Sunday Sustainable Soup is an opportunity to gather together over soup with likeminded people who want to advance  sustainable actions. 

The first week we set our agenda/focus on three things:

1. Be a community 

2. Educate  

3. Disrupt 

The second week we challenged ideas of division and expense by asking how can sustainable actions meet multiple needs? 

Come join us – this Sunday – as we advance these exciting ideas!! 

Sunday Sustainable Soup is an opportunity to gather together over soup with likeminded people who want to advance  sustainable actions. 

The first week we set our agenda/focus on three things:

1. Be a community 

2. Educate  

3. Disrupt 

The second week we challenged ideas of division and expense by asking how can sustainable actions meet multiple needs? 

Come join us – this Sunday – as we advance these exciting ideas!! 

Join Melissa Potter to bind handmade covers for the Myth of the Organic City exhibition catalog. In July with Nathan Lewis of Out of Step Press, workshop attendees helped create handmade paper from cut and pulped veteran uniforms. Building on this work, attendees will learn artists' book assembly and contribute to the collective effort of this limited edition publication featuring the artists in the exhibition. Each participant gets a copy of the catalogue!

Melissa Hilliard Potter is a feminist interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator. Potter is a Professor at Columbia College Chicago and collaborates with artists in the medium of hand papermaking. She travels throughout the country teaching, lecturing, and conducting interviews. Melissa lives and works in Chicago, IL.

Nathan Lewis is a papermaker, book artist and Iraq War veteran.  He makes prints, journals, and chapbooks that focus on U.S militarism and reacts to his experiences in the U.S Army through his artwork.  He has taught workshops in papermaking and bookbinding through Combat Paper, Frontline Arts, Veterans' Sanctuary, and the USO.  He maintains Out Of Step Press, a book arts studio and micro press in Ithaca, NY. 

Join Myth of the Organic City artist Stephen Lowell Swanberg for a walking photo session in Edgewater. We meet at 6018 N Kenmore, and set out on individual walks to follow our own photographic interests and observations after an introduction to Swanberg's daily practice of urban rectangles photography. We return to 6018North to share what we have found, and to discuss what led us to these images.

Rain Date: Saturday, November 2 from 11:30 AM – 1 PM

RSVP to join the workshop!

Learn how to care for your soil and future garden by taking some simple steps to prepare your garden for winter. Your garden will thank you!

🌿 Workshop leader Renee Patten is NeighborSpace Garden Leader of 9 years and has learned the knowledge and skills to share from years of experience and education from the Chicago Community Gardeners Association, the Morton Arboretum, and the Volunteer Stewardship Network. They are a volunteer and co-chair of the Edgewater Environmental Coalition and with the Chicago Park District Natural Areas Program. Their day job is Sustainability Coordinator for the Forest Preserves of Cook County. You can spot them in the garden wearing vegetable overalls.

Rain Date: TBD

RSVP to join the workshop!

Let's come together to learn about seeds as well as collect, process, sort, and organize them for winter sowing and next season's plantings. Bring your seeds (food/herbs & natives). Bring your skills. Let’s learn and work together! All knowledge levels are welcomed. Seed cleaning tools and supplies will be provided. 

Bring a portable chair and notebook to take notes, and reusable (suggested) supplies: 

- Brown bags

- Envelopes

- Garden gloves

- Pen/Marker

🌿 Renee Patten is NeighborSpace Garden Leader of 9 years and has learned the knowledge and skills to share from years of experience and education from the Chicago Community Gardeners Association, the Morton Arboretum, and the Volunteer Stewardship Network. They are a volunteer and co-chair of the Edgewater Environmental Coalition and with the Chicago Park District Natural Areas Program. Their day job is Sustainability Coordinator for the Forest Preserves of Cook County. You can spot them in the garden wearing vegetable overalls.

Rain Date: Saturday, October 19 at 10:30 AM

Please Register to Attend

Part memoir, part history lesson, and part urban planning critique, Fifth City Revisited explores the creation of healthy, thriving communities and the scale necessary to sustain them. Through dance, storytelling, and multimedia, Meida Teresa McNeal considers the significance of Fifth City’s story amid city planning systems that have nearly erased its achievements. In an era of renewed interest in grassroots change and neighborhood investment across Chicago’s West and South Sides, this performance asks: “What lessons does Fifth City offer us today?”

The October premiere will feature a filmed version of the performance alongside a Fifth City Revisted online exhibition that explores West Side community histories and creativity curated by Adia Sykes and Victoria Sockwell.

