Growing Our City Garden

I’ve never felt truly unsafe living in a big city like Chicago.  Growing up outside of Manhattan in the 80’s, Chicago seemed like the friendly version of the big apple, a city where it was easy to stay away from trouble.  But then the entire country broke out in violent riots and our downtown was boarded up and eerily silent.  It was then that the idea emerged to decorate some of these boards with voices from within the city to turn these visuals of danger and destruction into rays of hope and light.  In June the mural project was kicked off with a collaboration between CPS Lives and BMO Harris bank, a mural featuring photographs of Chicago students captured by the CPS Lives team of talented artists, myself included. As soon as the installation ceremony was over, everyone knew that we needed to keep turning these boards into visuals of hope as long as our city was covered in plywood.

Last week, fourteen students from all over the city of Chicago gathered at the DuSable Museum for African American History to assemble a new 200 square foot mural that was installed on Monday at BMO Harris Bank’s downtown location.  This group of Chicago teens participated in the Chicago Public Library Foundation’s Youmedia program, an innovative digital learning space for teens hosted at 23 of the library’s branches all over the city.  Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the participants were part of a virtual learning space where they created original pieces of art that would be stitched together for this mural.

Led by mural artist Dorian Sylvain and Chicago photographer Jeff Phillips, the 14 students came together to add their personal digital creations to the mural using paint, magazine cuttings, and word collage for their finishing touches.  “Our City Is A Garden,” is the title of the mural, based on the city’s official motto, “A City In A Garden,” and each student’s individual piece serving as the center of each flower growing out of the mural.

Thrilled to be called in as another lens to capture this exciting collaboration, I threw on my gear and drove to Hyde Park. Upon entering the workspace I knew the toughest part of my day was going to be pulling myself away.  The multicolored windows encircling the top of the space created a living kaleidoscope that projected rainbows onto the teens as they worked diligently to get the 200 square foot mural finished. Each piece a powerful self-portrait filled with messages of frustration for the current state of our world and messages of hope for what life could be like if we all came together.

Wouldn’t it be great if all of the boarded-up buildings and storefronts in this great city could be filled with the hopes and dreams of our future?  Wouldn’t it be great if instead of looking at Louis Vuitton purses and Chanel suits we could see the voices of the younger generation telling us what they really want in this mixed-up world?  After all, I’m pretty sure we are counting on them to get us out of this mess.

**Check out this CBS 2 Chicago coverage of the mural with a cameo by yours truly!!!  Click here