The Goethe-Institut Chicago presents a new project that enables artistic exchanges responding to critical sites of environmental and social conflict in Chicago. This platform transforms the toxic and educational tours given by local organizations into virtual content as a way to generate engagement with larger questions regarding pollution, industry, the environment, segregation and social equity.
On April 19, Chemical (Re)Actions launched the third and final platform, The Fish Hotel, and for presentations on work within the Chicago River watershed and on the work of how we understand possibilities within ecological narrative.
From the Friends of the Chicago River Annette Anderson, Volunteer and Events Coordinator and Chelsey Grassfield, Policy Specialist, shared the genesis of their organization, the legacy of Bubbly Creek as it relates to the rest of the Chicago River and the innovation of fish hotels. Space sculptor, educator, artist and writer D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem sahred her ongoing work and research as it relates to ideas of creating different forms of ecological narrative and mediation.
BUBBLY CREEK AND THE FRIENDS OF THE CHICAGO RIVER : The Fish Hotel
Even if you’ve never been to Bubbly Creek, the name seizes the imagination. Fascinating in its history, made infamous by Upton Sinclair in The Jungle, the Bubbly Creek of the 19th century bears little resemblance to the Bubbly Creek of the 21st. Still, the legends and the bubbles persist, though in reality Bubbly Creek today has more active contamination due to ongoing Combined Sewer Overflows and soil runoff than the lingering sediment, compounds and effects of the Union Stockyard waste.
In the city of Chicago, notorious for its extensive redlining practices and the production of highly segregated neighborhoods, there is a 30-year gap in life expectancy between the Streeterville and Englewood neighborhoods, the largest in the nation. Poor public health statistics are also a measure in part of environmental injustices, when poorer and racialized neighborhoods are saddled with toxic emissions and contamination, lack of green space, heat islands, and overall disproportionate health hazards.
Grassroots organizers have responded to these abuses, and they have had many victories. In order to support their work, many organizations gave toxic and educational tours as a way to educate the public about these injustices and their campaigns. Now in the time of Covid and social distancing, when these tours have largely stopped, Chemical (Re)actions makes some of this information available remotely and invites artists, activists, designers and filmmakers to respond to these legacies and strategies as propositional methods for further inquiry on the limits and potentialities of the tactics proposed by these groups.
On December 14, 2020, Chemical (Re)actions will launch The Tactical Gardens, an open call for video essays to engage with the legacy of Hazel Johnson, the community of Altgeld Gardens and the work of People for Community Recovery. Programming will continue into 2021 with panel discussions, lectures, and virtual screenings in collaboration with selected artists, environmental rights organizations.
Community Organizations
The project is a cooperative effort with People for Community Recovery, an original founder in the environmental justice movement in this country, the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization, who have fought successful campaigns against lead pollution in the air, soil and water; and Friends of the Chicago River, who work to improve the health of 156-mile Chicago River system which includes the South Fork of the South Branch of the Chicago River, widely known as Bubbly Creek.
Project concept and coordination by Joshi Radin and Alberto Ortega Trejo.
