Category: Radical Pedagogies

What Is Knowledge in the Humanities, and Can It Save Our Humanity?

7/6/2019

Sunday, January 26th (3-5 p.m.)

Compound Yellow
244 Lake St.
Oak Park, IL 60302

free and open to the public, all ages

above: In Plato's Cave No. 1 by Robert Motherwell

You're invited to come to "What Is Knowledge in the Humanities, and Can It Save Our Humanity?" -- the next program in our Radical Pedagogies series, to be led by Amy Thomas Elder.

What do we mean by knowledge in the humanities, and can it save our humanity? A week doesn't go by without a new "defense" or justification or abject plea for the humanities, on the grounds that they produce empathy or critical thinking skills or personal fulfillment or civil society or some other supposed economic, political, or personal good. I would like to discuss what the humanities produce that is not reducible to other supposed goods--i.e. the special kind of knowledge we gain from the humanities--along with what the implications of this knowledge are, both in our own lives and as educators of whatever kind.

Our discussion will begin with Plato's Allegory of the Cave and will draw upon the experience of the group. Mine is chiefly in teaching in the Clemente Course in the Humanities--a college humanities course for adults living on low incomes--and in the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults at the University of Chicago.

This program is part of the Radical Pedagogies series, which is co-presented by Borderbend and Compound Yellow.

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Radical Pedagaogies: Bop Prosody and the Practice of Spontaneous Poetics

6/27/2019

Note: this program is being rescheduled. We will announce rescheduled date soon.

Compound Yellow
244 Lake St.
Oak Park, IL 60302

free and open to the public, all ages

You're invited to come to "Bop Prosody and the Practice of Spontaneous Poetics," which will be led by local poet, editor, and educator Albert DeGenova. Bop Prosody and the Practice of Spontaneous Poetics is the seventh installment in the Radical Pedagogies series.

Bop Prosody and the Practice of Spontaneous Poetics explores the concepts of jazz poetry. The writings of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and others, posit that to write poetry as a jazz musician creates a musical improvisation is a “practice” more akin to Zen meditation than to traditional prosody. The terms bop prosody or spontaneous poetics represent the writer’s attempt at capturing the purity of spontaneous emotion in a literary medium similar to the improvisation method of a jazz musician. The Workshop will discuss jazz improvisation, Kerouac’s theory of Spontaneous Poetics, and Ginsberg’s long-held “first thought, best thought” dictate; musical examples and experimentation with writing prompts will also be facets of the day’s conversation.

photo: Charlie Parker and Miles Davis

Albert DeGenova is an award-winning poet, publisher, and teacher. He is the author of three books of poetry and three chapbooks. His most recent book is Black Pearl: poems of love, sex and regret; his collection of haibun and poetry, Postcards to Jack, was recently released in a second expanded edition in 2018. His work has also appeared in numerous journals including: RHINO, The Paterson Literary Review, The Louisville Review, Aesthetica Magazine, The Café Review and others. DeGenova is the founder and co-editor of After Hours magazine, a journal of Chicago writing and art, which launched in June of 2000. He received his MFA from Spalding University in Louisville and leads several writing workshops throughout the year at WriteOn Door County and an annual writing week at The Clearing Folk School in Ellison Bay, WI. He hosts the monthly Traveling Mollys reading series (Oak Park, IL) which is now in its 22nd year. He is also a blues saxophonist and one-time contributing editor to Down Beat magazine. DeGenova splits his time between Sturgeon Bay, WI, and the metro Chicago area.

Bop Prosody and the Practice of Spontaneous Poetics is part of the Radical Pedagogies series, which happens at Compound Yellow on the fourth Sunday of the month. This series is co-presented by Borderbend and Compound Yellow.

Radical Pedagogies: CodeCreate and the Industrial Galaxy

6/21/2019

Sunday, September 22nd (3-5 p.m.)

Compound Yellow
244 Lake St.
Oak Park, IL 60302

free and open to the public, all ages

You are invited to come to "CodeCreate and the Industrial Galaxy" at Compound Yellow, led by Jeff Sweeton. CodeCreate and the Industrial Galaxy is the September 2019 edition of the Radical Pedagogies series.

CodeCreate has worked with nearly eighty partners following the visions of founders, and husband and wife, Jeff Sweeton and Susan Zielinski. CodeCreate engages learners through personal design experiences with fundamental materials, integrating technology, art and diversity. Through workshops for youth and educators, exhibitions and cultural exchanges, CodeCreate shapes creative opportunities for audiences and participants to imagine, reflect, play and innovate.