Two conversations will also bookend the viewing including community voices committed to a revitalized, well-resourced West Side:

• Pre-screening Conversation @ 5pm: “Imagining Fifth City: Building community power and city visioning strategies.” Moderated by Mary Scott Boria with panelists Lilly Fox, David Weathersby, and Keli Stewart

• Post-screening Conversation @ 8pm: "Fifth City’s Future: Visions of Westside flourishing.” Moderated by Meida McNeal with panelists Alexie Young, Spankey Davis, Stephanie Jeter, and Vanessa Stokes .

Please Register to Attend

Saturday, September 28 from 1-4 PM on Lane Beach, 5915 N Sheridan Rd

Join us for an outdoor musical experience on the beach! Enjoy performances from an array of Chicago musicians from across genres as water, sustainability, and music combine for a memorable concert.

Water Music on the Beach is an annual series of live performances to highlight Chicago’s proximity to Lake Michigan. Compositions and scores reflect, react to, or personify the sounds of water. Performers include Simon Anderson, Beyond This Point, CQQCHiFRUIT, Zachary Good, Will Greene, Norman W. Long, Ro(b)//ert Lundberg, Zachary Nicol and Joelle Mercedes, Ben Willis, and others!

Line up is subject to change:

1:00 Ro Lundberg (Will Greene, Zach Good, Lia Kohl): improvised soundscape
1:30 Norman Long: natural and unnatural (amplified) soundscapes
1:50 Zach Good: clarinet
2:10 Beyond This Point: seeds, water, instrumentation
2:40 Ben Willis: bass
2:55 Simon Anderson: Fluxus score
3:10 CQQCHiFRUIT: dance music
3:25 Will Greene: guitar
3:45 Zachary Nicol with Joelle Mercedes: dance and amplified sound

RSVP to join the workshop!

Carmen Vidal-Hallett will discuss Bioswales and perennial plants that should be used in the tunnels that are designed for stormwater runoff. Carmen has worked with various city governments and world governments (Brazil, Spain) in urban development and planning of sustainable rain gardens and other stormwater management projects. Locally, you may be familiar with the rain garden Sullivan HS students created under her guidance with AfterSchool Matters. Carmen will give links to digital sites for perennial plants appropriate for stormwater runoff. 

🌿 Carmen Vidal-Hallett, LEED AP; President, ECOVidalDesign, (ECV); International Associate AIA is a prolific Chicago architect and international urban planner and designer who lives in  Edgewater. 

Rain Date: Saturday, September 21 at 12 PM

This annual event started in 2013 when we gathered a group of volunteer neighbors to see how we could bring neighbors together by creating a community picnic in the middle of the street. If we had art, music, games, magic, and food, could we would gather everyone together at one table?

Starting in 2023, One Long Table is hosted in partnership with Church of Atonement – connecting more neighbors with food, fun, and comradery!

Come help us repurpose Christmas Tree needles with artist Sangwoo Yoo, who will then use the materials in their work for the upcoming Myth of the Organic City. 

Yoo: “My paramount focus is on embracing ephemerality and leaving behind a minimal environmental footprint. My artistic pursuits are centered on creating sustainable materials that incorporate elements of life and mortality. The invented materials are primarily composed of site-specific materials, many of which were created from components such as discarded Christmas trees collected in downtown Chicago, or discarded flowers and plants gathered from public gardens in the city.”

Sangwoo Yoo, born in Seoul, is an artist driven by the intention to reawaken modern senses and aims to engage with social realities and the environment through the ecological cycles of materials. He received his Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the United States and Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Seoul in Korea.

RSVP to join the workshop!

Extend plant growth with tips from Karen. Interested in sharing your passion with children? Parents and children are welcome to participate in a hands-on activity. Bring portable chairs and notebooks to take notes.

🌿 Karen Schauwecker is a Master Gardener, a member of The Ruby Garden, and has organized people to grow food in urban and rural settings. She is a Student Engagement Manager, Loyola School of Environmental Sustainability who has worked with the food access program Link Up to partner with Farmers’ Markets in Chicago.

Rain Date: Saturday, August 24 at 10 AM

Catalog Cover Printing
Monday, July 29 at 7 PM
at 6018 N Kenmore Ave, Chicago

Join Nathan Lewis of Out of Step Press to help create our handmade catalog for Myth of the Organic City. 

On Monday, July 29 on a small but very heavy printing press, we will be printing the covers for a limited edition exhibition catalog. Join us and engage as we print the covers using letterpress type and lino-block on a 100+ year old table top proofing press.   

Nathan Lewis is a papermaker, book artist and Iraq War veteran.  He makes prints, journals, and chapbooks that focus on U.S militarism and reacts to his experiences in the U.S Army through his artwork.  He has taught workshops in papermaking and bookbinding through Combat Paper, Frontline Arts, Veterans' Sanctuary, and the USO.  He maintains Out Of Step Press, a book arts studio and micro press in Ithaca, NY. 

Outdoor Sustainable Design Festival

Free & Open to the Public

Join us at Navy Pier for an interactive activity related to our upcoming exhibition on sustainability, The Myth of the Organic City, in the Design Museum of Chicago’s (DMoC) Field Day event. 

Calling all sewers, doers, makers! Artist Tria Smith and fashion design professor Katrin Schnabl invite you to collaborate in making their artwork of upcycled fashion. Join us as we sort through fabrics and attach them to their art piece. We will discuss the materials we wear and use everyday, their origin, environmental impact, and how to analyze natural versus manufactured fabric.

DMoC hosts the annual Field Day festival which brings together designers, architects, environmentalists, and the community to engage in activities, workshops, and interactive installations focusing on innovative solutions for a sustainable future. The event celebrates our environment, culture, and Chicago outdoor public spaces through a design lens. 

Field Day is presented as part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities.

Full Event Description: https://www.designchicago.org/events-calendar/field-day-2024

We are delighted to invite you to participate in a unique spiritual workshop dedicated to the exploration and creation around the artwork P-3 by Pierre-Alexandre Savriacouty. This bas-relief, inspired by the contemplation of the starry sky, is a variable piece that evolves with each location where it is displayed. Composed of rebar, thread, and fishing sinkers, P-3 invites direct interaction where the threads are mesure and cut by the participants, then the treads can be adjusted, pulled, and intertwined, much like a living portrait drawn and weighed by the assembler.

P-3 artwork finds its origins in Greek mythology, particularly in the stories of the three Fates: Clotho the spinner, Lachesis the allotter, and Atropos the inexorable. These three deities of fate symbolize the cycle of life – birth, tension, and death. Through this workshop, we will explore how each of our lives have a unique shape and cosmology and which contribute to the collective. Like the Moirai, each participant will create a thread of one's own life, and then together we will create a collective astral map on the wall. The resulting work will be shown in Myth of the Organic City which opens September 22, 2024

Rag Cutting and Discussion
Monday, July 22 at 7 PM
at 6018 N Kenmore Ave, Chicago

Catalog Cover Printing
Monday, July 29 at 7 PM
at 6018 N Kenmore Ave, Chicago

Join Nathan Lewis of Out of Step Press to help create our handmade catalog for Myth of the Organic City. 

On July 22nd we will be processing clothing rags into paper pulp. Making handmade paper from rags starts with gathering, sorting, and cutting the fabric. Join us and help process clothing into paper pulp. We will sit around a table and cut rags, military uniforms, and other fabric while discussing the material's origin, environmental impact, the history of paper, and U.S militarism. Stop or drop in for as long as you like beginning at 7 PM.

Once the materials are prepared, Lewis will be working alongside Melissa H. Potter at the world-renown Columbia College paper studio to create material for our catalog cover.

The following week, on Monday, July 29 on a small but very heavy printing press, we will be printing the covers for a limited edition exhibition catalog. Join us and engage as we print the covers using letterpress type and lino-block on a 100+ year old table top proofing press.   

Nathan Lewis is a papermaker, book artist and Iraq War veteran.  He makes prints, journals, and chapbooks that focus on U.S militarism and reacts to his experiences in the U.S Army through his artwork.  He has taught workshops in papermaking and bookbinding through Combat Paper, Frontline Arts, Veterans' Sanctuary, and the USO.  He maintains Out Of Step Press, a book arts studio and micro press in Ithaca, NY. 

RSVP to join the workshop!

You will learn how to make  herbal medicine, facial creams, and other cosmetics from garden plants and flowers without expensive equipment. Save money. Grow your own. Make your own! Bring a portable chair and notebook to take notes. 
🌿 The workshop is lead by Ayo Ma’at, a Vedgewater Garden Leader with 50 years gardening experience. Ma’at has gardened and taught organic and veganic  gardening to adults and youth. Maat is an organic seed saver, nutritional educator, and Quantum Living Advocate (QLA). She continues her research studies in  organic gardening from the sacred monastic medicine perspective.  She resonates with community gardening, whole health, and a silent ministry of Love and Peace. Despite her use of a wheelchair, she continues to garden. She is a vegan who eats organic. She has gardened in West Ridge, Rogers Park, Edgewater, Uptown,  Woodlawn, Bronzeville, and Eden Green. She was first taught vegetable gardening without chemicals by her mother in Chicago and experienced as a child the wonders of farming and wild herbs growing in the Cherokee Creole tradition on her grandmother’s Louisiana farm.

