Humans of Sweet Water...Meet Andrea Yarbrough
Humans of Sweet Water...Meet Andrea Yarbrough. Andrea first visited The Commons during the fall of 2019 and has been plugging in ever since. She has been helping create and build in the Work-Shop, grow and support life on the Community Farm, and engage in art across The Commons. Andrea is also interested in curating spaces specific to women of color to discuss and practice care within and outside of an institutional context. This month, we invite you to read more about Andrea.
Can you tell us about your background?
I grew up all over the City of Chicago. I worked in education for eight years - specifically with Post Secondary Transition and College Success. Essentially, I helped high school and college students figure out what's next. I’ve worked in Chicago Public Schools as well as some schools in upstate New York and also in Los Angeles.
I have a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Black Studies from Eastern Illinois University, a Master's Degree in Black Studies from the University at Albany-SUNY, and I'm currently getting a Master's in Museum and Exhibition Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago. I'm getting this second Master’s Degree because I'm broadly interested in art - in the sense of “how do we move art outside of institutions and off walls? and how does that art move people to action?”
I am also deeply interested in care as a critical framework and understanding the (in)visibility of care economies within particular spaces. I am still working out a specific definition for care economies, but a huge resource for me has been Leah Lashmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's, "Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice". I am trying to define care economies in the context of Black women and cultural production. At the moment, I’m thinking of care economies in terms of creating access, holding space, and building radical liberatory communities in the face of gratuitous violence. Understanding that while our larger systems and structures fail Black women, that we continue to find ways to thrive collectively and support larger communities, and cultural production is one of the many spaces where that work lives.
What is the work you are interested in now?
My thesis is centered around exhuming the (in)visibility of care among women within the African diaspora, archives of black resistance that unearths kinship with women as a means for healing, and representations of black womanhood within the art historical cannon. I want to curate spaces specific to women of color to discuss and practice care within and outside of an institutional context. I am specifically interested in curating on vacant lots.
There are a couple of projects I’m currently working on. I'm very much interested in the act of bringing people to the table - physically and metaphorically speaking - to be able to have more actionable, critical conversations. Sometimes, it’s not enough to just bring people together. In many cases you have to build a new structure and create an entirely new space to operate within.
The project that is grounding my work and that I would like to collaboratively expand is called in c/o: black women. I’m building modular tables that will live on vacant lots or, what I’ve come to learn is just public space. My interest in reclaiming vacant space is a direct result of how I’ve seen Chicago change over time. So I thought, why not build a table that can be moved and changed with the needs of the people occupying the space. As I mentioned, I am really committed to collaborative processes so I decided to invite other women makers to build seats to bring to the table, and then program the table with exhibitions, film screenings, and workshops. As someone who is interested in curatorial strategies, I think it is extremely important to create space for women artists to share their work and center how they care for one another and their communities.
The other project I'm interested in is using public space, like vacant lots, as sites for civic engagement. I am particularly interested in engaging high school youth and understanding how we can better mobilize them to shift local policy. There are a number of sites I’m interested in mostly on the south side, but I have friends interested in doing some work on the west side. My hope is to complete six different tables on six sites over the course of a year.
Why did you leave Chicago and why did you come back?
To be honest, I’ve had a love hate relationship with Chicago. I moved around the city a lot growing up and went to 13 different schools. I had a very particular view of the city, and I wasn’t really happy living here. I didn’t always feel like I could be my full self. When I went away to undergrad, I told myself, “I'm never moving back to Chicago.” I said that for almost ten years.
In 2017, I was living in Los Angeles and had a near death experience while on vacation in Hawaii. At that moment I decided, “If I survive this, there is a lot about my life that I want to change, one of those was moving back home to Chicago.” There was a lot of community work that I wanted to be doing at home, which I was doing in L.A, but I wasn’t as passionate about it. So, a year later I moved.
When I got back to Chicago, I supported principals and counselors from CPS turnaround high schools with vision setting and rethinking the whole “college for all” mindset. I wrote curriculum for seminar classes for 9th and 10th grade students, facilitated professional development, and secured partnerships with organizations supporting students who did not want to take a traditional college route, but, rather, wanted to transition into something like a trade or apprenticeship program or maybe go into a service year with AmeriCorps.
What changes have you seen in Chicago?
Most of my family is still in Chicago, so it wasn't a hard transition back per se, but Chicago is very different than when I left 10 years ago. In terms of density and population, the area I grew up around has completely shifted. Some of the homes I grew up in are now vacant lots. When I was seven, my family moved to the south suburbs. We only lived out there for about two years, but when we first moved there, we were one of three black families on that block. Now, that same neighborhood is almost exclusively black. So, one change has been displacement from the city and the shifts that have happened in the city in terms of affordability. The suburbs became much more affordable than the city, which is kind of bizarre to think about when at some point, it was a “privilege” to be able to live in the suburbs.
