Exhibition Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday
11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
As a part of the ongoing initiative by the same name, Illinois Humanities welcomes you to Envisioning Justice, a dynamic and unique exhibition that instigates conversations about the negative impact of the criminal justice system on Chicago communities and inspires visions of a society that’s just for all.
Showcasing an array of work from community members and artists at the forefront of movements towards justice, Envisioning Justice explores how art is used as a powerful tool to interrogate issues such as state surveillance, police violence, racial profiling, economic exploitation, and the traumatic effects of jails and prisons.
The exhibition focuses on work that, like achieving justice, is yet to be completed or ongoing in nature and includes alongside finished art speculative designs, propositions, provocations, curricula, and ephemera. Centering the voices of impacted individuals and activists rather than bureaucrats and policymakers, Envisioning Justice features a range of genres and media from 2D materials to textiles to “Resistance Architecture” structures to a community “headquarters” that features the work of activist teaching artists and a library of relevant materials.
In Envisioning Justice, you’ll encounter
- Art, curricula, and ephemera produced by youth and adults at over a year of events, classes, and conversations in five Chicago neighborhoods impacted by incarceration and within the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center and Cook County Jail.
- Work by seven Chicago-based artists and collectives that resonates with the issues, concerns, and perspectives of the communities at the center of Envisioning Justice.
Existing work by artists in Chicago who focus on the criminal justice system and its effects upon communities.
- “We Are Witnesses: Chicago,” a series of short documentary films that feature individuals impacted by the criminal justice system from a variety of angles.
- A community “headquarters” that includes curricula by activist teaching artists and a resource library where free copies of the Envisioning Justice Resource Guide are available.
- An opportunity to envision a more just society and become an agent of change at ongoing free public performances, workshops, and conversations, including an “Activation Day” on September 7th.
Neither presenting a solution to the nation’s incarceration crisis nor a universal definition of justice, Envisioning Justice instead presents complementary strategies, actions, and policies created by and resonant with individuals and communities from all across the city. This August Illinois Humanities invites you to join these fellow Chicagoans in the pursuit of justice and healing for all.
Seven Chicago-based artists whose practices reflect upon the themes and content of Envisioning Justice have been commissioned to create new work for the exhibition. Each artist’s project will respond to issues, concerns, and perspectives of one of the neighborhoods or communities at the heart of this initiative.
The Marshall Project expands upon its “We Are Witnesses” documentary series by partnering with Kartemquin Films to create over a dozen short films featuring a wide array of Chicagoans who have been impacted by the criminal justice system from a variety of angles.
Check out The Marshall Project’s earlier versions of the series on their website. In addition to screening inside Envisioning Justice at Sullivan Galleries, “We Are Witnesses: Chicago” will be shown at Chicago Public Libraries throughout the city, and at a special program on September 12, 2019 at the Harold Washington Library.
Throughout the run of the exhibition, Illinois Humanities is going to present public programs that expand upon the exhibited work and the dialogue, collaboration, and activations sparked over the course of the initiative.
Explore Public Programming
Visitors can leave the exhibition with a free copy of the Envisioning Justice Resource Guide, which provides background on the issue of incarceration and highlights what individuals and organizations across Chicago are doing to address it. The guide also serves as an introduction to the exhibition and offers to readers resources and direct actions for envisioning a more just society.
An electronic version of the Envisioning Justice Resource Guide can be found here.
Visitors can find copies of the Envisioning Justice Curricular Concepts Guide in the exhibition’s Education Resource Center. The Curricular Concepts Guide details lesson plans and pedagogy from several of the teaching artists who have led arts classes at our seven community hubs.
An electronic version of the Curricular Concepts Guide can be found here.
Download the Envisioning Justice media toolkit.
Media Contact: Anne Tucker, atucker@mtconsultants.com, (312) 795-3556 or (312) 961-0216.
