In this informal ‘audit’ of Comfort Station, participants will be asked to consider the following questions:

What value the space brings and what it owes to different communities?
What audiences are most important?
What role it plays in gentrification?

While considering Comfort Station as a test case, this conversation is an invitation to address broader trends and questions facing artists working in and with communities across the city. Many artists have been having these conversations privately, and it’s time to get together as a community and connect more vocally and visibly around these issues and more. If you feel you can speak from experience about “The Ecology of Artist-run spaces” we want to hear from you!

Please RSVP via email to Fontaine at hume.gallery@gmail.com by Friday November 4th.

This event is part of the Art + Value conversation series and is funded, in part, by an Illinois Humanities Community Grant as part of its Illinois Speaks program. To see other upcoming Illinois Speaks events, visit our events page. Apply here for an Illinois Speaks Community Grant. Learn more about our Community Grants program.

More on Art + Value

Art + Value is a series of conversations brought to you by Corner Chicago and Links Hall that will address different aspects of how artists and artistic labor are valued in Chicago today. We hope to create space for Chicago artists to speak openly about how we are compensated and recognized, and how to feel more able to advocate for our work. Our four topic-focused events (“The Ecology of Artist-run spaces,” “Laws, Contracts, Definitions,” “Art vs. Capitalism,” and “Affective Labor“) will begin with a roundtable followed by open conversation.

If you feel you can speak from experience about any of these four specific topics, we want to hear from you! Please RSVP via email to Fontaine at hume.gallery@gmail.com by Friday November 4th.

For more information, please contact Grace Needlman at gneedlman@gmail.com.