Rain Date: Saturday, July 20 at 12 PM

RSVP to join the workshop!

Join artist and energy worker Rhonda Wheatley for this workshop to cut ties with limitations and move forward on your terms. This is a chance to break free from the limitations placed upon us by tradition.Whether you’re ready to take a small step forward or make a giant leap, this workshop will help you begin to let go and liberate yourself. 

We invite you to create and step into a new version of yourself, unbound by the weight of the past, or the expectations and demands of others. We invite you to give yourself grace and permission as we release the version of ourselves that may have once accepted limitations. 

We’ll share in discussion, a reflective writing exercise, a healing ritual, and a guided meditation. You will also learn practices for continuing to “break free” beyond the workshop. Please bring a notebook or journal and participate at your individual level of comfort.

It will be followed by music and the closing celebration of Opening Passages: Photographers Respond to Chicago and Paris at 6018|North

RSVP to join the workshop!

David Oakes will show you how to make a vermiculture bin and watch the worms multiply in an optimal habitat. Compost without unpleasant odors! Bring a portable chair and notebook to take notes. Worms to be provided! 🌿 David Oakes is a Vedgewater Member and a Loyola Graduate in Sustainability and Culinary Arts. David partnered with WasteNot Compost to set up Clark Street Compost and is currently working with the EEC on the greater topic of composting in Chicago.

Rain Date: Saturday, June 22 at 10:30 AM

Come to celebrate the end of Chinese New Year Month known as 龍抬头 (LONG raise its head) and the start of the working year with free haircut, fortune-telling, food and art!

We will have three hairdressers Anthony Spaulding, Heather Canuel and Sungjae Lee. Each has a different way of working and expertises. Please RSVP a haircut spot here. 

This event is co-hosted by Anthony Spaulding, Heather Canuel, Li Yao, Jinlu Luo, Ji Yang, Peixuan Ouyang, Sungjae Lee, Shuo Cai, Yezhou Zheng, Yue Xu, Zachary Sun as a family. 

Water Conversation with Andrea Jackson, from the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi. Join this open conversation about the sacredness of water. How we honor it and why we as women have to be the voice to care for the water.

Closing celebration with food and drink 3-6 PM

Visit Water from 1-5 PM and receive a Moon Reading by Rebecca Beachy! Why moon readings? Since the moon has influence over huge bodies of water like Lake Michigan and the oceans, you can discover the moon's influence on you at the time of your birth and now.

On Saturday join Tria Smith to create a second life for trash by stringing water bottles with her and adding to Plastic Water Collection. The installation invites you to collect and reuse single use water bottles by bringing them to the show and add them to the walls. If you have bottles at home or find a water bottle along the way or that you have used, please bring it, even if dirty and smashed. 

Join artist and energy worker Rhonda Wheatley and Red Line Service for an interactive healing experience with water. We’ll briefly discuss the power and magic of water then set our intentions for the healing we’d like to receive. Next, Rhonda will lead a guided energy healing meditation during which you’ll be invited to both send energy healing to Lake Michigan and receive the healing you need in return. Lastly, we’ll end with practices to continue this healing connection with water in our everyday lives. No energy healing experience is necessary to participate. Bring a notebook or journal and please feel free to participate at your level of comfort.

Open Hours from 1-5 PM with welcoming snacks 2 PM!

Join Aneela Dean with Red Line Service as she helps us move the water of life from within to guide us and connect us to wholeness, using hands, breath, and movement. 

Join us for the welcome and snacks at 2 PM!

Visit Water from 1-5 PM and receive a Moon Reading by Rebecca Beachy! Why moon readings? Since the moon has influence over huge bodies of water like Lake Michigan and the oceans, you can discover the moon's influence on you at the time of your birth and now.

On Saturday join Tria Smith to create a second life for trash by stringing water bottles with her and adding to Plastic Water Collection. The installation invites you to collect and reuse single use water bottles by bringing them to the show and add them to the walls. If you have bottles at home or find a water bottle along the way or that you have used, please bring it, even if dirty and smashed. 