I moved to West Woodlawn last August. Even in that neighborhood, there's a lot of abandoned buildings and homes, but there's also a lot of development happening. There are a lot of outside and foreign investors who are interested in buying and owning space and the demographics are shifting. So, what I know to be traditionally a very Black neighborhood, is changing pretty rapidly.
Something I love about my block is the community, which is so vibrant! There are elders who make sure our block is clean. Twice a month, they walk the entire block and pick up all the trash. There's also an elder who lives next door to me, who literally gets up every Monday morning, and makes sure my trash is out, so that when streets and sanitation come around, my trash is picked up. It’s not something that I asked for, and they're not asking for anything in return, but they saw a new neighbor and wanted to support and help out.
How did you find Sweet Water?
I had been thinking through my thesis, and this whole idea of curating an exhibition on vacant land. I understood that I had been gone for a very long time, and there were a lot of things that had changed. So, I wanted to plug into a space where I felt like I could relearn what was happening on the ground and also work with folks who are doing similar cultural work.
This past fall, I reached out to a friend of mine, Taryn Randle, who works at SWF. She told me to just stop by The Commons for a tour and invited me to help out on the farm. I showed up and never left.
What did you think of Sweet Water before you first visited?
I was sort of skeptical because of what I knew this neighborhood was like before I left Chicago. I looked at the address and thought to myself, “57th and Perry - there's nothing there.” But having seen photos online, I was already really impressed but also curious about what I was about to walk into.
Once I got here, I was a little overwhelmed in terms of the scale at which Sweet Water is at in such a short amount of time and with such a small team. It was impressive in a number of ways and after a conversation with Emmanual my wheels were turning in terms of how I can think even grander. In some ways, I had been limiting my thoughts and myself around what was actually possible. After I came to Sweet Water, I realized there really isn’t a limit when you’re working with a clear vision and the right team.
What was the first thing that caught your attention at Sweet Water?
To be honest - Keith. He was in the alleyway when I walked up. He was looking at me very confused and I asked for a tour and he was like “Sure, do you want to come inside?” I didn’t tell him I knew Taryn. I kind of wanted to see what happens when a random person walks up - how will people at Sweet Water treat you? I felt a lot of love. Even in his confusion of this random woman walking up and asking for a tour, I felt a lot of love.
How have you been engaging at Sweet Water?
I’m a Fellow. And what I've learned in my short time here is that everyone one does everything, which is perfect because I am always looking to grow. I started off helping harvest on the farm and in the gardens, and then I moved to working with Sam around developing a coherent visual narrative of The Commons. I’ve also spent time in the Work-Shop building fractals, garden beds, and seeding for the farm. I look forward to spending more time on the farm, learning to grow food, and caring for the land.
There are also a lot of art activities happening here at The Commons, so I’ve been helping with arts engagement and thinking about new curatorial strategies to make spaces more interactive, engaging, and accessible. Sometimes, art falls into heavy theoretical frameworks, which some of us really enjoy, but those theories don’t necessarily translate for the broader community, my hope is to bridge some of those gaps.
How have you been involved with the Gallery at [Re]Construction House?
With the Gallery at [Re]Construction House, I’ve been helping to rethink the spatial layout, archiving materials left in the house, and programming artists' talks and workshops. [Re]Construction House is such a special site because of its history and the restoration process. There are so many ways to take what might seem like a static house and make it into an interactive arts space. I am really excited about the work happening there and the programming coming soon. One of my hopes is to better tell the story of the family [who owned the house] and the larger community in a way that honors their journey. I'm also interested in getting those archives into the hands of the folks who visit the space so that they know more stories about this community.
If you could describe Sweet Water in one word, what would it be?
Chaordic
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I'm really looking forward to teaching yoga once the weather warms up and just being able to engage different audiences around wellness. I’m also excited to host workshops for people interested in jewelry wrapping and learning more about gemstones.
Sweet Water Foundation has been cultivating The Commons since 2014. This year, SWF outlined a vision for the next evolution of the community - The Commonwealth. What does Commonwealth mean to you?
I think about folks coming together to have a particular wealth. I think about wealth from a wellness perspective rather than a financial/money perspective. Wealth goes way beyond your financial means. It is something that is more about your happiness, your internal joy, your heart, and your humanity. One thing that I loved when I first came to Sweet Water was the We The Publics... installation and this idea of commoning. That's what I've always been interested in, but never had that particular word to say what I meant. I want people to come together - to just be and interact and enjoy one another. And also challenge one another and have conversations with the hope that they move us to a better place.
