Can a design fair that connects local architects, artists, and activists help spur community development in Chicago? Could Be Design’s Joseph Altshuler thinks so. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor founded Chicago Sukkah Design Festival three years ago toward that end.
Chicago Sukkah Design Festival formally opened on October 6 in North Lawndale, now in its third iteration. And as was the case in years past, this latest version invited participants to riff on an architectural typology at the center of a Jewish celebration known as Sukkot: the Sukkah, a temporary hut used for hosting ceremonies during the seven-day long event.
This year’s participating designers included Cooperation Racine; Andrea Jablonski, Martha Bayne, and Sheila Sachs; Office of Dillon Pranger and Nailah Golden; Palmyra Geraki and Alt Space Chicago; and Lindsey Krug, Andres Camacho, and Bradley Silling. Each of these five teams paired up with different Chicago community organizations.
For Altshuler, the public art and architecture festival is about “plugging into broader community development efforts in the North Lawndale neighborhood, specifically around reimagining and re-energizing a historically disinvested commercial corridor at 16th Street,” Altshuler told AN. “Many of the sukkahs will be permanently re-installed along that corridor post-festival this year, as a special new focus for efforts.”
A Community Affair
Cooperation Racine is a Chicago-based licensed workers cooperative. It was founded by Black and Brown artists interested in combining art practice with “anti-Black racism” and “anti-capitalism frameworks” in order to realize “cooperative creative economies.”
That workers cooperative partnered with the Street Vendors Association of Chicago, a group which fights for the rights of small business owners in Illinois. The collaboration between Cooperation Racine and Street Vendors Association of Chicago resulted in a piece called Twirl / Gira, an elevated conical installation made of wood.
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee professor Palmyra Geraki teamed up with Jordan Campbell of Alt Space Chicago, a local organization for artists, entrepreneurs, and visionaries alike. Together, Geraki and Campbell ideated an installation with Chicago Children’s Museum and Open Books, a local nonprofit that connects young readers with new and used books. That cohort’s installation is titled By The Book.
Chicago designers and professors Lindsey Krug, Andres Camacho worked with New York–based Bradley Silling on their contribution for Sinai Chicago, a nonprofit system of hospitals, clinics, researchers, and social service providers that cater to Chicago’s West and Southwest sides. That collaboration resulted in a pavilion called Overstory made of CMUs, textiles, and other quotidian materials that come together to create an effervescent shading structure.
Andrea Jablonski, Martha Bayne, and Sheila Sachs—three Chicago-based artists, authors, and designers, respectively—partnered with the Douglass Branch of Chicago Public Library on their contribution. Artists and scholars from SAIC also participated to create what they call Sharing Sukkah.
Dillon Pranger, an architect and professor at IIT, paired with digital media artist Nailah Golden. Those two brought to life an installation titled Bring Your Own Brick with a wholesale perennial plant nursery on Chicago’s West Side, Homan Grown.
Chicago Sukkah Design Festival is on-view through October 26.
