Public Art Installations Meet Green Stormwater Infrastructure
We've included an excerpt from a longer blog post. Read the full blog post on Intersections, a blog by CNT.
Through CNT’s Climate and Cultural Resilience Program, we have had the privilege of working with Ghian, Paola, and several other incredible Chicago residents, artists, designers, landscapers, and community organizations at four sites, including Overton, within a ½ mile of a CTA train stop across the City. Our partners reflected on what it means to be resilient in a time of climate change and displacement of people and cultures from Chicago neighborhoods. The creative output of this reflection is a complementary public art installation and green stormwater infrastructure project – both tangible representations of what climate and cultural resilience means to those living and working near the sites. The following is a collection of photos of the work completed or underway at each site.
Climate and Cultural Resilience sites
Site 1: Former Overton Elementary Grounds
Site 2: LSNA Building
Site 3: Farmworks urban agriculture site
Site 4: OPEN Center for the Arts
Site 3: Farmworks urban agriculture site
Discover it: near the Kedzie Lake Green Line
Project components: ART - a shade sculpture at the back edge of the garden to provide a respite from the sun for farm employees and volunteers. STORMWATER - two bioswales, at the front and back of the garden (to capture sidewalk and adjacent parking lot runoff).
Site Design Group created a plant voting board to collect community feedback on the types of plants they would like to see growing in the bioswales.
The bioswales at Farmworks were installed by Greencorps Chicago – again donating labor and providing their training cohort another opportunity to install green stormwater infrastructure.
Artist Andrea Jablonski created a model of the shade sculpture and, at our fall open house, invited residents to vote on their favorite color panels.
The completed shade sculpture! The multi-colored panels are a nod to the similarly multi-colored plexiglass used at the Kedzie Lake Green Line Station.
