Anchored around the belief that artists are essential to the fabric of society as thinkers, visionaries and changemakers, AFIELD and Gertie are excited to co-organize an afternoon centered around the vital but often underlooked and under-resourced socially engaged practice of artists. Rooted in a long history of socially engaged artistic thinking and practice with John Dewey and Jane Addams setting up experimental schools combining social and educational services for immigrants with an art gallery, performance space in the 1890s, Chicago’s legacy of socially engaged art has become integral to the city’s contemporary cultural consciousness as an embodied site of spatial-political imagination and care. Participating Chicago-based artists and thinkers include Andrea Yarbrough with In Care of Black Women; Ricardo Gamboa with Storyfront and Hoodoisie; and Rebuild Foundation at Stony Island Arts Bank. Pickup location provided with RSVP; drop off at 400 N. Peoria St.