by AfroDisco Social Hour

“Love does not bring an end to difficulties, it gives us the strength to cope with difficulties in a constructive way.” — Salvation: Black People and Love by bell hooks.

Since 2023, Afrodisco Social Hour (ADSH) has been working together to produce programs that reimagine how intimacy in social gathering spaces and hospitality venues can be used to foster creativity, collaboration, and community building amongst people of diverse cultural backgrounds and other notable markers of difference.

Inspired by artist, Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party and author and visionary bell hooks’ bestselling trilogy series All About Love, Communion is a dinner party, discussion, and immersive art experience that explores representations and acts of love within Black and queer social life and celebrates the work of Chicago-based Black cultural workers who exemplify a commitment to uplifting ethics of love, respect, and community care.

As part of the Communion experience, our proposal invites artists to participate in re-imagining the dinner party experience through art, food, fellowship, and design to identify key figures, qualities, and values fundamental to establishing a stronger love ethic that uniquely embodies and reflects Black radical perspectives of love and contemporary concerns regarding social gathering.

By bARBER (he/him)

MORE LIFE is inspired by the Gullah Geechee tradition of makeshift memorials and urban memorials typically erected in Black neighborhoods. This tradition within Black American communities originates in the Carolinas during the antebellum South. Denied traditional headstones, the Gullah Geechee people improvised by adorning grave mounds with personal belongings of the deceased; items like false teeth, cherished dishware, hats, quilts, boots, and more creating makeshift identity markers or headstones. These physical artifacts served to counterbalance the tragedy of loss and the trauma of being denied the ability to mourn and honor the deceased.

MORE LIFE seeks to celebrate the culture of North Lawndale through a cultural aesthetic specific to Black America through an urban monument and Black American Flag ceremony. The urban monument will be modeled after urban memorials typically found in Black American neighborhoods nationwide. The Black American flag ceremony will be accompanied by a poem and craft contest promoting cultural enrichment and artistic expression. The goal of MORE LIFE is to amplify and promote cultural integrity and appreciation amongst Black Americans through the act of cultural preservation. Both the urban monument and Black American flag ceremony are geared towards fortifying the community's identity and supporting youth development.

By Jordan Barrant (she/they)

Sisters and Spirit is an oral history project that explores the narratives of aging Black lesbians. The second installment, Sisters and Spirit: Executive Sweet, examines the life and legacy of the organizers behind a Chicago based lesbian-only club in the 1980s formerly called Executive Sweet.

By Cris (he/him)

No Me Voy A Olvidar de Ti stems from personal experiences and the realization of skewed perspectives resulting from the predominant portrayal of white gay culture in media. As a South Side queer youth, the absence of representation within my community was glaring, until college exposed me to these histories and their significance in fostering connections among LGBTQ+ peers. How can we uplift Black and Brown voices, sharing their stories across generations to educate and forge connections?

To address this, we're creating a map of lost and existing spaces from the 70’s to the early 90’s, presenting a comprehensive view of Chicago's LGBTQ+ history beyond the confines of today's Boystown neighborhood. These spaces highlight how Black and Brown communities established and sustained their own havens, a legacy continuing to this day for some. The map will circulate across the city, featuring in various locales including Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) programs at local high schools and community centers like the Gage Park Latinx Council. By exploring and learning from these untold histories, we aim to demonstrate what resilience looked like then to newer generations, as well as foster intergenerational dialogue and resource-sharing. This reciprocal learning process bridges the gap between older and newer LGBTQ+ folks, enriching the community fabric with shared narratives.

No Me Voy A Olvidar de Ti serves as an extension and complement to the Chicago Art Department exhibition Just Below the Surface, running from September to November 2024, curated by myself. This initiative extends from November 2024 onwards, spanning various locations across the city, including the Gage Park Latinx Council (on the South Side), ALMA (a Latinx Queer organization on the Northside), and high school GSA programs citywide such as at The Chicago High School for the Arts. Guided walkthroughs by curators and artists will facilitate youth engagement, offering insights into LGBTQ+ histories and encouraging questions and discussions.