During "CodeCreate and the Industrial Galaxy," evoking feelings by controlling light from both LEDs and incandescent sources, we'll consider constructionist engagement in technology and art as well as historic divisions and integrations. Hands-on building will be followed by discussions of famous and infamous pioneers like Edouard Manet, Bill Schockly, Steve Jobs, Maria Mitchell, Yayoi Kusama, Caine Monroy, William Kamkwamba, Julie Taymor and Leah Buechley, as well as stories "from the trenches" of CodeCreate making and coding with students across the world as well as in-progress peeks of the Industrial Galaxy, commissioned from CodeCreate by Art of the Cosmos, an international celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Hubble Telescope.

Jeff Sweeton's love for expression started early in life, tinkering aside his family and exploring journalism, social sciences, theater and freelance video in middle and high school. He has produced work with learners young and old in groups such as Adobe Youth Voices, MIT's Media Lab, National Science Foundation, National Association of Art Educators, Off Hollywood Film Festival, Lawndale Christian Development Corporation, Jewish Family Services, Intel, Chicago Park District and many more groups locally and around the world. He has also taught at Northwestern University's Center for Talent Development for about ten years. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film and Video from the Savannah College of Art and Design and a Certificate in Youth Work from the Chicago Area Project.

above: CodeCreate Night Out in the Parks program (2018)

Susan Zielinski has been making and recognizing beautiful forms since her childhood in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She served the National Veterans Art Museum in roles including office management, curating and traveling to Saint Petersburg, Russia to the Museum of Political History where she presented on the difference between and benefits of therapeutic art and art therapy. Much of her work focuses on growing up in rural surroundings and/or medical ailments that have made her think differently about the world and the stigma that goes along with being part of any marginalized community. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics and Sculpture with a minor in Philosophy from Western Michigan University. Susan also studied Batik and Ceramics at Student Art Centers International in Florence, Italy, Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Art Therapy at the Adler School of Professional Psychology.

CodeCreate and the Industrial Galaxy is part of the Radical Pedagogies series, which happens at Compound Yellow on the fourth Sunday of the month. This series is co-presented by Borderbend and Compound Yellow.

Radical Gestures of Resistance

5/26/2019

Sunday, August 25th (3-5 p.m.)

Compound Yellow
244 Lake St.
Oak Park, IL 60302

free and open to the public, all ages

You are invited to come to “Radical Gestures of Resistance” at Compound Yellow, led by Maggie Leininger, for the August 2019 edition of the Radical Pedagogies series.

Resist means to withstand, counter, combat, endure or outlast an action or impact of something. Within the political context of our day, what does a radical gesture of resistance look like? What actions can be taken within our daily lives consumed with to-do lists a mile long? How can a simple gesture impact the greater good, like a stone’s ripple in a pond?

Maggie Leininger will lead a discussion that ponders mindful gestures of resistance as she demonstrates various resist techniques on fabric contemplating the connection between the meditative actions of stitching and binding fabric to the daily acts of resistance in our life. Maggie will also discuss the socio-political systems of cloth production, from indigo to cotton and the systemic role that these systems continue to play in our lives today.

Participants are invited to bring a piece of fabric of their choice (cotton, wool, or silk), and try their hand at creating a unique resist pattern as they consider what resist means to them. Once stitched or bound, participants will be able to submerge their fabric in an indigo dye vat. Additional materials will be available on a first-come-first-serve basis, with a request for donations to Compound Yellow for anyone who wishes to come might not have any materials.

Specializing in community engagement utilizing textile-based techniques, Leininger has been awarded numerous grants, fellowships, and artist residencies. Notable artist residencies and fellowships include support from Kala Institute in Berkeley, CA, The Present Group in San Francisco, CA, Scottsdale Public Art Commission, the Kentucky Historical Society, Mansfield Institute of Social Justice, Illinois Arts Council, and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. Leininger has exhibited her work nationally including the Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Fe, NM, South Bend Museum of Art, and the Bridgeport Art Center in Chicago, IL. Maggie Leininger currently teaches at DePaul University connecting students to the rich and varied permaculture of the Chicago art community. Previously, Leininger served as the Director of the International Honor Quilt at the University of Louisville. A collection of over 500 quilts, the International Honor Quilt was a community-engaged companion work to Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party. In addition to designing an award-winning exhibition of the collection, Leininger created numerous public programs and workshops with artists such as Suzanne Lacy. Publications related to this position include research focusing on the impact of second wave feminism and its role in the development of socially engaged practice. Previous academic service include teaching at Arizona State University, and Roosevelt University.

