2024 Summer at The Commonwealth
Summer 2024 was jam-packed with weekly rituals, special events, visitors from across the globe, and a lot of hard work amidst a hot Chicago summer. Sweet Water Communiversity was in full swing from early June through the end of August, welcoming neighbors, youth, a new cohort of Urban Ecology Global Fellows, and Values-Based Partners to The Commonwealth and delivering weekly civic arts workshops and hands-on Urban Ecology programming. SWF also hosted its Seventh Annual Juneteenth Celebration and engaged the community in the weekly rituals of Wellness Wednesdays, Friday Market, and Civic Arts programming.
Read more about Summer 2024 at The Commonwealth.
Summer 2024 at The Communiversity
The Communiversity emerged to teach, translate, and transfer SWF’s practice of Regenerative Neighborhood Development (RND) through hands-on experiences that provide local residents, youth, community practitioners, and university students/faculty alike the opportunity to learn, labor, and build genuine connections. Although Communiversity programming happens year-round, summer is the season of abundance and prime time for engaging Communiversity participants at The Commonwealth.
This summer, The Communiversity welcomed nine Urban Ecology Global Fellows representing a mix of local residents, recent college graduates, and undergraduate students. Fellows hailed from 9 different locales - including California, Connecticut, Virginia, Ohio, Colombia, Uruguay, and the Chicago area; 6 universities -- Barnard College, Carnegie Mellon University, Lake Forest College, Missouri Southern State University, Northeastern University, and Oberlin College; and 8 disciplines -- Africana Studies, American Studies, Architecture, French, International Relations, Landscape Architecture, Environmental Studies, and Psychology. They were immersed in an intensive 10-week experience, during which they engaged in the daily praxis of RND activities, including farming, gardening, carpentry, historic and cultural preservation, woodworking, architecture, art, and design. Through this work, Fellows developed an understanding of SWF and its surrounding community and explored the fundamentals of urban ecology alongside residents, artists, educators, and youth. Beyond hands-on work, Fellows participated in daily seminars and were challenged to engage in a new form of human development as lifelong learners through solution-oriented work, research, and reflection.
In June, The Communiversity welcomed Values-Based Partners from Sankofa Village Projects in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Coalfield Development in Huntington, West Virginia; and from Freedom Dreams and Birwood House from Detroit, Michigan, for a one-week Leadership Training Immersion to learn, share, and exchange practices ranging from gardening, farming, landscaping, documentation, reflection, carpentry, civic arts, essential economy, and much more. In addition, two Communiversity alumni completed a 3-month Translators-in-Residence program to translate SWF’s RND practice, rituals and routines, Communiversity programming, and furniture designs to their space at Mama Moore Re-Generation Center on Chicago’s South Side.
Throughout the summer, SWF Communiversity hosted Catalyst events - immersive experiences that introduce The Commonwealth and the practice of RND to visitors in hopes of catalyzing future engagement - engaged youth and community practitioners from Detroit’s Freedom Dreams and Birwood House, teens from the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago, international students and faculty from the National University of Singapore, and nursing students and faculty from Malcolm X College of Chicago’s City Colleges. In late August, The Communiversity also launched a collaborative course with Lake Forest College on Interrogating the Ecology of Place: From Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence) to Regenerative Neighborhood Development. The class will continue through the end of the fall semester.
Seventh Annual Juneteenth Celebration at Civic Arts Church
On Wednesday, June 19, Sweet Water Foundation celebrated its Seventh Annual Juneteenth Celebration at The Commonwealth. For the second time, Juneteenth was hosted at Civic Arts Church, welcoming 200+ neighbors, Values-Based Partners, and friends from around the globe, who joined us to celebrate freedom and community. We invite you to read more about the 2024 Juneteenth Celebration at The Commonwealth here.
Inaugural Civic Arts Talks at Civic Arts Church
In July, SWF launched the inaugural Civic Arts Talk at Civic Arts Church, marking the launch of a new Sweet Water Communiversity series focused on Civic Arts. This series brings together artists, academics, and community members to share their work through talks, performances, and workshops, fostering a rich exchange of ideas and critical connections at The Commonwealth. We invite you to read more about the Civic Arts Talk with Rick Lowe in July and Imani Perry and Robin D.G. Kelley in August.
Civic Arts Talks will be held monthly through November.
Weekly Rituals | Wellness Wednesdays, Civic Arts Work-Shops, and Friday Markets
Sweet Water Foundation’s weekly rituals continued throughout the summer. Every Wednesday, SWF welcomed our community network and volunteers to work the land, engage in civic arts, and share a farm-to-table meal with the SWF team, fellows, and community. More than 500 visitors, community members, and volunteers joined SWF over the summer during Wellness Wednesdays.
Following shared labor and a shared meal, guests were invited to join SWF’s weekly ritual of practicing civic arts through the Wednesday Civic Arts Workshop series held at Civic Arts Church. Workshops included painting with mulberry ink, a collage workshop, and printmaking led by Civic Artists-in-Residence and SWF team members. Each workshop also featured live music by SWF Human-in-Residence Charles Pryor, whose music graced The Commonwealth all summer during weekly rituals and SWF’s Seventh Annual Juneteenth Celebration.
At the end of each week, SWF hosted its weekly market at RND Park as part of SWF’s community-supported agroecology (CSA), where fresh produce from the farm and garden were available, along with SWF-created carpentry and screen printed products. A new edition to this year’s market was the “Prop Shop,” a pop-up shop that shared propagation techniques and gave away the cuttings of houseplants and containers for growing at home. Local residents and SWF community members also vended their wares, including wood carvings, homemade popsicles, and local honey, and marketgoers engaged in civic arts while enjoying live music by Charles Pryor.
SWF weekly markets will continue on Fridays from 12 noon until 3 pm through the end of October.