By Linye Jiang 江麟冶 (she/her)

Picking a Fruit is a collaborative project that explores the complexities of queer identity. The project invites queer East Asian women and non-binary individuals in Chicago to engage with my previous work, Fruit Portraits. Participants will select a fruit that resonates with their personal experiences and identity. They will share their stories, explaining why they chose their fruit and how it represents their reflections as queer individuals. These insights will inform a series of performative imagery including photographs and videos, which we will create together. The resulting artworks will highlight the interplay between the chosen fruits and the participants' identities, offering a layered exploration of cultural and personal symbolism.

The primary goal of Picking a Fruit is to expand and deepen the representation of queer identity in the visual arts, with a particular focus on East Asian women and non-binary individuals. By incorporating their perspectives and stories, the project aims to create visibility that encourages viewers to reconsider their preconceived notions of identity and otherness. Additionally, I aim to foster a greater understanding of the unique cultural influences that shape queer identities, particularly at the intersections of Eastern and Western cultures.

Picking a Fruit represents a significant departure from my previous work by incorporating collaborative and participatory elements. The use of fruit transforms everyday objects into symbols of identity and self-expression. This approach challenges the traditional boundaries of portraiture and encourages viewers to engage with familiar objects in unexpected ways. By collaborating with queer East Asian women and non-binary individuals, I am introducing new voices and perspectives into my work, resonating with my own experience of being raised in a queer family within a conservative environment. The performative imagery represents an innovative shift in my artistic practice, pushing me to explore new methods of creating.

By Laboratory of Material Slippage (Serena JV Elston and Vince Phan)

Hanging Garden of Midsummer's Feast is an outdoor sculpture designed as an immersive banquet space that delves into the intricate interplay of native and foreign bodies within both ecological and sociological contexts. By intertwining themes of rootedness and migration, this project initiates a dialogue on cohabitation, exploring how diverse biological species and human communities can support each other's existence within shared habitats. The sculpture will physically manifest by lifting a segment of lawn above a kotatsu-style banquet table grown from native Chicago reishi, revealing the underlying soil to create a communal space for both human and non-human species. Flowers and herbs will be planted along the table forming living centerpieces. This space will host a banquet featuring an all-vegetarian menu, including mushrooms from the Windy City Mushrooms and produce from Patchwork Farms. These gatherings will not only nourish the participants but also reinforce the themes of ecological and social cohabitation.

The project draws on the historical and cultural symbolism of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to create a space of structured abundance, transcending monetary and social hierarchies. Inspired by the egalitarian traditions of the Sikh religion, the installation promotes the idea that all individuals, regardless of status, deserve dignity and nourishment. This philosophy extends to the non-human participants, as the ecosystem benefits from the enriched soil, compost, and shared resources.

Learn more about Laboratory of Material Slippage here.

by Miguel Limón (they/them)

Ink & Impact is an exploration of Chicago’s rich print media heritage, led by Miguel Limón. Through a series of workshops and events hosted at community organizations across the city, participants will engage with experimental printmaking techniques while delving into archival materials. These workshops will uncover the pivotal role of print media in historical movements such as the Black Panther Party, the Young Lord’s Party, The Chicago Defender, and the Chicago Women’s Graphic Collective with resources drawn from archives at institutions like the Chicago History Museum and DePaul University.

Participants will engage in a variety of hands-on activities, including sun printing/cyanotype sessions, button making, poster design, and experimental zine creation. These workshops are designed to reimagine print as a tool for dialogue, expression, and social change, fostering connections with Chicago’s cultural heritage while contributing to conversations about community empowerment and resilience.

