Oct 28 | Speakers’ Podium for Citizens and Non-Citizens

Oct 28, 2016
6pm - 7pm
The Muffler Shop, 359 E Garfield Blvd, Chicago

The Mobile Speakers’ Podium for Citizens and Non-Citizens, created by artist Jenny Polak, is imagined as a deployable speakers’ corner that is both functional and symbolic. The two halves of the Speakers’ Podium rely on each other. Suburban house collides with prison fence to invoke the needed voices and ever-presence of the incarcerated among the free in a country that locks up 2 million people. The Speakers’ Podium is inspired by the effective coalition of citizens and immigrants/non-citizens who fought successfully to block the building of a for-profit detention center by Corrections Corporation of America in Crete, IL. Weekly programming will feature activists, poets, student groups, prison abolition groups, performing artists, and individuals who through their practice engage with conversations around mass incarceration, immigrant detention, and citizenship.

free and open to the public; rsvp

 

FEATURED SPEAKERS

Aram Han Sifuentes
Aram Han Sifuentes uses a needle and thread as her tools to speak of her experiences as a first generation immigrant. Her works have been exhibited at the Wing Luke Museum of Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle, Washington; Elmhurst Art Museum in Elmhurst, Illinois; Chung Young Yang Embroidery Museum in Seoul, South Korea; and the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design in Asheville, North Carolina. She currently has a solo exhibition at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (September 2016 – March 2017).

Aram was a 2014 BOLT Resident and 2015 BOLT Mentor at the Chicago Artists Coalition. She is a 2016 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow and a 2016 3Arts Awardee. She earned her BA in Art and Latin American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and her MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently a Lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Website: aramhan.com

 

Sam Love
Sam Love is an artist, community organizer, and educator in Gary, Indiana. He co-founded 2-1-9 MIGHT, the Mass Incarceration and GEO Halt Team, and helped lead coalitions that stopped plans for a for-profit prison for immigrants in Hobart and Gary, Indiana. He was a co-editor and distributor of AREA Chicago and was a keyholder at Mess Hall. He was also a photographer for Tamms Year 10, a coalition of activists, artists, and elected officials who in 2013 successfully closed the Tamms Supermax prison in Illinois. He currently works with the Calumet Artist Residency and leads photography and poetry workshops in Gary.

 

Students Working Against Prisons
Students Working Against Prisons (SWAP) educate UChicago students about the prison-industrial complex, offer solidarity and support to prisoners, and end UChicago’s ties to prisons. We organize the Fight for Just Food, a campaign to stop UChicago from contracting with food service providers that profit from prisons.  

Website:  facebook.com/StudentsWorkingAgainstPrisons

 

Visible Voices ensemble (pictured above)
Visible Voices is Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers’ (CLAIM) peer support and empowerment group. The group, run by and for formerly incarcerated women, is dedicated to building our skills, creating humane policy change and to advocating for incarcerated women. Members of Visible Voices:

  • Support and empower one another as they transition back into the community and advocate for change.

  • Discuss and share information on local and national issues impacting the prison system and social justice movements. Build skills and confidence.

  • Discuss the impact of prison on themselves, their families and their communities. Promote change in state practices.

  • Break down stereotypes surrounding incarcerated women.

Visible Voices members take part in events and discussions designed to help them rebuild their self-esteem, to engage their point of view and leverage their experience, and to empower them to take action. Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women are too often told that their point of view doesn't matter. Visible Voices reminds them that what they have to say is important and valued, and that they can make a difference.  Website: cgla.net/claim

 

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This venue is physically accessible. Please contact Arts + Public Life at 773.702.9724 with any questions or accommodation requests.
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Project conceived by artist Jenny Polak, and organized by Arts + Public Life and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago.