Stockyard Institute

Publications in Press!

stockyard — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 22:22:51 +0000

Duignan, J. and Raven, L (2011). Peace warriors: speak up in the hood. Denmark: Stockyard Institute Press. Duignan, J., Razi, F., & Wiedner, B. (Eds.), (2011). Index (nomadic studio catalog). Chicago: Stockyard Institute Press. Peters-Quinn, A. (2011). Exchange rate. Chicago: … Continue reading →

Publications 2010-present

stockyard — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 22:20:06 +0000

1. Hausman, J., Duignan, J. Ploof, J., Hostert, N. & Brown, W.K. (2010). The Condition of Art Education. Special Issue for Studies in Art Education: NAEA, 51(4), 368-374.

2. Duignan, J., Razi, F., & Wiedner, B. in Sprague, J. (Ed.). (2011). Imaginary syllabi. Berkeley: Palm Press.

3. Duignan, J. & Stabler, B. (Eds.), (2010). Education as art: the pedagogical turn in fine art. Proximity. 1(8).

4. Duignan, J. (2010). A Consideration for a Social Settlement: a Brief History of Stockyard Institute. Proximity. 1(7), 44-49.

5. Duignan, J. (2011, May-July). Searching for a Social Settlement. IAEA, Mosaic Spring Newsletter, 15-17.

6. Razi, F., & Wiedner, B. in Caldwell, N. & Champion, C. (Eds.). (2010). Contemporary Graffiti Catalog. Sixty Inches From Center, Archive. doi:www.sixtyinchesfromcenter.org.

7. Sirmans, F. (Ed.), (2011). 5 cities / 41 artists / artadia 08/09. New York: Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue. doi: http://www.artadia.org/book.html (Includes Awards to Stockyard Institute)

8. Stockyard Institute Poster / Reader (Designed by Plural, Stockyard Press 2010)

Omaha Residency

stockyard — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:24:30 +0000

The Union Stockyard Residency

The Stockyard Institute has inaugurated a unique residency project between the Union of Contemporary Art in Omaha, directed by Brigette McQueen and our network of artists, teachers, composers, designers, activists of the Stockyard Institute. Annually, four individuals or groups from Chicago will stay for a minimum of one week in North Omaha to introduce original work while supporting and interfacing with artists, youth, residents that move through and activate the Union of Contemporary Art. The artists and teachers that have worked alongside the Stockyard Institute understand how teaching is at the core of our content.

This residency project has been in the works for many years imagining and considering pedagogical and practical, street level teaching and artistic strategies to build a cooperative, community driven station in Omaha. This was in the vision of the Stockyard Institute, a project to establish a structure as we do in Chicago for the residents of north Omaha to use. A model we draw more from Jane Adams than art world dignitaries. In 2010, I was introduced to Brigette McQueen, the seer of the UCA and someone who also imagines how the arts and community reactivation could partner through traditional art forms and undeveloped ideas. This would target the direct hardships of an area removed from physical, practical, political and psychic needs. She saw early and before we ever knew of each other that her particular strengths and experience would afford her that focus to build a bridge in her city of Omaha. Brigette will assist the residents of north Omaha to create a new habitat for change and use the resources and friendship of the Stockyard Institute to design the conditions for a long lasting, reciprocal exchange of dynamic citizenship and education between our cities for those most in need.

The invited residents from the Stockyard Institute will be asked to use their work with this social agenda in mind. They have been asked because their history or the style of their work indicates a particular engagement. Whether that work is alongside local youth, area artists, and or community residents, their exists a vision and reasonable prospects for a better community. And like our work in Chicago, the Stockyard Institute will draw from the many pedagogical and public projects in the arts and education from cooperative community programs, experimental cultural centers, music houses, alternative schools and provisional learning efforts all of which involve youth, a mastery of work, social knowledge and a deep consideration of the impact and the capacities of a community.

Eden +

stockyard — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:23:49 +0000

Eden+
The city can expand the way in which those who need land can prosper as can communities from a commission who can oversee more efficient procedures to secure spaces for naturalists and artists to come together and build unused areas of the city. The city can use more sites like Eden Place.

COMMUNITY PRESERVATION

Better models to access land, dialogue and the imagination

Jim Duignan

Chicago has an abundance. There is an unimaginable mass of vacant land in this city that connects communities often from the rear, adjoining county, municipal or private property alongside train tracks, generator stations, unintended creek beds, and alleys that lead out towards small plain prairies. There is a cache of questionable land. I have walked and driven along the train tracks near Shields at 43^rd street heading south. Careening through Fuller Park towards the amalgam of tracks just north of Garfield Boulevard and on south to 71^st street where the tracks veer west. I have traveled for years any number of miles at different times at different locations for various projects, site visits and my curiosity of the city’s geography.

There is a movement to those tracks, a sway that isn’t marked on a map but noticed by a sensory knowledge of how far west you are from the Dan Ryan Expressway. The subtle meandering of the rails unintentionally creates small enclosures, hidden hamlets of overgrown plots, hilly small fields of wild flowers vying for space with the shells of old cars, make-shift warming and cooking stations, shopping carts and clothes, collections of scavenged pieces and parts that look from far off, like playgrounds or the entrances to time machines. Quiet dumping ground that also host the requisite gathering of transitory non residents who meet on the fringes, leaving their things and meeting alongside the countless, uncounted bands of open spaces that exist alongside the graveled pitch of the elevated rails.

At 43^rd and Shields is Eden Place which leans against the east side of those tracks, a lush urban encampment, a sanctuary in ways that extend the typical read, running south towards 47^th street. This site is a wonderful, heartfelt example of individual vision, perseverance and preservation. This is a space where youth can imagine habitats and understand ecological systems, a place to talk and study, to work the grounds and to be still. An oasis of greenery and the gentle smells from cuttings, turned soil and flowers. The three acres are shared by structures and creatures and volunteers, a wigwam and trailer school painted by Riven and Lavie Raven, multi-use sheds for materials, information and probably some inventory. On the grounds sits a converted school bus as a solar experimenter and outdoor gathering spots with a speckling of goats, butterflies, bees and geese to name a few of the many animals that roam the site.

Eden Place is not only a model for how to build a small natural environment from a dumping ground but an example of passionate persistence in working with the city. Although I am not familiar with the history or ongoing negotiations between Eden place and city departments, inspectors and regulations, I understand the complexities, luck, determination and patience it requires to deal with institutions from my own experiences. Chicago should ease the bureaucratic entanglements for temporary land use or permanent acquisition and consider the exchange of services naturalists and artists can provide. What an extraordinary public service that gets lost in the mire of financial and legal policy-speak that obfuscates possibility and change. Communities change when people venture outside their houses and work together. People are drawn out towards a cause or to that which needs immediate attention, like a crisis. They protect what they have and the perimeter moves with the pulse of uncertainties. Please let the community contributors be.

What is at stake? The cause is here and it is remarkably serene and positive. It contains outdoor education and the conditions that open the imagination freed from the lingering social detournements. Eden Place has set a standard for how unused, uncared for areas can be returned back to a simpler, natural time. It is also a blueprint for reexamining the requirements of teaching the youth in the community about collective work, experimental pedagogy and exercising a vision, a lesson that shares with anyone who will listen, how to build a better life through the quiet, satisfying steps of experience and will.

Nomadic Catalog

stockyard — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:21:29 +0000

Stockyard Institute is currently compiling, sorting, editing and organizing all of the multimedia content from our exhibit, Nomadic Studio. This represents over a year of work with some of the most gifted artists, teachers and collaborators we’ve been lucky enough to have as comrades. The link above is our in-process archival website. Please feel free to look around.

There’s about 30 hours of audio, 30 hours of video and several hundred pages of text to go through, but we have some teasers available in the meanwhile:

Here is one of ten pieces from Nomadic 3, a Tour Video of the exhibit filmed live by Beth Wiedner and scored live by Tourism (George Joseph Miller IV and Faiz Razi).
Nomadic 3 was filmed on the last day of the exhibit at the DePaul Art Museum.
Artists featured are credited in the YouTube notes for each video, the rest of which can be found here.

There’s also the first three Nomadic Audio compilations from our bandcamp page:

More soon, of course.

SITE

stockyard — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:19:55 +0000

Currently, Stockyard Institute and the Center for Educational Technology are launching a curriculum platform for educators. The project, called SITE, can be found here: http://www.sitesite.org

SITE is an experiment in open-source education, and seeks to open a dialogue about what educators can do to support each other, organize resources and discuss ways we can improve the education system worldwide. There are currently two main sections of SITE, the Forum and the Features.

The Short:
1. Teachers, etc. register on the SITE forum and discuss teacher things with other teachers
2. SITE team takes popular and useful threads and turns them into beautiful curriculum zines free for teachers to use in their classrooms, focusing on interdisciplinary, multi-media lessons with Art, Technology and Activism throughout
3. SITE forum community reviews and field tests curriculum to see how it works
4. SITE team revises ‘zines with the new results
5. SITE community eventually develops an open-source textbook for educators to use for free

The Long:
Re-Wiring the School System:
Imagine that a teacher has a brilliant lesson plan. It’s a lesson that motivates, inspires and informs. This lesson only reaches a handful of students—the number of students that teacher sees in a year. If this teacher can share this lesson plan with other teachers, the potential to reach more students with this great lesson grows. SITE is that place to share.

The Forum: We’ve envisioned the SITE forum as something that can grow as a resource for educators.

This is where we would love your help. We are currently seeding the forum with discussion topics in an effort to engage educators and find out what types of resources they are seeking. We would be honored if you folks registered there, and talked about what you do and how you do it. We started a “what did/do you teach?” thread, where it’d be easy way to start by telling us what you do. no pressure, of course. If you just want to lurk or want to disregard this altogether, it’s no big thing. we’re cool.

The Features, or “You have a discussion forum, so what?”:
Our end-goal for SITE is to take the things we learn from the forum discussion and turn them into beautifully designed lessons, professional development and resources for teachers that are free to use and available for download. Think of it as refining a quality thread into a finished curriculum ‘zine. We would like for these zines to be interdisciplinary, project based and to incorporate Art, Technology and Activism throughout.

MDW Fair (2011)

stockyard — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 00:20:01 +0000

Stockyard Institute participated in the MDW Fair as part of Version 11: “The Community.”
The MDW Fair was held at the GeoLofts in Bridgeport on April 23rd and 24th, 2011.

On day one, Tourism and Ian Duignan performed and recorded pieces for voice and violin for their forthcoming collaborative release entitled “the Cheater”. In addition, SI screened “Nomadic 3″, a tour video of Nomadic Studio filmed by Beth Wiedner, and scored live by Tourism. We shared space with our comrades at Sixty Inches From Center, who also helmed our booth with Lavie Raven and the University of Hip Hop the following day.

MDW Fair was presented by threewalls, Roots and Culture, and Public Media Institute.

Nomadic Studio (2010)

stockyard — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 00:06:42 +0000

Stockyard Institute repurposed the DePaul Art Museum as a nomadic studio, transforming the space into a hybrid station for production, exhibition, development, performance, publication and education.

Amidst four and a half months of programs and live performances, features included a convertible recording studio and radio station, Stockyard publication office (SITE), nomadic teacher center, workstations, exhibition space, curriculum kiosks, resource library and more.

Nomadic Studio communicated the ideas of those who imagine space in multiple contexts and very different intentions.The project celebrated the incidental, provisional, mobile, and related sites of production.