Ink & Impact collaborates with community organizations to transform libraries, cultural centers, and grassroots initiatives into inclusive spaces where diverse voices converge. By hosting workshops across the city, the project amplifies Chicago’s printmaking legacy and fosters meaningful connections that empower participants to reclaim their narratives and advocate for social justice.

by Le Hien Minh (she/her)

Nail Women is a community-based, socially engaged, long-form moving image project that delves into the experiences of Vietnamese female nail technicians in Chicago. The project compiles a series of interviews exploring concepts of selfhood and cultural identity within a distinct segment of the Vietnamese diaspora. Since 2023, Le Hien Minh has been interviewing technicians in various Chicago salons, capturing the dynamic atmospheres of their workplaces. Aligned with the tradition of American Social Realism (a movement focused on capturing the realities of working-class life, often advocating for social change) and inspired by Julia Reichert's approach to social documentary filmmaking, Le Hien Minh gives the Vietnamese female nail technicians the space to speak for themselves, offering a powerful perspective rarely seen. This approach provides a strong platform for personal narratives that illuminate broader social issues, enabling the subjects' voices to emerge through intimate, interview-based storytelling.

Nail Women examines the tensions surrounding Vietnamese identity, particularly the enduring impact of the Vietnam War on personal and cultural perceptions. It addresses the complex interactions between historical legacies, differing social systems, wealth disparities, and the diverse narratives of those straddling the worlds of America and Vietnam. The project particularly focuses on how Vietnamese women in America navigate and confront stereotypes associated with Asian femininity, providing first-person perspectives that probe the roots and impacts of these biases—whether externally imposed or self-adopted.

By bringing often-unseen narratives to the forefront, Nail Women challenges stereotypes and misconceptions about Asian women while stimulating dialogue on broader cultural identity issues and encouraging audiences to reflect on their biases. Furthermore, by highlighting these women's stories within the familiar setting of local nail salons, Nail Women makes abstract social issues more relatable, enhancing understanding of the diverse American experience and promoting a more inclusive community dialogue.

By Farah Salem (she/her)

Wisdoms & Endurances: A Sequence of Ancestral Invocations is a series of collaborative and socially engaging workshops primarily inspired by migratory somatic healing practices from the Arabian Peninsula, which center relationships between bodies and land. These workshops are cross-culturally adaptive, inviting individuals of SWANA heritage to reflect and co-generate insights on their personal and ancestral migration stories of endurance and wisdom, while opening this conversation to a global context.

By Sinag Arts Collective

Celebrating Filipino Heritage: A Collaborative Mural at the Rizal Community will narrate the rich history of Filipino immigration to Chicago and the United States. This mural will celebrate the cultural heritage and contributions of the Filipino community by involving fourteen artists, each bringing their unique style and voice to a collaborative masterpiece. The artwork will depict the cultural history of the Rizal Center, which has been a cornerstone of the Filipino community for nearly 50 years. The mural will explore various themes, including many Filipino cultural arts such as dance, music, theater, and historical photographs. The mural will be composed of three distinct, yet fully integrated media: digital print/wallpaper, painted brick, and sculptural elements like tile and protrusions. It may feature pointillist techniques focusing on prominent faces or a crowded collage that intertwines significant moments in Filipino-American history. Key historical figures in Filipino history and influential Filipino Americans will be honored. Natural elements reflecting Filipino myths, like the creation story of Malakas and Maganda, will also be incorporated.

This project will challenge artists to create a multi-media mural offering a fresh perspective on Filipinos in Chicago and America. It will showcase the dedication and skill of each artist, highlighting the inclusiveness and warmth inherent in Filipino culture. The mural will enhance the visual landscape of the area and the building itself, fostering a deeper connection with the community. The mural will captivate the public, depicting the history of Filipino Americans in Chicago through photographs on tile, large effigies of historical figures, and vibrant colors like red, white, blue, and yellow. It will blend realism with abstract elements, incorporating cultural markers and historical figures in natural and social settings.