This program is part of the Radical Pedagogies series, which happens at Compound Yellow on the fourth Sunday of the month. This series is co-presented by Borderbend and Compound Yellow.

Radical Pedagogies: Radical Love

5/6/2019

Sunday, July 28th (3-5 p.m.)

Compound Yellow
244 Lake St.
Oak Park, IL 60302

free and open to the public, all ages

above: Umesiyakazi in Waiting by Athi Patra-Ruga. Photo by Hayden Phipps

You're invited to come to the July 2019 edition of the Radical Pedagogies series -- "Radical Love," led by Samina Hadi-Tabassum. In our session, we will talk about Radical Love, an art exhibition in New York City hosted by the Ford Foundation Gallery. The question that will be posed throughout the session is whether love can conquer all and whether we can offer love as an answer to a world in peril.

Radical Love is the second in a trilogy of exhibitions curated by Jaishri Abichandani and Natasha Becker. Through the theme of Utopian Imagination, the three exhibitions in the gallery's inaugural year create a trajectory toward a more just future. The first exhibition, Perilous Bodies (March 4 - May 11, 2019), examined injustice through the intersecting lens of violence, race, gender, ethnicity, and class. Radical Love responds to the first show by offering love as the answer to a world in peril.

Love, in the context of this exhibition, is defined by a commitment to the spiritual growth and interconnectedness of the individual, their community, and stewardship of the planet. Guided by the powerful words of bell hooks, “Were we all seeing more images of loving human interaction, it would undoubtedly have a positive impact on our lives.”

The works in Radical Love are grounded in ideas of devotion, abundance, and beauty; here, otherness and marginality is celebrated, adorned, and revered. Featured artists offer work that is deeply rooted in their love for their own communities and of humanity: Faith Ringgold’s soft sculptures from the 1970s, depicting everyday black folks; Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt’s glitzy installation of the complex intersections of sexuality, class, and religion; artists Lina Iris Viktor, La Vaughn Belle and Jeannette Ehlers, Omar Victor Diop, Bradley McCallum & Jacqueline Tarry make visible ordinary and extraordinary acts of human agency. Employing everything in their arsenal, they create enchanting works that transform disabled, black, brown, indigenous, and queer subjects into protagonists of new narratives of love and redemption.

We will ask you to explore the exhibit online and watch specific videos before coming to the session.

Samina Hadi-Tabassum is an associate professor at Erikson Institute in Chicago. Her first book of poems, Muslim Melancholia (2017), was published by Red Mountain Press. She has published poems in East Lit Journal, Soul-Lit, Journal of Postcolonial Literature, Papercuts, The Waggle, Indian Review, Classical Poets, Mosaic, Main Street Rag, Connecticut River Review, Pilgrimage Literary Journal, riksha, Clockhouse, The Canopy Review, and Souvenir. Her poems were performed on stage as a part of the Kundiman Foundation and Emotive Fruition event focusing on Asian American poetry. Recently she was named a semi-finalist for the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award in Chicago.

This program is part of the Radical Pedagogies series, which happens at Compound Yellow on the fourth Sunday of the month. This series is co-presented by Borderbend and Compound Yellow.

Radical Pedagogies: Environmental Justice, Zinemaking, and the Gary Ecopolis Project

4/22/2019

Sunday, June 23rd (3-5 p.m.)
Compound Yellow
244 Lake St.
Oak Park, IL 60302

free and open to the public, all ages

You’re invited to come to “Radical Pedagogies: Environmental Justice, Zinemaking, and the Gary Ecopolis Project” at Compound Yellow. During this program Corey Hagelberg gives a talk about the work of the Calumet Artist Residency and Gary Ecopolis Project, and explains how artists can play an important role in redesigning cities to address our climate crisis and confront and reverse the effects of environmental injustice. The talk delves into CAR’s work with youth and creating zines as teaching tools—and how teaching young people about nature, food justice, and climate change is radical and essential. The program concludes with a hands-on artmaking activity that puts into practice some of the strategies and methods highlighted in Corey’s talk. Free youth-made zines will be available to program attendees.

Corey Hagelberg is a Gary, Indiana-based artist and teacher who seeks to emphasize and embrace opposites and contradictions in our everyday experiences. His work blurs the line between humor and tragedy, current and historical, high and low art, natural and industrial, accusation and confession, beautiful and grotesque. He hopes that his work will encourage the viewer to evaluate and challenge their own notions of meaning, value and beauty.

Above: Roots by Corey Hagelberg

“Radical Pedagogies: Environmental Justice, Zinemaking, and the Gary Ecopolis Project” is part of the Radical Pedagogies series, which happens at Compound Yellow on the fourth Sunday of the month. This series is co-presented by Borderbend and Compound Yellow.

