West Town, Bronzeville community projects among those receiving support through new pilot program

For 20 years, Heaven Gallery has opened its West Town doors to artists and curators around the city.

Now using art in a call for social justice, the gallery highlights the work of Black Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) artists in its Equity Arts Project.

“We know creative neighborhoods have artists, and they have art organizations, but they are constantly being displaced and moved around,” said Alma Wieser, president of Equity Arts and director of Heaven Gallery.

The project seems to end this shift and provide “prosperity building paths” through mentorships, curatorial programs and exhibitions.

But the project has been threatened by the owners putting the building on 1550 N. Milwaukee Ave. for sale. Developers began circulating in 2019, and only the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic kept the gallery safe from being sold for a while. So in the fall, an increase in crime in the neighborhood again put a pause for interested developers on the way forward.

And now Equity Arts has got another chance.

On October 20, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced the pilot program Equitable Transit-Oriented Development in collaboration with Elevated Chicago and Enterprise Community Partners.

Designed to promote healthy, walkable and affordable neighborhoods, 11 community-driven projects have been selected.

“Our ultimate goal with the ETOD program is to maximize the benefits that high quality, affordable and reliable transit provides to our communities,” Lightfoot said in a press release. “Each of these 11 projects will help us fulfill this mission in a just and socially conscious way, as well as help improve the overall well-being of our residents.”

While the program intends to invest in transit-oriented projects on the south and west sides without displacement, it also appears to promote affordability on the north and northwest sides.

A total of $ 160,000 in micro-grants and technical assistance was allocated to the community-based projects to help with construction near transit stations throughout Chicago.

Heaven Gallery plans to create a center for cultural healing and economic justice in the long run. Sixty percent of the tenants in the center would be BIPOC art leaders as a way to “enrich our communities and enrich our neighborhoods,” Wieser said.

Artist / curator Shterna Goldbloom, left, and artist SaraNoa Mark, right, are preparing their respective works of art, which they have created in collaboration with 12 other artists for a show called “Havruta”, which opens Friday in Heaven Gallery.

Pat Nabong / Sun-Times

But first, Heaven Gallery must buy the building and begin the renovation – and they will need $ 5 million to do so, according to Wieser.

With the funds from ETOD, the gallery hopes to launch a community investment tool this spring so that community members can invest in the Heaven Gallery and the Project, which in turn will help raise the money to purchase the building.

However, as the Equity Arts Project appears to remain inside the gallery’s original building, other projects seek to build new structures.

For Bronzeville’s Food Matters, the money will be used to help buy land on 43rd Street for a greenhouse.

Food Matters was created by Rush University Medical Center nurse Laurie Ouding in 2017. Ouding, who lived on a farm in Michigan with a large garden before moving to North Lawndale in 2008, said the move was a “culture shock.”

“I was surrounded by this agriculture [in Michigan] and really took it for granted that I had access to food all the time, ”she said.

As a food drought, many North Lawndale residents lack access to fresh produce, and Ouding saw on its own the effects on its patients at Rush.

By creating Food Matters, Ouding’s goal was to offer nutrition education, cooking classes and education in urban agriculture to show residents how to grow healthy food at home in a city.

The response has been overwhelmingly positive, she said.

Reproduction of the Food Matters greenhouse hopes to be able to build in the Bronzeville neighborhood using funds through the Equitable Transit-Oriented Development pilot program.

Laurie Ouding

“In 2018… I was at this town hall meeting,” Ouding said, “I’m standing up there talking about [the greenhouse], and there is silence. I think ‘Oh, my God, no!’ And as soon as I was done, [Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd] said: ‘I’m really excited about this project. I think it’s going to be great. ‘ And then a bunch of hands went up and people thought, ‘When is this going to happen?’ “

Ouding has been working with the Department of Planning and Development since 2018 to purchase the land on 43rd Street and complete the necessary prior work, including assessments and environmental testing.

But the pandemic put a pause on it, and the pre-development work expired.

On top of that, the price of land doubled.

But with the support of the community behind her, Ouding remains hopeful.

“If we never address what’s going on in society, we really will not solve any of the problems,” she said. “I look at food insecurity and what it does and how it affects health – not only in terms of disease, but also if children do not get the appropriate nutrients, they do not learn as they should and it affects their education. Food is medicine, but food is life. “

Cheyanne M. Daniels is an employee reporter for Sun-Times via Report for America, a non-profit journalism program that aims to strengthen the newspaper’s coverage of communities on the south and west sides.