Summer Youth Employment

Each summer, 6018North hires Chicagoland High School students to learn skills and collaborate with artists to realize various projects including aspects of Soil and Soul, Justice Hotel, In Wood We Trust, Its Elemental, and yearly projects for EXPO Chicago.

Students learned woodworking, video editing, audio recording, and podcasting. Most importantly, students learn cooperation: to work with each other, mentors, and artists, along with stick-to-itiveness.

The program rethinks the potential of immersive body-based education. The high degree of the students' work and their esprit de corps confirms the value of treating education as a dynamic space: emphasizing bodily skills, repetition, and technique and an appreciation of older, often forgotten systems of production and bodily movement.

While the woodworking honors craftsmanship, the video and audio production allows for a highly experimental approach.

This program has been partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit arts.gov.

In 2024, 6018North is grateful to team up with the Ismaili Center Chicago and Edgewater Environmental Coalition to bring our Youth Employment program to Vedgewater Community Garden. Vedgewater garden leaders are teaching our young students to create accessible, organic growing spaces, and they are building pavilions and seating to create a social space for community gardeners. This includes a re-purposing of Sarzurzuma by Studio Chahar, from the 2023 Chicago Architecture Biennial, into a shaded gathering space for gardeners.

In 2023, Summer Youth Employees and artist mentors at Emil G. Hirsch High School worked together in the school courtyard to create a phytoremediation native plant garden, public seating, and a stage. Through phytoremediation with Nance Klehm, students planted native plants to remove toxins and regenerate the soil in an environmentally friendly, cost-effective way. In response to the school’s needs, students built a stage with Bryan Saner, creating a public gathering space. Students collaboratively created Soil and Soul t-shirts with Mashaun Ali Hendricks. Summer Youth expanded into the community to create a chicken coop at the request of master gardener Gregory Bratton at the Laquan McDonald Garden at 84th and Escanaba.

In 2022, Summer Youth Employees at Emil G. Hirsch Metropolitan High School are working with Bryan Saner, Bluestem Co-op, Derek Curtis, and Ji Yang on a collaborative garden project. Students are learning woodworking skills to create structures for the garden, first buildling bird houses as an introduction to woodworking, then picnic tables so people may gather in this public space. Addressing the soil, students collected plant samples to establish a baseline of soil composition at the site. This will lead to a multi-year engagement with artist mentors to study the soil around the school, and remediating the ground with new plantings of native species. 

In 2021, Summer Youth Employees Cortez, Dontrell, