Threewalls
Our Purpose
An evolving, Black-led nonprofit organization that unapologetically celebrates Blackness, intersectionality, and exists through Black feminist practices, Threewalls fosters contemporary art practices that respond to lived experiences, encouraging connections beyond art.
Jessica V. Newman 2023 – Photo By: Percy Ollie, Jr.
Jorge Félix
Jorge Félix is an Afro-Boricua multidisciplinary artist, and curator based in Chicago. He became known in the city for his ‘Body Construction’ painting installations where he molded the canvas to create reliefs, sculptures, and installations. From an early age, Félix’s grandfather instills a passion for community organizing, and in Chicago, he found that the research of food culture could become a tool to ease community in conversations. Félix’s Sofrito Conversations welcome community leaders, elected officials, artists, and neighbors to make old fashion recipes of ‘sofrito’ at a round table while facilitating a storytelling conversation about cooking traditions. There Félix highlights a dialogue that celebrates cultural differences and commonalities among participants to create bonds among participants. Félix focuses his work on the Hermosa neighborhood where he is a 22-year resident but also addresses issues relevant to the northwest community of Chicago. Félix, a biracial gay man born in Puerto Rico, is particularly invested in addressing the racial divide between Latin@s and African Americans in northwest Chicago. Félix earned a Master of Fine Arts in painting and history from Bowling Green State University and a Master of Arts in Arts Administration from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
A.Martinez
A.Martinez (she/her) is a poet, visual artist, mother, and organizer living in Chicago. Her work explores family, rituals, nature, and the body. Alyssa’s social practice involves participatory community gatherings including those for mothers in the arts. She also works as an arts administrator for music performance organizations.
Image description: A.Martinez, a mother with light brown skin and a short curly dark brown afro in a white short sleeved linen dress stands facing to the right in front of a white bed sheet backdrop. Her five year old, Asher, with light brown skin and upper back length curly dark brown hair with no shirt and light gray sweatpants stands behind her back and wraps his arms around her neck, where they hold hands in front of her chest. Their faces touch at the cheekbone. They both have their heads turned to look directly into the camera with pleasant semi-smiling faces, their skin glowing from the late afternoon June sunlight.
Photo by Chelsea Alexandra.
Abena Motaboli
Abena Motaboli is a Basotho – Ghanian Interdisciplinary artist, educator, and writer based in Chicago. She grew up in Lesotho, Southern Africa before moving to the U.S where she obtained her bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts at Columbia College Chicago. Her practice is interdisciplinary, experimental, and deeply rooted in a love of land, nature, and storytelling through the plants.
Image description: Abena Motaboli stands in a wheat field in front of a lake wearing a yellow sweater and black pants. She smiles looking directly at the viewer with one hand outstretched touching the plants next to her. Photo was taken by Kristie Kahns for Sixty Inches From the Center.
AJ McClenon with Angel Bat Dawid
AJ was born and raised in “D.C. proper,” and is currently based in Chicago using performance practices, sound, video, movement, theatre and writing to share experiences living in a Black body. AJ holds a Masters in Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received a Bachelor of Arts with a minor in creative writing from the University of Maryland, College Park and has also studied at The New School. A.J. hopes that all the memories and histories that are said to have “too many Black people” are told and retold again.
Angel Bat Dawid is a Black American Traditional Music Composer, Improviser, Clarinetist, Pianist and Vinyl Addict. A sonic archaeologist gathering sounds and music from space, the heavens, the ether and beyond. Restoring peace, love and healing to the world using the most powerful tool imaginable — OMINI-VERSAL SOUND. Music is a language, you see, a universal language.-Sun Ra
Amina Ross with J’Sun Howard, Khadijah Ksyia, Jared Brown and A.J. McClenon
An undisciplined creator. Amina Ross creates boundary-crossing works that embrace embodiment, imaging technologies, intimacy and collectivity in physical and digital spaces. Amina has exhibited work, spoken on panels and taught workshops at venues throughout the United States. Amina’s intention within a media-centering practice is to engage sensuality and sense-perception as modes of reclaiming the body. Amina is currently a 2018-2019 Artist-in-Residence at Arts & Public Life and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago. —
As an educator Amina is currently an adjunct lecturer in the Contemporary Practices department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Co-lead artist of Teen Creative Agency at the Museum of Contemporary Art. As a curator and cultural organizer Amina is curator of ECLIPSING, a multi-media festival celebrating darkness. —Khadijah Kysia, is a licensed acupuncturist, writer and scholar with four decades worth of experience navigating the world in a black femme body. Khadijah will share with us her (counter)narrative and strategies for cultivating internal power and moving through the world whilst actively healing herself and others. Khadijah’s narrative will be set alongside the sounds of Jared Brown, the self-proclaimed “high priest of sounds for the girls at night.”
J’Sun Howard is a master of movement, navigating the politics of desire both on and off stage J’Sun’s (counter)narrative will be set alongside the work of A.J. McClenon, a multimedia sound artist who blends archival sound bites and personal narrative that, in AJ’s own word “level hierarchies of truth”.
Aquil Charlton
Multimedia Artist. Social practitioner. Musician.
Aquil (‘AQ’) Charlton uses his imagination to envision a more just world. As an electronic musician, he performs live improvisations and collaborates with other electronic musicians and visual artists to create immersive experiences.
Since founding Mobile Music Box in 2016, AQ teaches intergenerational groups how to make instruments from recycled materials to encourage more environmental consciousness — particularly in communities of color. Additionally, he frequently engages the public in live music-making.
A Bronzeville resident, AQ is a teaching artist in his community and father to a young son with a passion for youth development.
Engagements
Culture of Care with Rhonda Wheatley: Releasing the Past & Cutting Ties
04/03/2024
Join artist, energy worker, and intuitive reader Rhonda Wheatley for this emotional healing session that will help you start to let go and heal emotional pain from past connections and relationships you’re ready to release. We’ll share tips and practices for resetting our energy, caring for ourselves and leaving the past in the past. In addition to these practices, Rhonda will facilitate a guided meditation with energy healing as well as a cord cutting demo that you can practice on your own. This will be a safe space and all attendees are welcome to participate at their level of comfort.
Rhonda Wheatley is a multidisciplinary artist, energy worker, and educator whose installations and interactive projects are grounded in the speculative and metaphysical. Her recent projects include solo shows at Glass Curtain Gallery (Columbia College) and Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC); group shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), Buffalo AKG Art Museum (NY), and Art League of Houston; and performances as part of the MCA’s In Progress series and at Gallery 400 (UIC). As part of her practice, Wheatley has also facilitated workshops centered in healing and personal transformation with organizations and academic institutions including Creative Capital, The University of Chicago, Threewalls, Ox-Bow School of Art, Urban Rivers, 3Arts, DePaul University, Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC), 6018North, and more. Additionally, she teaches at HPAC and has taught contemporary art at Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis. Wheatley was a 2023 Jackman Goldwasser Radicle Resident at HPAC and a Loghaven Fellow and she also received CAC’s inaugural Coney Family Award and a 3Arts ‘Make a Wave’ Grant. She received her MA from DePaul University and BA from Loyola University.
Liberar el pasado y cortar lazos: Sesión de Sanación Energética Acompañen a la artista, trabajadora de la energía y lectora intuitiva Rhonda Wheatley en estas sesión de sanación emocional que les ayudará a dejar ir y sanar el dolor emocional se conexiones pasadas y relaciones que están listes para dejar ir. Compartiremos consejos y practicas para reiniciar nuestra energía, cuidándonos y dejando el pasado en el pasado. además de estas practicas, Rhonda facilitará un meditación guiada con una demostración de sanación de la energía y corte de vínculos que pueden hacer ustedes mismes. Este será un espacio seguro y todes les participantes son bienvenides en el nivel en el que se sientan cómodes.
Rhonda Wheatley es una artista multidisciplinaria, trabajadora de la energía y educadora cuyas instalaciones y proyectos interactivos están basados en lo metafísico y lo especulativo. Sus proyectos recientes incluyen exposiciones individuales en la Glass Curtain Gallery (Columbia College) y en el Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC); tiene exposiciones colectivas en el Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), el Buffalo AKG Art Museum (NY), y la Art League of Houston; y sus performances son parte de las series In Progress de MCA y en Gallery 400 (UIC). Como parte de su practica, Wheatley ha facilitado talleres centrados en el sanar y en la transformación personal con organizaciones e instituciones académicas que incluyen Creative Capital, The University of Chicago, Threewalls, Ox-Bow School of Art, Urban Rivers, 3Arts, DePaul University, Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC), 6018North y más. Además, da clases en HPAC y ha enseñado arte contemporáneo en la Indiana University Purdue University, en Indianapolis. Wheatley fue residente Jackman Goldwasser Radicle en 2023 en HPAC y becaria Loghaven y también recibió el premio inaugural CAC Coney Family Award y una beca 3Arts ‘Make a Wave’. Recibió su maestría de la DePaul University y su licenciatura de la Loyola University.
Root to Spirit: Collective Liberation Cosmologies
04/17/2024
Salon 1: Root to Spirit: Collective Liberation Cosmologies April 17, 2024 6:30-8 PM Principle Barbers 3820 W Ogden Ave, Chicago, IL 60623
Laura Nicole Haldane and Pascale Ifé Williams present: Root to Spirit : Collective Liberation Cosmologies Join artists Laura Nicole Haldane and Pascale Ife Williams for In-Session Salon “Root to Spirit : Collective Liberation Cosmologies”. We invite you to engage in a practice of collective silence, deep observation, and dialogue.
Together, we will take a look at the work of Renee Stout through an exploration of the elemental medicine(s) of fire, air/sky, earth, water, ether. Accompanying us in this journey will be our Cultural Ancestor, Harriet Tubman, whose story will guide us in deepening our collective liberation practice of bearing witness to these elements through our senses (smell, taste, hear, see, and touch). We hope you leave attuned to a deepened reverence for our collective knowledge and an inner–understanding that you are the expert of your own lived experience.
About the artists Laura Nicole Haldane, antiracist community organizer, studio artist and art historian, who also holds an MFA in studio practice from SAIC, creates from the foundation that everything is interconnected beyond subatomic levels. Their practice merges conceptual ideas around personal and community healing, proposing moments of rest/reflection within liminal PastPresent&Future spaces.
Pascale Ife Williams, PhD is a Black queer spirit-led cultural organizer, educator, scholar, and healing justice practitioner. Ife is a Chicago native with 15 years of experience in justice-driven arts and community-engaged work that explores racial, gender, and wellness equity. Her family and community are a constant source of humility, inspiration, and laughter.
Register at AprilInSession.Eventbrite.com
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The Porch – Places of Belonging
05/15/2024
Salon 2: The Porch: Places of Belonging May 15, 2024 6:30-8 PM Soul Full Chicago 1508 W 18th St, Chicago, IL 60608
Jamiece Adams and Erma Ishara Williams [Earthbound] present: The Porch - Places of Belonging EarthBound. (Ishara and Jamiece) extend an invitation to our neighbors to the imagined space of the porch, informed by bell hooks's Belonging: A Culture of Place. Bearing witness and practicing civility is rooted in knowing someone is true and exists. Be guided through this practice as we explore the invitation, get rooted in nurturing, and release through the departure. While in reflection with us over this imagined space, the porch, neighbors will bear witness to our process of grounding the group in the concept of belonging and opening themselves up to be witnessed in return. “To come out on the porch was to see and be seen, to have nothing to hide. It signaled a willingness to be known.” - bell hooks
About the artists Jamiece is a gender-expansive educator, writer, and creator. Their written work has been published in Hypertext Magazine, the Lambda Literary Fellowship Anthology, and elsewhere. She is the founder of the Swish Queer Basketball Club, an organization that provides a brave space for QTBIPOC folks to play ball and build community.
