Settlement (2018, collaboration with Susy Bielak)

Settlement is an itinerant public art project that examines displacement and migration. It focuses on mid-twentieth century highway construction, the uses of eminent domain, and histories of immigration in Chicago. The work examined structural imbalances and buried histories through drawing, poetry, sculpture, walks, and dialogue.

Settlement was the culmination of a multi-year commission by contemporary art and community organization Threewalls, including a year of programs in our neighborhood, ensuing commissioned public work, and a forthcoming monograph. The work drew on two years of research including interviews with urban planners and immigrant rights specialists, research in the Chicago Parks District archives, and partnerships with community groups including Axis Lab, an organization that aims to build upon the legacy of Chicago’s Southeast Asian Community.

The installation evoked Chicago’s history of human and material displacement, specifically, how remains of over 800 buildings were hauled from the West Side of the city to extend the northernmost part of Lakeshore Drive and the park adjacent to it. Over a series of months, we brought an installation—including fiberglass sculptures modeled after homes, businesses, and sites of worship that had been seized by eminent domain and razed on the West Side—to the northern tip of Lincoln Park, built upon the remains of the very buildings the sculptures represent.

We used the sculptures and accompanying mounted drawings—creating tableaus of life on the West Side—as beacons for conversation with hundreds of park-goers about history, displacement, and migration. We distributed free artist books in parallel to the installation.

Vacancies, Reception, a sculpture with an embedded artist book, positions visitors into an encounter with a reception desk. The desk acts as a key boundary in the hotel, where permission is granted to cross from public to private space. Inspired by both single-room-occupancy and contemporary luxury hotel lobby reception desks, the sculpture can be approached from the vantage points of guest or employee.