This exhibition was part of Studio Chicago, a yearlong collaborative project that focused on the artist’s studio.

EVENTS:
July: Rumpus Room:
[7.8] Housewarming – Steve Albini “Moving a Home Studio”, Live music with Bric-A-Brac, onono and Small Awesome.
[7.15] Protect Yr Neck -Alex Maiolo and Bob Farster – Insurance and Credit for artists.
[7.22] Home Recording Panel – Mark Greenberg, Greg Norman and Brian McNally, moderated by Faiz Razi
[7.24] Solar Powered Theremin Workshop – Knox Revitte and
Night at the Museum – Anode, Paint Wars, ConNatural Artists and ConfiDance

August: Bird Sanctuary:
[8.12] Bird Sanctuary Opening – Black Public Radio w/Jim Duignan and Zikr,
Jay Ryan pigeon screenprinting workshop and Zikr live in the Rumpus Room
[8.19] (The Art of) Foot Hockey – AndrewandAndrea present “Is That All There Is?”, and “Foot Hockey” films. Foot Hockey match at Ray Meyer followed.
[8.21] Harnessing Social Media with Joanna Lakatos and
Last Night of A\V-Aerie with Marshall Preheim, featuring live music by Willis P. Jenkins, Tim Kinsella and Baby Teeth
[8.26] Black Public Radio interview with Mary Mattingly and
Mary Mattingly presents her work.

OFF SITE for AUG:
[8.4-8.6] @Summer Studio (Off Site) Sullivan Galleries with Brandon Alvendia
[8.7] @OpShop (Off Site) presentation of Nomadic mural work with Rob Funderburk
[8.14] @Galaxy (Off Site) AndrewandAndrea Foot Hockey filming

September: Back of the Yards:
[9.11] Publishing Process/Bookmaking Workshop with Brandon Alvendia
[9.18] Last Night of Union Rock Yards with Live music by Bottomless Pit, the Bismarck and Bear Claw
[9.23] Food, Art and the Politics of Agriculture with Liena Vayzman and
Form and Content of Writing panel with Thea Liberty Nichols, Patrice Connolly, Claudine Ise, Abraham Ritchie and Bert Stabler
[9.25] Cultural Fermentation Sauerkraut Workshop with Liena Vayzman in O170

Peace Warriors (2010)

stockyard — Wed, 05 May 2010 00:00:48 +0000

Radio Tolerance with the Peace Warriors:
Invisible to the broader views of public schooling and youth, sits an extraordinary project in Lawndale called the Peace Warriors. This program was introduced to the community by Lafayette Monroe, who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King in the 1960s and was deeply influenced by the non-violent examples he practiced. This current, self initiated group of high school students have set out to change the language of violence in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Chicago.

Stockyard Institute’s founder, Jim Duignan, interviewed a dozen Peace Warriors about their responsibility as a volunteer membership, the depth of administrative support and most importantly, their own sense of satisfaction in contributing to the school’s most important cause. At a final peace rally at the North Lawndale College Preparatory High School which celebrated 192 days of uninterrupted peace, John Horan, principal and I spoke enthusiastically about the prospects for youth driven change. 193 days earlier, Horan had stopped investing in security and removed the metal detectors at each of the school’s entryways to the concern of many students.

Synesthetic Plan of Chicago (2009)

stockyard — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:37:45 +0000

This exhibition was a total immersion that gathered the sounds, sights, tastes, smells, and tactile experiences found in Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods. It was an opportunity to explore Chicago like never before, through its sensory “artifacts.” Stockyard Institute loaned and installed its interactive art piece “musical chairs” for the exhibition.

Synethetic Plan of Chicago: A Multi-Sensory Journey Through Chicago and Its Neighborhoods

June 1 – September 30, 2009
Chicago Cultural Center Visitor Information Center
Organized by Annie Heckman and Dan Godston