Ag47

Ag47 Youth have something to say. Ag47 amplifies their voices.

See you tomorrow! We’ll be at Grace Church of Logan Square tomorrow on the lawn from 2-5 giving away all our supplies! C...
05/21/2022

See you tomorrow! We’ll be at Grace Church of Logan Square tomorrow on the lawn from 2-5 giving away all our supplies! Come say goodbye and take our stuff!

To our Ag47 family, who are near and far: A quick announcement: Ag47 is about to embark on a new journey. One of dissolu...
05/11/2022

To our Ag47 family, who are near and far:

A quick announcement: Ag47 is about to embark on a new journey. One of dissolution. After 10 years of magic in a quiet basement in Logan Square the directors feel that our beautiful collective has come to a natural end. In partaking in this next phase, we invite you to please join us Sunday, May 22nd from 2-5 at Grace Church of Logan Square to partake in some shared memories and *our art supplies*. We are giving away all of our storage closet of goodies: paint, pens, paper, photographs, and other things that don’t start with p. The tools we used to spill so much magic each Sunday are now the community’s, free of charge. And if you don’t need any supplies, please come to say goodbye!

Thank you for all of the love, community, starlight, stories, dances, snack times, and more. We love you. See you then!

A few more gems from our Utopian Garments workshop with Sky.[Image description 1: text of a quote Sky shared with us dur...
03/01/2021

A few more gems from our Utopian Garments workshop with Sky.

[Image description 1: text of a quote Sky shared with us during the workshop. Text is black, highlighted in purple. Background is large geometric shapes painted on a brick wall. The largest shape is hot pink, with smaller shapes that are teal and one small segment of blue. Quote reads: "A crucial thing to do during the apocalypse is create your own world, whether it is just you, or your chosen family, or a whole community. No matter what, you have to create your own future because if you cannot imagine a future for yourself then it will be very difficult to survive (this is why seeing media representations of our identities is very important!). ~Sky Cubacub"]

[Image description 2: text of some questions Sky invited us to consider in creating our utopian garments. Text is black. Background is mostly aqua blue with some blurry pink and blue cloud-like shapes in the lower, right-hand corner. Text reads: "Parts of your body you like to highlight?
Parts you feel vulnerable about?
Parts you feel vulnerable about but want to show off?
What would make clothing more accessible to your body?
What would make clothing show off your gender expression best?
Do you want to blend in with the landscape or stand out?"]

03/01/2021

This slo-mo epic no-touch dance battle comes from a joyous workshop led last season by Sky Cubacub of Rebirth Garments

We began with the question: How do you make yourself a Utopian garment while the world is in Dystopia?

We looked at examples of utopian garments created by different designers and artists. Talked about how wearing different types of clothing and adornment makes us feel. Dreamed on what we would want to wear that would help us feel strong during an imagined apocalypse, either to go into battle or to explore.

Choosing from mountains of scrap and re-purposed fabrics, we used no-sew methods to construct our own utopian garments. We adorned them with decoration. Created accessories. Dressed ourselves in our own ideal way of moving through the world.

In our garments, we had this slo-mo dance battle which eventually morphed into full-on dance party, turning our workshop space into impromptu discotheque. And ended the workshop by sharing each of our personal connections to the garment we created. We considered: if you were to create an audio-description for you wearing your garment, what would it include? How would you describe yourself and your creation?

We are so grateful to Sky for sharing this deep, exhilarating, affirming workshop.

To check out more of Rebirth Garment's hugely cool work and to learn more about Sky: http://rebirthgarments.com/

To see more photos of the garments we created, as well as an exploration of our whole APOCALYPSE season, check our Digital Showcase at ag47apocalypse.com!

Video description in comments below.

✨Continuing with our weekly workshop highlights...✨ This workshop was facilitated by incredible teaching artist Bex Ehr...
02/19/2021

✨Continuing with our weekly workshop highlights...✨ This workshop was facilitated by incredible teaching artist Bex Ehrmann, combining aspects of immersive theatre, process drama, writing, movement, and sound.

In this drama-based workshop, we imagined a near-future apocalypse. Climate change and a deadly pandemic had made it unsafe for people to live in close proximity on land. Until a cure could be found, the government had arranged for groups of healthy survivors to wait out the danger on boats. So we said goodbye to our loved ones and boarded our ship. But when we arrived on deck, our captain was missing… and we discovered evidence of a stowaway. Without leadership from the top, we, the passengers, had some decisions to make. What could we do to ensure our survival? How would we share power? How would we engage with the “other,” the stowaway? Who could we trust? We debated these questions, devised imaginative nightmare sequences to bring our fears to life, and put ourselves in the stowaway's shoes to determine their intentions.

Swipe through for more art, an excerpt of some poetry inspiration shared during the workshop, and to read Bex's bio.

To follow Bex and check out more of their work:
Instagram:
Twitter:

And head to http://ag47apocalypse.com/ to check out more artwork created during this workshop and our whole APOCALYPSE season.

[Image 1: Artist credit: Karen. Message in a bottle piece of art created during the workshop. Small glass bottle with cork. Bottle is decorated with a repurposed page from a book, on top of which is painted in cursive letters "for John" in black paint. A heart is painted below.]

[Image 2: Artist credit: Nathaniel. Another message in a bottle piece. The same type of glass bottle with cork. This bottle is undecorated, revealing a crumpled piece of paper inside. While no writing is able to be seen on the paper, there may be a message inside.]

