Pros Arts Studio Día de los Muertos Procession, 1999. Photo by Krystin Grenon. Courtesy of the artist.
Over the last century, Chicago has led the nation in progressive arts education for K-12 students, as teachers and their students linked art education to movements for social justice, access, and self-determination. Gallery 400’s Learning Together centers the progressive art pedagogy of a diverse group of Chicago artist educators from the mid-1960s through the 2010s, highlighting the unique pedagogical practices of educators working across Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods. Artworks co-created by students and educators, sketchbooks, ephemera, and images of public artworks in situ in and around K-12 schools are paired with teaching artists’ artwork inspired by their work with Chicago’s youth. Together with a companion exhibition at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Radical Craft: Arts Education at Hull-House, 1889-1935, the projects tell the first broad history of arts education and artist-educators in Chicago.