The spirit of Chicago design showed itself in a lively discussion with this year’s outstanding Design Impact Grant recipients—Tessa Vierk, executive director and co-founder of Chicago Tool Library (CTL) and Monica Rickert-Bolter, co-founder and director of operations at the Center for Native Futures (CfNF), moderated by grantee alum, Quilen Blackwell, president and co-founder of Chicago Eco House—during this year’s NeoCon. Both organizations’ future focus to broaden Chicago’s accessibility to art and design culture and design-build resources have something in common. The community framework they are cultivating considers the impact of historical influence, socioeconomics, environmental, political and other challenges that create barriers. Says Vierk, ”It really isn’t just a space, it is an ethos about sharing and collective wealth that we all should be benefiting from.”
Just four years old and newly relocated to West Garfield Park, CTL is a lending library with an impressive inventory of tools and items with an affordable pay-what-you-can membership structure. Their service to individual DIY types covers all seventy-seven neighborhoods with a mission to “create new and equitable opportunities for Chicagoans to build, repair and learn.” With their relocation, CTL acquired nearly 5,000 new tools that have upgraded their ability to scale outreach to other nonprofits, community gardens, block clubs and small businesses. When asked about the future of design in Chicago, Vierk answers with a light-hearted laugh, referencing the organization’s grant project “power tools to the people” concept. She continues with calming determination: “Our perspective is about democratizing design and access to concepts and tools to build design capacity on a neighborhood level,” she says, ready to dive into the needs of diverse community groups to be better partners and “blow up” the neighborhood impact.
Photo courtesy the Center for Native Futures
In a similar direction, physical space is a game-changer for the Center for Native Futures, functionally and symbolically, as they take on a storefront location in the Marquette Building, incorporating gallery and artist-in-residence studio space “to perpetuate Native presence in the city of Zhegagoynak (Chicago) and foster Native artists and curators.” The organization is at the epicenter of Indigenous Futurism(s), “an ongoing principle we have adapted to intertwine past, present and future, particularly through the advancement of art,” says Rickert-Bolter. To clarify the concept, she poses the question, “How are artists using traditional practices to showcase art and stories in a new way—and making it accessible to a broader audience to secure Indigenous future?”
In the case of the iconic Marquette Building, the bronze reliefs depicting the journey of Jacques Marquette are historically problematic and CfNF is leading the effort to reframe the Native narrative in an exhibit. Juxtaposed with that, visitors will experience the continuum of vibrant Native culture in nearby CfNF galleries that display contemporary visual arts. Building on this serendipitous moment where Indigenous Futurism(s) collide, the organization is thrilled to expand its Native curatorial vision. “We don’t always see Natives who are in charge of curation in museums and galleries in the Great Lakes Region,” says Rickert-Bolter. “Our grant will allow us to initiate a mentorship program for a Native professional with curatorial experience to work with an emerging artist. At the end of the program, there will be a curatorial show. Our goal is to attract local Native art and culture professionals and encourage them to stay in the region.”
Designing a Better Chicago at NeoCon
Both awardees’ enthusiasm to create the broadest possible benefits for communities was unbridled. Constructing collective design capacity in neighborhoods is a novel approach to removing barriers while building resilience and motivating new storytelling. After all, challenging the traditional winner-takes-all-perspective can yield a healthier, more inclusive and more innovative community culture.
Yetta Starr, IIDA, is the founding principal of Starr Design Associates, Inc., a commercial interior design practice specializing in showroom, workplace, education, scientific and civic interiors as well as exhibits and visual communication projects.Starr has a passion for engaging with community-based initiatives supporting cultural identity and economic development.She is a contributing writer to print and online publications, reporting on industry trends and design’s impact on the human experience.
State v. Jahn: The Thompson Center is dead, long live the Thompson Center That it currently faces the likely prospect of demolition shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with Chicago’s creation myth. The city’s long tradition of preserving its architectural legacy is second only to that of giddily dismantling it.
