Creative Projects
Creative Projects
Students in Global Asian Studies courses taught by Professors Guevarra and Reddy at the University of Illinois Chicago produced a range of creative projects - digital stories, zines, photo essays, ceramic artwork - that narrate and represent the rich multi-racial, working-class, and migrant histories of Uptown. These creative projects represent a range of place-making engagements, capturing stories of displacement, resistance, and solidarity in the face of organized efforts for urban renewal/removal.
Based on oral history interviews with individuals who were involved in crafting social movements in Uptown, students in GLAS 300 worked with Anna Guevarra to distill some of the key insights in relation to gentrification and displacements, and rendered the through the medium of digital storytelling. The oral history narrators were selected with the help of the projects’ community liaisons in Uptown. They were chosen for their sustained and committed work in the community/neighborhood.
“The Heart that Beats” Mural
Drawing on the history of Uptown and the stories of seventeen Uptown activists, students in the GLAS 300 (Spring 2022) capstone course collectively envisioned and produced a mural to represent the history of Uptown. Three different student collectives - mural art directors, catalog writers, and filmmakers collaborated in this process.
Drawing on important histories of people’s resistance in Uptown, these zines - by students in GLAS 290 - capture the lives and work of some of the organizations/movements that helped foster these efforts in Uptown. From housing struggles to multiracial coalitions against elite cronyism, grassroots educational efforts to youth-led cultural movements, these movements - and the figures who were at their forefront - reflect the everyday lives and struggles of the people in Uptown.
“Stories of Uptown’s A.R.G.Y.L.E. Countermap
Drawing on the history of Uptown, this countermap is a critical analysis and representation of the “asia on argyle” corridor in Uptown. The goal of this project is to situate “asia on argyle” in the history of Uptown and represent Argyle’s relationship (and responsibility) to Uptown’s multi-racial composition, the migration and displacements of multiple communities due to urban removal policies, and the ways that these communities have also fought back.
Inspired by some of the public art in Uptown, students in GLAS 300 wrote photoessays that reflect the multilayered histories of Uptown, and what Paul Siegel refers to as "submerged traditions’ of resistance in this neighborhood. The public art pays tribute to cultural workers whose imagination and creativity contributes to movement-building. It provides a medium through which to capture untold spaces and voices and tap into the vibrant, pulsating beat of the people.
Working with Nicole Marroquin, Chicago-based ceramics artist and educator extraordinaire, students in the GLAS capstone course - GLAS 300 - worked to sculpt miniature models of buildings in Uptown that were identified by their oral history narrators as symptomatic, in their experience, of gentrification and displacement in the neighborhood. Dr. Marroquin helped the students render these narratives into viable ceramic sculptures. Together, the students’ rendition of this material landscape captures the range of buildings impacted in Uptown, and through the medium of ceramics, breathes life into the lived experiences of activists and organizers who have lived and worked in this community and neighborhood.
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