Join teaching artists Jessica Mueller, Laura Sáenz, and Mathias Schergen in conversation with moderator William Estrada as they explore the relationship between teaching art in community settings and formal educational environments. Their conversation takes into account the perceived boundaries between these contexts and advocates for a blended approach, with teaching taking on its own art form, and students taking on roles as collaborators.
Jessica Muller is an interdisciplinary artist and educator from Chicago, Illinois. Her work provides visibility for experiences of motherhood that are less than glamorous, shows the absurdity and value in the domestic mundane within actions of care and service. Jessica investigates intersectionality as she experiences it while tending to her bi-cultural/dual-language/single-parent household. Since 2004 Jessica has been a teaching artist with Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE), working in Chicago Public Schools. Jessica holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and is a member of the Chicago ACT Collective and MotherArt: Revisited. She exhibits locally and nationally, and her work is part of the permanent collections at the School of the Art Institute’s Flaxman Library, Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, Columbia College’s Center for Book and Paper Arts, and the Library of Congress. Jessica is a recipient of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) 2019 Heart of Gold Award and is a 3Arts 2021 Make A Wave grantee and Sante Fe, New Mexico based the dots between fellow. Recently, she was an artist in residence at WORKROOM and PO Box Collective in Chicago, Nido II; Living in the Play, Monte Castello di Vibio, Italy and Poor Farm Little Wolf, WI.
Laura Sáenzis a mother, teaching artist, cultural researcher, and facilitator from Mexico City with a background in Dance/Choreography and Visual Communications. She lives and works in Chicago developing arts-integrated learning experiences in Chicago Public Schools with CAPE (Chicago Arts Partnership in Education), designs cultural community research for her independent research company Bilingual Bolero, creates movement for film/performance, and is a bilingual story facilitator for StoryCorps, a national oral history organization.
William Estrada is an arts educator and multidisciplinary artist. His art and teaching is a collaborative discourse that critically re-examines public and private spaces with people to engage in radical imagination. He has presented in various panels regarding community programming, arts integration, and social justice curricula. He is currently a Visual Arts Teacher at Telpochcalli Elementary and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the School of Art and Art History at UIC. His current research is focused on developing community based and culturally relevant projects that center power structures of race, economy, and cultural access in contested space.
Mathias Schergen is a Chicago artist who works primarily with found objects and materials that are incorporated into assemblages, constructions, and shadowboxes. He received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute in 1980 and Masters in Education from National-Louis University in 1995. Mathias taught Art for 25 years at Jenner Elementary School in Cabrini Green and received a Golden Apple award for teaching excellence in 2005. He retired from Chicago Public Schools in 2015 and is currently pursuing an active studio practice.
This program is presented in conjunction with Gallery 400’s exhibition, Learning Together: Art, Education, and Community. It is free and open to the public. For questions and access accommodations, email gallery400engagement@gmail.com.
