Call for Art to be exhibited at Through the Portal: Growing the World We Want conference

The Social Justice Initiative (SJI) at UIC invites you to submit artwork for our conference Through the Portal: Growing the World We Want, which will be held at the University of Illinois Chicago from September 20–22, 2024. We particularly welcome artists who are engaging in art through the lenses of social justice work, community-based work, or visual art projects.

Through the Portal: Growing the World We Want will host an exhibition of artists whose work uplifts and envisions the worlds we want. We’re looking for artists to submit work in any style that imagines or is inspired by social justice movements like abolition, economic democracy, climate justice, feminism, and racial justice. The exhibition will be displayed for the duration of the 3-day conference, Sept 20–22.

In one weekend, Through the Portal will bring together over eighty presenters who have been deeply engaged in and writing about these interlocking struggles for justice. The conference will be a place where attendees can learn from the work being done in the streets, the studio, the halls of Congress, the courthouse, and the classroom, as well as hear from researchers, writers, and artists.

Presenters include:

Angela Davis • Eve L. Ewing • Barbara Ransby • Mazibuko Jara • Hon. Cori Bush • Hon. Rashida Tlaib • Viet Thanh Nguyen, Mariame Kaba • Amy Goodman • Juan Gonzalez • Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor • Dima Khalidi • Jamila Woods and more.

To supplement this Call for Art, the SJI’s Portal Project, Art.coop, and Haymarket Books will host 3 information sessions for artists and culture workers interested in exchanging with grassroots organizers in the realm of economic democracy, abolition, and climate justice over three virtual sessions in August:

• Wednesday, August 7th,
  
• Wednesday, August 14th, and
  
• Wednesday, August 21st.

Register for the virtual sessions here.

For more information on this Call for Art, click here.