Visit Water and receive a Moon Reading by Rebecca Beachy! Why moon readings? Since the moon has influence over huge bodies of water like Lake Michigan and the oceans, you can discover the moon's influence on you at the time of your birth and now! And if that isn’t enough, Rebecca Beachy creates a beautiful, personalized moon drawing for you to keep.

Join us with Edgewater Environmental Coalition for an end of year celebration where we share a dye pot and potluck with each other. Please RSVP!

If you would like, bring 1-2 things made with natural fibers (cotton, wool + mordant if you would like), something to take hot wet dyed things away with (waterproof container/durable bag), food to share, and a craft to work on. 

We will have a brief presentation at 6:30pm with natural dye basics and an accompanying zine, but encourage participants to bring their own natural dye projects and will have time for group discussion/tips.

Visit Water and receive a Moon Reading by Rebecca Beachy! Why moon readings? Since the moon has influence over huge bodies of water like Lake Michigan and the oceans, you can discover the moon's influence on you at the time of your birth and now! 

Visit Water and receive a Moon Reading by Rebecca Beachy! Why moon readings? Since the moon has influence over huge bodies of water like Lake Michigan and the oceans, you can discover the moon's influence on you at the time of your birth and now! 

Join us for Chicago Architecture Biennial opening weekend reception, featuring a performance "Water Organoids" by Baudouin Saintyves. RSVP

This event is a part of Water – an exhibition featuring work by Rebecca Beachy with Nina Barnett and Christine Wallers, Jennifer Buyck, Julie Carpenter, Eugenia Cheng, David Freid, Virginia Hanusik, Candace Hunter, Anna Johnson, Matthew Kaplan, Roland Knowlden, JeeYeun Lee, Jin Lee, Meredith Leich, Pierre-Alexandre Savriacouty, Tria Smith, and Ines Sommer.

Presented as a partner project of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Water uses the Chicago River as an entryway to discuss the interconnectedness and relational importance of water upon the City and its people. From pre-settler colonialism to present day, the availability of water has impacted the City of Chicago’s formation, rise, and current environmental concerns. The exhibition begins with a contemporary view of the Chicago River through the video of artist/architect Jennifer Buyck walking along the entire river. The exhibition also looks to Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River to correlate universal costs of exploitation, commodification, control, and renewal of waterways. Water’s impact and importance is much more than just economical and environmental. Water—essential to life—is a shared resource that connects all.

Water is presented throughout 6018North, with each floor housing four thematic sections: Now; Then; We the People – What Have We Done?; and Imagination. Through videos and photographs, Now depicts the present conditions of the Chicago River and Mississippi River. Then offers archives and historical documents of Chicago’s waterways. We the People – What Have We Done? explores the anthropogenic effects on water. Imagination features both representational and abstract approaches to water’s metaphoric quality. The sections We the People – What Have We Done? and Imagination contend with the dueling view of water as harsh reality (a reflection of climate insecurity) vs. abstract metaphor of possibility (of fluidity and adaptability). This dualism is what hydrofeminist Astrida Neimanis asks us to move beyond: “for us humans, the flow and flush of waters sustain our own bodies, but also connect them to other bodies, to other worlds beyond our human selves.” The exhibition, accompanying public programs, and convenings aim to reveal how waterways can be re-examined, better understood, and re-imagined, so that we can become better stewards of water and all that it connects.

A central component of the exhibition is a water parole donnée, parole rendu – an exchange of water stories in Chicago, by Chicagoans. Through a series of community storytelling engagements, people across Chicago collect water samples and tell the story of their water. Scientists, activists, and historians respond to the water and stories. The collection is presented chandelier-like, in 6018North’s stairway connecting the themes of the exhibition.

Water is a partner program of the 2023 Chicago Architecture Biennial. This exhibition is a collaboration between artist/architect Jennifer Buyck, curator Tricia Van Eck, 6018North, and the Villa Albertine. Water is ongoing research in sustainable strategies for a 2024 exhibition as a part of Art Design Chicago, an initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art investigating and elevating Chicago’s rich visual art and design histories and creative communities. This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency through an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. This program is partially supported by a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events. 6018North projects are partially supported by an anonymous donor advised fund at The Chicago Community Foundation, a CityArts Innovation Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, a Gen Ops Plus Grant from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Field Foundation of Illinois, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, IL Humanities, Illinois Arts Council Agency Youth Employment Grants, Joyce Foundation, The MacArthur Funds for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art, and individual donations.

The first image is a still from Chicago par ses rivières / Chicago by its rivers by Jennifer Buyck

6018north.org/current-upcoming-projects#/water