South Side Arts & Humanities Lab, Stony Island Arts Bank

FAIN: CHA-268858-20

Rebuild Foundation NFP (Chicago, IL 60637-1016)
Theaster Gates (Project Director: May 2019 to present)

Structural repairs to and equipment for a historic bank building to be renovated to contain the newly-created Arts + Humanities Lab. 

Space Fund NFP is requesting $300,000 to support continued renovation of the Stony Island Arts Bank. These additional renovations will help establish the Arts Bank as the main educational hub of the Chicago Arts + Industry Commons, a multi-million dollar project that consists of a network of properties on the South and West Sides of Chicago. The plans for renovations would transform the Arts Bank into a neighborhood-based Arts + Humanities Lab that would center the Arts Bank’s collections and invite community members, students, cultural workers, public scholars, and academics to engage with, make meaning of, and collaborate around the collections. It is our hope that increased and sustained engagement with the collections by a diverse cross-section of knowledge-producers will incubate imaginative and innovative practices in the public humanities, community archiving, community-based curation, and community engaged learning.