Erma Ishara (they/he) is a transmasc artist and community organizer. Their work uplifts building spaces for gender-expansive transformation through education, community care and media. As a published poet, writer, and creator of The FemmeBoi, they are committed to promoting and creating content centering the experiences of queer BIPOC communities.
Outside the Walls: Tiffany Johnson
06/05/2024
Installation Opening #1 in South Shore June 5th at 6-7:30pm Rainbow Beach Park (3111 E 77th St, Chicago, IL 60649)
Join us for the second opening for RaD Lab+Outside the Walls in the neighborhood of South Shore!
Tiffany Johnson has been researching the history of resources and care work for survivors of gender-based violence on Chicago’s South Side. She has a long practice of working with Black femme and gender nonconforming survivors in various capacities. Through the research year, she utilized that experience to have individual and small group conversations with care workers and survivor support organizations. She also engaged histories of resource distribution across the city that support survivors and policy that protects (or creates barriers for) survivors. For her public installation, Tiffany plans to honor the thought and practice lineage of survivor support work through an exhibition that will activate archival findings, storytelling, and convenings with survival support workers.
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The Fellowship Hall
06/12/2024
Salon 3: The Fellowship Hall June 12, 2024 6:30-8 PM Logan Square Creative Space 3060 W. Armitage Ave (Storefront) Chicago, IL 60647
Jordan Brown and Kezia Waters present: The Fellowship Hall
Join artists Jordan Brown and Kezia Waters for “The Fellowship Hall”, an evening of myth, memory, and queer Black community inspired by the work of Zora Neale Hurston. Together, we will imagine the past-present-future of the Black Church and its relationship to Black queerness. Using the tools of oral transmission and storytelling, we will generate a collaborative folklore about the Black Church, guided by Zora Neale Hurston’s research of the Black South. Participants will leave with an introductory understanding of mythmaking and folklore as liberatory technologies that can bear witness to re-imagined, empowered timelines.
Please arrive in your Sunday Best (whatever that means to you) and with a small offering to our collective ancestor Zora Neale Hurston. This can be a small gift, thoughtful words, or a creative tribute.
About the artists Jordan Brown is a visual artist and writer based in Chicago, IL. His interdisciplinary practice in sculpture, installation, textile, video, and collage assembles personal mythologies from old clothing, text, and found objects. Born and raised in the DC-metropolitan area, he holds an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Kezia is a multidisciplinary Griot and Director. I think of my work as trying to find that which is holy, whole, holistic and/or holds within Black performance functionality. I do this aesthetically through spiritual surrealism and traditional folkloric techniques and have created/ fostered techniques based on mythological archetypes, African American Southern Rituals, Underground Queer performance culture and Visual Conjurin’.
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Outside the Walls: Jorge Felix
06/20/2024
Installation Opening #2 in Hermosa June 20th at 6-7:30pm 2104 N Kenneth Ave, Chicago, IL 60639
Join us for the first opening for RaD Lab+Outside the Walls in the neighborhood of Hermosa!
As an Afro Boricua creative who has called Hermosa home for many years, he’s seen an increasing racial divide between white Puerto Ricans and Black Puerto Ricans living around him. He spent the first year of the fellowship researching colorism in his neighborhood. Through meetings with neighbors, fellow artists, and business owners he’s cultivated a group of individuals who are invested in thinking critically about how colorism manifests within Hermosa. He is also deeply interested in tracing the ways that colorism is informed by histories of spiritual practices, writing, and art in the Puerto Rican diaspora.
This culminating public installation will reflect his year of research back to back to the community and invite neighbors to continue having conversations through programming such as multiple activations with music and performances.
