Summer 2021 Recap | A Vibrant Summer at The Commonwealth

Summer 2021 at The Commonwealth was jam-packed and full of vibrant arts, cultural, and educational programming that engaged a diverse and intergenerational audience of local residents and learners, leaders, and artists from near and far. Read on below to learn more.

The onset of summer was marked by the arrival of the Summer 2021 Urban Ecology Global Fellows Cohort on Monday, June 14. Fellows are undergraduate and graduate students and recent graduates that engage in an immersive 10-week program to cultivate a deep understanding of urban ecology and neighborhood development through hands-on and solution-oriented work, research, and reflection. This summer’s fellows represented 4 universities (Yale University, University of Chicago, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Chicago State University) and 5 disciplines (Media/Photography, Social Work, Architecture, Urban Design, and Public Policy). Fellows arrived just in time to prepare for Juneteenth, diving head (and hands) first into life at The Commonwealth.

On Saturday, June 19, 2021, SWF hosted its Fourth Annual Juneteenth Celebration at The Commonwealth. Being mindful of the continued need to protect the health and safety of the community, the 2021 Juneteenth Celebration was not broadly advertised and, instead, shared by word-of-mouth with neighbors, market-goers, and active partners across the network. The event welcomed more than 200 individuals from near and far to create, build, and celebrate freedom + community. 

In early July, SWF was excited to be able to safely welcome an in-person cohort of Apprentices for the first time since the onset of COVID-19. The Summer 2021 Urban Ecology Apprenticeship Cohort began on July 6, welcoming 6 local area youth to participate in a 6-week Apprenticeship working alongside Fellows across a range of hands-on Urban Ecology activities at The Commonwealth. This summer’s apprentices included 2 local area residents and 4 young people from Chicago Housing Authority’s One Summer Chicago program. The Apprenticeship program was packed with urban ecology focused activities including farming, gardening, carpentry, cooking, and art. 

Mid-July brought forth the latest exhibit in the Thought Barn, We The Publics...from Bounded Rationality to Unbounded Possibilities.  We The Publics… is a catalytic assemblage of art, artifacts, and history exploring the many facets and dimensions of the publics and public trust. At the exhibit’s center lies an awe-inspiring model of 3 stages of the neighborhood’s history (1926, 1958, and 2012) that illustrate the rapid decline and vacancy of the neighborhood. The model, which is made of reclaimed wood scraps, provided Fellows and Apprentices the opportunity to contribute to the exhibit as they learned about and examined the complicated history and continued impacts of redlining and disinvestment on Chicago’s South Side.

In addition to Urban Ecology Fellow and Apprenticeship programming, the summer’s weekly routine included Wellness Wednesdays and Civic Arts Fridays. Each Wednesday, SWF welcomed local residents, partners, and volunteers to plug into farm and garden work with Apprentices and Fellows for Wellness Wednesdays, a day dedicated to promoting wellness in the community through nourishment of connections to one another and the land. Civic Arts Fridays was a ritual of engaging in hands-on art activities after weekly Farmer’s Markets and a long week of hard work. Apprentices, Fellows, core team members, and visitors creatively ended each week with an art project, oftentimes, featuring natural and/or reclaimed materials. Projects included mulberry dyeing, leaf printing, and screenprinting.       

In mid-August, the Urban Ecology Apprenticeship Program culminated with Apprentices delivering a final presentation and guided experience at The Commonwealth. Apprentices (paired with Fellows) were spread across The Commonwealth at 4 stations carefully curated to engage visitors in each of the core experiences of their summer program - agriculture, culinary, carpentry, and the market. An audience of more than 20, which included Deans and representatives from City Colleges of Chicago, partners from Chicago Housing Authority, and family, friends, and community members got a hands-on glimpse of the core components of the summer Urban Ecology Apprenticeship program as they rotated from station to station across The Commonwealth.  

Summer at The Commonwealth culminated in late August with the final presentation of the Summer 2021 Urban Ecology Global Fellows final presentation delivered virtually to an audience of more than 40 Values-Based Partners, family + friends, community members, and representatives from colleges, universitIes, and other educational partners.  Click here to learn more about the summer fellowship and their final presentation. 

Sweet Water Foundation is grateful to all those who made the success of Summer 2021 possible.  There GROWS the neighborhood!