Legacy of Respect: To Anna and Frederick

Anna & Frederick Douglass Pavilion public art installation
adapted document from late 1800s Freedmen's Bureau Bank ledger silkscreened on wallpaper + photocopied versions filled in by local black entrepreneurs 9'x12' . 2024

With love and support from his wife Anna, Frederick Douglass was instrumental in efforts to support the legacy of the Freedman's Bureau Bank asset holders in response to institutional mismanagement. This site construction by Norman Teague and Dorian Sylvain hosts community gathering cultural events in honor of these ancestors.

TOGETHER: Summer Tour of 2020

2020. Inaugural public engagement summer tour series with the TOGETHER tablecloth assemblage piece kicked off during the Black Lives Matter Juneteenth Celebration Rally. In the spirit of the original use of the object, the collection of edge-to-edge horizontally stitched dinner tablecloths were a designated safe and comfortable space for early-gathering attendees to rest together, fellowship together, and prepare minds prior to messages of unity, equity and hope from inspiring guest speakers. At the conclusion, multiple participants perform the task of neatly folding the tablecloth in unison and in UNITY. Everyone has a seat at the table at Sunday Dinner.

Together

2020. Reclaimed dinner tablecloth montage sourced from family and friends, public donations, estates sales and thrifted are assembled together to formulate large art 'quilts'. The quilt features in various public engagement contexts that preserve and promote all the humanistic values associated with these nostalgic objects, with particular reference to the power of a space to rest, feel safe, nurtured and celebrate 'Togetherness'.

Recipe Storytelling at Lawndale Community Center, Chicago, IL

2016. In this workshop featuring Black and LatinX Seniors at the Lawndale Christian Community Center located on the west side of Chicago, residents share colorful stories of the past, present and future through the lens of their personal recipe specialties. Their handwritten recipe texts were compiled into a recipe cookbooklet, with some of the recipes actually prepared and shared amongst participants. There was lots of laughter, tears, and surprising cultural revelations along the way. The recipes proved to be a map of rich cultural history.

"It's Cyborg!"

2021. STEAM-inspired painting workshop developed for children from the Chicago Park District's Murray Park, South Chicago. Each child completed a paint-by-numbers canvas that was an 11"x14" fragment of the full (unrevealed surprise) image. The workshop was conceived with the underlying lesson of 'greater than the sum of its parts', in reference to cooperative community success.

Mission to Mars Museum

2021. STEAM programming workshop developed for middle school children of the Carole Robertson Community Center For Learning located on Chicago's west side. Various art-as-science -based projects both made and mined from home were intended to manifest the first speculative cross-planetary object storytelling museum on Mars.

Object Storytelling: Appropriating the AIC Museum

2017. A group of high school student writers from Baker College-Prep High School, located on Chicago's south side were tasked to appropriate a museum's food-based art collection, of which to assign their own speculative narrative. The results were a journey of personal revelations, insight, and catharsis.

(thematic) Youth Fashion Camp: Mrs. Obama Healthy Eating Initiative

Summer- 2017, 2018, 2019. First Lady Michelle Obama's 'Healthy Eating For Children' initiative was the design theme for Youth participants ages 10-13. Each camp group concluded with a formal runway show, which the children performed in the main ballroom of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.