[Image 3: Background is tan, parchment-like paper. Text is a black, script-like font. Text reads:
The morning after, the beach at Borth
is a graveyard, a petrified forest
thundered out of the sand by the storm,
drowned by the sea six thousand years ago
when the Earth was flat,
the horizon the edge of the world.
~from Cantre’r Gwaelod (The Drowned Hundred) by Gillian Clarke]

[Image 4: Bex's artist bio, black text on a cream background that looks like a slightly crumpled piece of paper. Text reads "Through their work, Bex Ehrmann aims to investigate meaningful questions and engage their audience’s imaginations. They studied theatre at Northwestern University, and in 2019, they were named a Luminarts Cultural Foundation fellow in creative writing. As an arts educator, Bex has worked with Chicago Public Schools, About Face Youth Theatre, Imagination Stage, and several other organizations. They are currently pursuing an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Hamline University."]

~Love Letter to the Earth~For this workshop, we were inspired by the work of Culture Declares Emergency's . We thought ...
02/12/2021

~Love Letter to the Earth~

For this workshop, we were inspired by the work of Culture Declares Emergency's . We thought about what it would feel like to write a love letter directly to this planet. What would be most important to say? What questions would we ask? We composed our individual love letters.

Each member of the collective chose a few essential lines of their poem to serve as material for a live sound collage. A collective soundscape. A collective love letter. At any time during the sound collage, anyone could speak aloud a line, a word, a few words of their text. A typewriter sat at the center of this circle of sound, available for anyone to type a bit of their text. Here is the image of what we shared with one another.

To listen to the incredible soundscore Nick Meryhew created for this workshop and to read more excerpts of these love letters, check out our Digital Showcase at ag47apocalypse.com!

And check out the second image for some inspiration to write your own Letter to the Earth.

[Image description 1: photo of a piece of paper torn from a typewriter roll. On the paper is small, typewritten text: Ag47's collective love letter to the earth. Some of the text is dark and clear, some overlaps, some is very faint.]

[Image description 2: Black text on a blue, watery background. Text reads "Relive a tender moment you’ve had with the earth. Remember sensory details. When you place yourself back in that moment, how do you feel?
What is one of your favorite places on earth? Why do you love it?
What do you hope the earth will be like in the future? If you could, what would you do to make this future a reality?
Are there any apologies you’d like to make? Amends? Words of gratitude?
How has your relationship with the earth developed throughout your life?"]

To celebrate Ag47's Digital Showcase, we'll be sharing weekly behind-the-scenes peeks into this past season's workshops,...
02/05/2021

To celebrate Ag47's Digital Showcase, we'll be sharing weekly behind-the-scenes peeks into this past season's workshops, centered around the theme APOCALYPSE.

We began our season with a collective installation. We wanted to create something that could change and expand over time. Apocalypse as transformation.

We asked, What would you choose to bring with you into the Apocalypse?

We started with individual sculptures made of found materials. We placed them all in a HUGE glass aquarium. Then, we created an improvised soundscape, A Song for the Apocalypse. We poured in gallons of saltwater solution, so salt crystals could bloom over our collective sculpture. Weeks passed. This is the result.

As you make your way through the digital showcase at http://ag47apocalypse.com, be on the lookout for a salt crystal recipe and a Song for the Apocalypse performance score to create along with us at home (make sure to allow pop-ups from the website to ensure you don't miss any hidden gems!).

[image description: close-up photo of a section of Ag47's salt crystal installation, taken through the crystal-coated glass. Cream salt crystals have developed organically over sculptural elements of the installation, including glittery fabric tulle, pieces of wire, old electronic elements, a wooden dowel covered in red fabric, clothespins, paper clips, and a shiny CD. Near the center of the photo is a small clump of bright blue artificial flowers with green leaves.]

01/29/2021

Our digital showcase drops for the 2020 Ag47 season! It’s something like you’ve never seen.
👁👄👁
Visit at ag47apocalypse.com

This is a cumulative work of our youth and adult artists during our 2020 season which was themed Apocaypse. We appreciate you supporting local arts and youth movements of all kinds.

Thanks to artist Jen Hill for the incredible website. We are so extremely grateful!

01/27/2021

Apocalypse: 'to reveal'

COMING JANUARY 29

01/25/2021

What does it mean to imagine a future?

In January of 2020 Ag47 Collective embarked on an exploration of the theme ‘Apocalypse,’ with the intent to consider the meaning of transformation.

We didn't mean to do it. We may have willed the Apocalypse to life.

Now, we will present a digital showcase of what we discovered. Like nothing Ag47 has created before, we will release this showcase as a limited-run online adventure. Join us as we reveal this transformation.

Ag47 Apocalypse: January 29th, 2021

Very cool (and compensated!) opportunity for young people ages 10-16, brought to our attention by Chicago Women's Health...
07/16/2020

Very cool (and compensated!) opportunity for young people ages 10-16, brought to our attention by Chicago Women's Health Center! We know so many inspiring young people who seem like an amazing fit for this.

From our Creative Director Hope Barnes: This Thursday the Police Free Schools Ordinance is being heard in a joint Public...
06/30/2020

From our Creative Director Hope Barnes:

This Thursday the Police Free Schools Ordinance is being heard in a joint Public Safety and Education Chicago City Council Committee. Use the link below to demand that the committee support the ordinance. This is the next step to move the vote to the full Chicago City Council. Students are keeping the gas on the pedal to create . Let’s listen to them and amplify their potent voices!

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Chicago, IL
60647

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