Radical Pedagogies: Racial Identity, Racism, & Cultural Appropriation in the Arts

4/8/2019

Sunday, May 26th (3-5 p.m.)

Compound Yellow
244 Lake St.
Oak Park, IL 60302

free and open to the public, all ages

You’re invited to come to the next installment of our Radical Pedagogies series, during which Spencer Hutchinson and Dan Godston present a talk about racial identity, racism & cultural appropriation in the arts — including focuses on aspects of Modernism such as the Négritude movement and Harlem Renaissance; Chicago's Black Renaissance; artists and activists associated with the American Indian Movement; songs in musical genres such as the blues, jazz, rock and roll, and hip hop; and more. During this session we discuss --

"Emmett Till" and "...On the State of the Union" by Aimé Césaire
artists associated with the Harlem Renaissance -- including Romare Bearden, Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Nella Larsen

artists associated with Chicago's Black Renaissance -- including Louis Armstrong, Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Lorraine Hansberry, and Richard Wright
songs from the '50s -- including "Fables of Faubus" by Charles Mingus, "Hound Dog" by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (recorded by Big Mama Thornton), "La Bamba" (recorded by Ritchie Valens, "Misirlou" (recorded by Dick Dale), "Rumble" by Link Wray, and "Springtime in Chicago" by Sun Ra
songs from the '70s and '80s -- including "Brown Rice" by Don Cherry, "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, "Politicians in My Eyes" by Death, "Rapture" by Blondie, "Rockin the Res" by John Trudell, and "Shiva-Loka" by Alice Coltrane
Woman Ironing (Isis) by Vik Muniz
recently recorded songs -- including "Amor Sin Fronteras" by Arturo O'Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, "The Deep" by clipping., "From the Heart" by The Slants, "The Immigrants" by Gaby Moreno and Van Dyke Parks, "Once in a Lifetime" by the Talking Heads (recorded by Angelique Kidjo), "This America" by Joy Harjo, and "This Land" by Gary Clark, Jr.

Above: Harriet Tubman by Margaret Burroughs

A hands-on multi-arts workshop follows the talk. The workshop puts into practice some themes covered in our talk.

This program, co-presented by Compound Yellow and the Borderbend Arts Collective, is part of the Radical Pedagogies series, which happens at Compound Yellow on the fourth Sunday of the month.

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Radical Feminist Pedagogies at Compound Yellow

3/18/2019

Sunday, April 28th (3-5 p.m.)

Compound Yellow
244 Lake St.
Oak Park, IL 60302

free and open to the public, all ages

You are invited to come to “Radical Feminist Pedagogies” presented by artist, educator and critic Janina Ciezadlo. Janina discusses the concept of an oral final that she designed for a class entitled Women in Art Literature and Music, which bypasses reproducing a capitalistic exchange of knowledge for a new model of group formation. Then we look at a set of prompts for interrogating images from a Cultural Studies class entitled Imaginary and Practical Bodies, which Janina co-taught with an expert on women’s health.

Janina Ciezadlo has taught in a variety of places and at many levels during the 35+ years that she has been a teacher and a professor -- from Navajo and Hopi reservations to the Graduate school of Art and Design at the University of Illinois, and many places in between.

above: Homage to Marcel Duchamp by Susan Hiller

"Radical Feminist Pedagogies" is the inaugural program in the Radical Pedagogies series co-presented by Borderbend and Compound Yellow. This series happens on the fourth Sunday of the month at Compound Yellow.

Radical Pedagogies Series at Compound Yellow

2/21/2019

Borderbend is happy to announce that we're starting a new series called Radical Pedagogies, in partnership with Compound Yellow. This series, which happens on the fourth Sunday of the month, is intended to explore different ways of thinking about what "radical pedagogies" means. Here's what's being scheduled in the coming months:

Radical Feminist Pedagogies, led by Janina Ciezadlo (April 28th)
Racial Identity, Racism, and Cultural Appropriation in the Arts, led by Spencer Hutchinson and Dan Godston (May 26th)
Environmental Justice, Zinemaking, and the Gary Ecopolis Project, led by Corey Hagelberg (June 23rd)
Radical Love led by Samina Hadi-Tabassum (July 28th)
Program led by Maggie Leininger (August 25th)
CodeCreate and the Industrial Galaxy, led by Jeff Sweeton (September 22th)
Bop Prosody and the Practice of Spontaneous Poetics (October 27th)
TBA program (November 24th)
Program led by Amy Thomas (December 22nd)
TBA program (January 26th)
TBA program (February 23rd)