Videos, Performances, and Presentations Will Highlight the Chicago Program Arts Festival

In a building known for books and reading, the Chicago Program Arts Festival will provide a mid-day line-up of videos, performances, and presentations that will showcase the creativity and talent of four young artists on Tuesday, May 8.

Fiona Chamness, Angela Jos, Christina Mooney, and Samantha Sekulich will offer a sample of the independent study projects (ISPs) they have crafted over the course of this spring semester as participants on the Chicago Program: Arts, Entrepreneurship, & Urban Studies.

“They each took their own radically different direction,” said Jason Pallas, a Chicago-based artist and Adjunct Faculty with the program who has been teaching and mentoring the four students in their projects. “I think they all pushed themselves pretty hard, and they look forward to sharing their work.”

The Arts Festival, which is open to the public, will take place in the Video Theater at the Harold Washington Library, 400 S. State Street, from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. on May 8. The students will present their work and the audience will have the chance to talk individually with them.

The students’ projects were developed through a semester-long process that began with a six-week creativity workshop in which the group explored themes and approaches for generating ideas, according to Pallas. From there, the students developed their individual projects – through workshop sessions and feedback from Pallas and each other – which they will present at the Festival.

Pallas gave a preview of the students’ projects:

• Samantha Sekulich, who is majoring in psychology and theatre at Lake Forest College, has produced a mash-up of video clips, culled from a variety of sources, of people talking about their art in relation to mental health. Pallas likened Sekulich’s role as that of a DJ, editing the clips together to form a narrative in the video she will present at the Festival.
• Like Sekulich, said Pallas, Angela Jos worked with video for the first time this semester and has also come up with great results. An acting major at Illinois Wesleyan University, Jos will present an autobiographical video detailing a traumatic car accident and her experiences coping with that event.
• The presentation by Fiona Chamness will be, in effect, a show within a show. An Oberlin College student majoring in creative writing and comparative literature, she has curated “Breaking News,” an event in which artists respond to recent news items. “Breaking News” will be held at the poetry/music venue West Side School for the Desperate on May 5, and Chamness plans to continue the event as a monthly series in her hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan. “For the Festival,” said Pallas, “she’ll bring over her contribution at the event – she’s a musician – and some of the video pieces, and she may have one of the poets join us. She’ll talk about what the show was, her thought behind it, perform her music, and show some of the pieces the other artists submitted.”

• Christina Mooney, an art history major from Ripon College, will present her research on the differences between traditional and new-genre public art in Chicago. “She got really interested in public art in town, how it is funded, and different ways to do it,” Pallas noted. “Mostly she’ll be comparing and contrasting the sort of bronze sculptures you see around of guys on horses versus community-driven projects.”

The ISP is one of the Chicago Program’s four curricular components, along with an interdisciplinary Core Course, a seminar in the student’s area of interest, and an internship with a business or organization.

Links:

• Chicago Program: Arts, Entrepreneurship, & Urban Studies
• Chicago Program blog
• Chicago Program Facebook page
• Bio of Jason Pallas, Chicago Program Adjunct Faculty