ACTIVATING NEIGHBORHOOD SPACE: BACK ALLEY JAZZ AS A CASE STUDY

The Hyde Park Jazz Festival was pleased to collaborate with the Chicago Architecture Biennial Available City Artistic Director, David Brown, for a very special online program on April 20th, 2021.

An online discussion with South Shore residents Jonita and Jeannine Sharpe and artist Norman Teague about developing the Back Alley Jazz project. They discussed the “how to’s” and nuts and bolts of designing and producing neighborhood projects, from team building and operations to programming and fundraising. The discussion was moderated by artist/designer and South Shore resident Faheem Majeed.

This program was part of the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial: The Available City.

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PARTICIPANTS:

DAVID BROWN is the Artistic Director of the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial. Brown is a Chicago-based designer, researcher, and educator. Brown’s work has been exhibited in the Venice Architecture Biennale (2012), the Chicago Cultural Center’s Expo 72 (2013), the Chicago Architecture Biennial (2015), and received a grant from the Graham Foundation in 2011. Writing includes the book Noise Orders: Jazz, Improvisation, and Architecture and essays “Curious Mixtures” in Center 18: Music in Architecture—Architecture in Music and “Lots Will Vary in The Available City” in The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies. Brown has lectured on his work at Columbia University’s Center for Jazz Studies and the Politecno di Milano and has taught at Florida A&M University and Rice University. He is currently a Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). 

FAHEEM MAJEED is an artist, educator, curator, and community facilitator. He blends his unique experience as an artist, nonprofit administrator, and curator to create works that focus on institutional critique and exhibitions that leverage collaboration to engage his immediate, and the broader, community in meaningful dialogue. Majeed received the Field and MacArthur Foundation’s Leaders for a New Chicago Award (2020), as well as the Joyce Foundation Award (2020) and a Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant (2015). He is also a Harpo Foundation Awardee (2016). 

NORMAN TEAGUE is a Chicago based designer and educator focused on projects and pedagogy that address the systematic complexity of urbanism and the culture of communities. Specializing in custom furniture that delivers a personal touch to a specific user topped unique aesthetic detail. Teague’s past projects have included consumer products, public sculpture, performances, and specially designed retail spaces. Working with common, locally sourced building materials and local fabricators to create objects and spaces that explore simplicity, honesty, cleverness and relates to the culture of the client and/or community. Teague graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and had his first solo show at Blanc Gallery and has worked with them to highlight new emerging artists as well as the community as it is where Teague grew up so the connections were nostalgic to say the least. Teague served as lead craftsman and co-founder of the Design Apprenticeship Program at the University of Chicago’s Arts Incubator. His retail ventures have included partnerships with KLEO Residences, Leaders1354, The Silver Room, The Exchange Cafe, DNA STL, Solange Knowles Saint Heron, Chicago Beyond, Hyde Park Art Center, Blanc Gallery, Chicago Park District and South Shore Chamber of Commerce.

JEANNIE AND JONITA SHARPE have helped lead the Back Alley Jazz project since 2018, when they hosted one of the inaugural performances in their yard on South Paxton Avenue. Since then, they have brought decades of experience in event planning and community organizing to the Back Alley Jazz project, helping to evolve it in significant ways each year. The Sharpes have been residents of South Shore for 53 years.

OLIVIA JUNELL has been the Project Manager for Back Alley Jazz since its inception in 2018. She has worked with the Hyde Park Jazz Festival since moving to Chicago in 2013  and currently also works as a Co-Director at Experimental Sound Studio. Over the past 15 years, Olivia has held various roles at a number of contemporary arts and music organizations including significant involvement at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, High Concept Labs, and Women & Their Work, among others. Olivia serves on the board of Honey Pot Performance.