About the Artist: Jorge Félix is an Afro-Boricua multidisciplinary artist, and curator based in Chicago. He became known in the city for his ‘Body Construction’ painting installations where he molded the canvas to create reliefs, sculptures, and installations. From an early age, Félix’s grandfather instilled a passion for community organizing, and in Chicago, he found that the research of food culture could become a tool to ease community in conversations. Félix’ Sofrito Conversations welcome community leaders, elected officials, artists, and neighbors to make old fashion recipes of ‘sofrito’ at a round table while facilitating a storytelling conversation about cooking traditions. There Félix highlights a dialogue that celebrates cultural differences and commonalities among participants to create bonds among participants. Félix focuses his work on the Hermosa neighborhood where he is a 22-year resident but also addresses issues relevant to the northwest community of Chicago. Félix, a biracial gay man born in Puerto Rico, is particularly invested in addressing the racial divide between Latin@s and African Americans in northwest Chicago. Félix earned a Master of Fine Arts in painting and history from Bowling Green State University and a Master of Arts in Arts Administration from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
¡Acompañen a nosotros en la primera inauguración de RaD Lab+Outside the Walls en el barrio de Hermosa! Como creativo afroboricua que vive en Hermosa desde hace muchos años, ha observado una creciente división racial entre los puertorriqueños blancos y los puertorriqueños negros que viven a su alrededor. Pasó el primer año de la beca investigando el colorismo en su barrio. A través de reuniones con vecinos, compañeros artistas y propietarios de negocios, ha cultivado un grupo de personas que se dedican a pensar críticamente sobre cómo se manifiesta el colorismo en Hermosa. También está profundamente interesado en rastrear las formas en que el colorismo es informado por las historias de las prácticas espirituales, la escritura y el arte en la diáspora puertorriqueña.
Esta instalación pública culminante reflejará su año de investigación de espaldas a la comunidad e invitará a los vecinos a seguir manteniendo conversaciones a través de la programación, como múltiples activaciones con música y actuaciones.
Sobre el artista: Jorge Félix es un artista multidisciplinar afroboricua y comisario afincado en Chicago. Se dio a conocer en la ciudad por sus instalaciones pictóricas "Body Construction", en las que moldeaba el lienzo para crear relieves, esculturas e instalaciones. Desde muy pequeño, el abuelo de Félix le inculcó la pasión por la organización comunitaria, y en Chicago descubrió que la investigación de la cultura alimentaria podía convertirse en una herramienta para facilitar las conversaciones comunitarias. Las Conversaciones del Sofrito de Félix acogen a líderes comunitarios, cargos electos, artistas y vecinos para que elaboren recetas de sofrito a la antigua usanza en una mesa redonda mientras se facilita una conversación narrativa sobre las tradiciones culinarias. Allí Félix destaca un diálogo que celebra las diferencias culturales y los puntos en común entre los participantes para crear lazos entre ellos. Félix centra su trabajo en el barrio de Hermosa, donde reside desde hace 22 años, pero también aborda temas relevantes para la comunidad del noroeste de Chicago. Félix, gay birracial nacido en Puerto Rico, está especialmente interesado en abordar la división racial entre latinos y afroamericanos en el noroeste de Chicago. Félix obtuvo un máster en Bellas Artes en pintura e historia por la Bowling Green State University y un máster en Administración de las Artes por la School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Our Programs
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In-Session
#IN-SESSIONImplemented in 2017, In-Session is a remix of a traditional lecture or panel and critical interdisciplinary salon that incorporates reading, conversation, and response together. The salons are focused on a selection from a shared reading list which is compiled by Threewalls and based on a theme. The curated reading list is an act of decolonization: citing texts and creators that are not centered in mainstream culture and expanding scholarship that shapes lived experiences of our Threewalls community.
Dreaming of a Future
#CULTUREOFCAREIn 2023, Threewalls will reach an important milestone: twenty years of supporting contemporary visual artists in Chicago. Founded and led by artists, the organization continues to hold space for Chicago artists, particularly those who are not engaged with commercialized practices, and build relationships across various communities. Our history of centering artists, offering first time opportunities, and being responsive to artists’ needs remain part of our ethos.
Stay Informed
Threewalls is always finding new ways to share our artist’s unique voices through exhibits, talks, and gatherings. We would like you to be the first to know about these opportunities.
