Togetherism logo by Jeremiah Chiu
TOGETHERISM
A series of exhibitions and events about the work of groups
September 7 - November 15, 2019
Public Media Institute, ArchiteXX, Tender House Project, Justseeds & McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum present a series of exhibitions and programming examining the creative work of groups.
Seeking useful models to inspire experimental infrastructures for culture and politics, this multi-pronged festival gathers artists, activists, architects, buddies, brewers, chefs, journalists, criminalized youth, satanists and many others to work through what it is to work together.
Togetherism examines creative experiments with horizontal, collective art-making and organizing. Named with a playful neologism, the festival avoids constraining the terms of collectivity while centering the common deviance among our groups: we work together. The series is inspired by (and hopes to inspire) forms of radical, liberating practice where collective creative work rethinks and reforms the ways of living in society. The festival will feature the work of both historical and contemporary groups from Chicago and beyond. Not quite utopian, each group serves variously as a proof of concept, a failure, a new direction to pursue, an example of how we can change.
Some highlights include:
The launch exhibition of a new Detroit-based collective, Sex Militant
NOW WHAT?! ADVOCACY, ACTIVISM & ALLIANCES IN AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE SINCE 1968 - Exhibition and programming with radical feminist architecture collective ArchiteXX
Tender House Project at the The McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum -an exhibition and programming series with Mejay Gula of Tender House Project + music, art and ecology groups.
Three Justseeds Exhibitions - marking the semi-annual gathering of the international group of activist printmakers, exhibitions will be held at Co-Prospertiy Sphere, Uri Eichen, and In These Times
A special InCUBATE reunion Sunday Soup to launch a new Co-Prosperity Beer from Marz Brewing with sales going towards the creation of a grant to support artist and activist groups
The release Lumpen 135, a publication featuring the work of such contemporary and historical groups such as Related Tactics, Critical Art Ensemble, Camel Collective, Temporary Services, Justseeds, Postcommodity, industry of the Ordinary, Videokaffe, and many others.
Creative Authority, a one-day group experiment organized by Netta Sadovsky and Fred Schmidt-Arenales to observe group dynamics unfolding in real time
The re-launch of Temporary Service’s Groups and Spaces Website.
Nicole Marroquin’s Loud Mud project with criminalized youth in the Youth Incarceration Alternatives Initiative on view at Envisioning Justice at Sullivan Galleries + broadcast on Lumpen Radio
Collection of group terminology from “Group Work”- the book by Temporary Services serves as reference for the festival.