challenge existing dialogues about immigration reform and to think of AREA as a space to experiment with new possibilities for language and action. We hope it will be a space to explore how migration and immigration intersect with other movements, such as those for environmental justice, gender justice, economic justice, and more. We also hope the issue will serve as a movement-building tool for those working to carve out a space in the city and defend the right to stay.

    If you have something to say about these issues, we invite you to contribute! Your contributions can take many forms. We are interested in brief descriptions of the work you or your organization are doing, analysis and commentary, interviews, mapping projects, photography and other visual expressions, events, performances and more. If you have an idea, but are unsure how it might fit into im/migrations we´ll be happy to discuss the possibilities with you.

    Proposals are due February 1st. Scheduled for release in May 2011.

    Direct proposals, comments and questions to: immigration@AREAchicago.org