Partnerships and Engagement

About

Partnerships and Engagement is a program designed to partner with creative and diverse Chicago-based organizations to foster creative collective experiences. Our partners, which include grassroots organizations and community groups, are invited to host conversations, workshops, talks, and gatherings that provide space for Chicagoans to collaborate on projects. Partnerships and Engagement creates new pathways for working between museums and their public.

Featured Partner: Move Me Soul

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Upcoming Programs

Move Me Soul is youth dance company that fuses technique, performance, and character development. Teens are empowered to “move” their limits on and off stage.

Move Me Soul was founded in 2008 by Ayesha Jaco at Austin High School. The program began with 30 students taking the class as an elective. It then developed into an After School Matters club.

Today more than 150 teens participate throughout Chicago in several programs that develop dance technique, spoken word artists while enhancing their character.

A contemporary dance troupe based out of Austin, on Chicago’s West Side, the MCA and Move Me Soul collaborate on the creation of new choreography and public dance programs.

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Contact Diana Muhammad at [email protected]

Nonpartisan artists and designers provide accessible tools about Illinois state policies. At the MCA, State Matters facilitates conversation on arts and policy in Illinois.

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Contact State Matters at [email protected]

Fieldwork Collaborative Projects is a research based practice that focuses on the politics of public spaces. Based in Chicago, Fieldwork challenges the notion of where art belongs in a city by re-envisioning networks of public spaces, such as parks and recreation centers, as platforms for public performance and art exhibition. Since its founding Fieldwork has temporarily transformed a series of civic spaces into contemporary art venues and invited Chicagoans to participate in a sequence of public performances on Chicago’s 606 recreational trail.

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Get in touch with Fieldwork Collaborative Projects at [email protected]

TRACE stands for Teens Reimagining Art Culture and Environment, a program initiative of the Chicago Park District. The MCA serves as a site to share the curricular work and documentation of TRACE throughout Chicago.

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Get in touch with TRACE at [email protected]

Literary, performing, visual, and audio arts for incarcerated and court-involved young adults. Free Write Arts & Literacy hosts dialogues and conversations in the MCA Commons and in exhibitions.

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Contact Free Write Arts & Literacy at [email protected]

Engagement Programs

Engagements with community partners can range from conversations, to workshops, to informal gatherings. These programs are always free and open to the public.

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Interested? Apply here.

Are you a community that wants to visit the MCA Commons? Want to hold a reading group? Need space to make a conversation happen? Does your class want to gather for seminar or project development? Contact us.

Not a Partner?

Your group is still welcome to gather in our public spaces for creative engagement with our visitors. Contact us to learn more!