SANTIAGO X with Chicago Public Art Group were announced as recipients of the Joyce Foundation's 2021 Joyce Awards. Since 2003, the Joyce Awards have supported the creation of new work by emerging and mid-career artists of color to foster more culturally vibrant, equitable, and sustainable communities in six Great Lake cities: Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Minneapolis-St Paul.
The $75,000 grant will support the creation and presentation of a new site-specific work, created in partnership with Chicago community members, empowering collaboration and exploring ways that art can foster healing and restoration. For this grant, Chicago Public Art Group is commissioning SANTIAGO X to create a digital art experience that brings a virtual element to the 4000N, formerly known as Chicago’s Northwest Portage Walking Museum trail (NWPWM).
Titled, Augment Earth, the project pays homage to the transportation crossroads of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River waterways used by residents for thousands of years. Using a smartphone app and geolocation, visitors will encounter an interactive digital gallery of Native histories, cultures, and languages, collected by and from Indigenous communities in Chicago as they traverse the trail. From augmented infographics hovering over Indigenous points of interest to three-dimensional models of pre-colonial constructed earthworks, Augment Earth firmly situates Indigenous perspectives, histories, and futures into Chicago’s urban landscape.
"Learning how to create and enhance public art through an Indigenous Futurist lens has been a relevant and rich experience as Chicago has one of the largest Native American populations in the country," says Maryrose Pavkovic, Managing Director of the Chicago Public Art Group.
The only regional program dedicated to supporting artists of color in major Great Lakes cities, the Joyce Foundation has awarded more than $3.7 million to the development of 72 new works of visual, performing, and multidisciplinary art presented in collaboration with arts and community organizations in the Great Lakes region. While the foundation’s grantmaking has a regional focus, its work has national impact, demonstrating the capacity of the arts to inspire and mobilize social change. The other 2021 awardees include: Kameelah Janan Rasheed with FRONT International Triennial, Sydney Chatman with Congo Square Theatre Company, and Daniel Minter with Lynden Sculpture Garden.
“The Joyce Awards are a recognition of the important contributions of artists of color to the cultural fabric of the Great Lakes region. The disparities both brought into sharper focus and exacerbated by the pandemic and the racial reckoning have made this work all the more imperative,” said Joyce Foundation President Ellen Alberding. “The Joyce Awards invests in these artists so that they can continue to make a lasting impact in their communities.”
“Since their inception, the Joyce Awards have championed BIPOC artistic creation for emerging and mid-career artists working in the Great Lakes region, celebrating diverse artistic talents and catalyzing new opportunities for community dialogue and connection,” said Mia Khimm, Culture Program Director. “This year’s commissions speak to the power of collective healing and transformation through art, centering underrepresented voices and narratives, while addressing themes of identity, history, and nature.”
Upcoming Events
The Joyce Foundation will host a virtual panel featuring all four artist awardees on Thursday, June 10 at 4 p.m. CST. The artists will come together for the first time to discuss their projects and the awards’ impact. The conversation will be moderated by Heinz Endowments Arts and Culture Program Officer Shaunda McDill. To register for the conversation and learn more, visit Eventbrite
About the Joyce Foundation
The Joyce Foundation is a nonpartisan, private foundation that invests in public policies and strategies to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region. The foundation supports policy research, development, and advocacy in five areas: Education & Economic Mobility, Environment, Gun Violence Prevention & Justice Reform, Democracy, and Culture. Learn more at joycefdn.org.
