AREA Chicago and Calles Y Sueños have been presenting work in conjunction
with AREA Issue #11 on Im/Migration has been on display since June 4. It closes on July 4th. You can attend the closing event, a counter-nationalist cook-out, party and speak-out on Sunday, July 3, 5-11 p.m.
The artworks are in some ways portraits, uneasy depictions of realities made strange and open to contestation. Some deal with places – heritage motels, linking movement with nostalgia and nationhood; or exported standardized residential subdivisions, linking notions of home and the “American dream” with the imperative of global expansion. Some are portraits of undocumented organizers, of the relationship between desire and political action; while others explore a political moment as an intersection of overlapping histories and identities. Some are portraits of immigrants, both reinforcing and defying the violent logic of the nation-state. Places, territories and identities are not given, they are under construction.
AREA Chicago supports the work of people and organizations building a socially just city. AREA actively gathers, produces, and shares knowledge about local culture and politics. Its newspaper, website, and events create relationships and sustain community through art, research, education, and activism.
is a collective of Chicago artists and cultural activists who work to provide an alternative arts space for exhibition, the performing arts, music, film and cultural workshops for the Latino community. As a Latino Internationalist collective, the group works to sustain collaboration, dialogue, cultural exchange and connection of the diverse Latino community in Chicago to La Casa de Arte y Cultural-Calles y Sueños, Juchitan- Oaxaca, Mexico.
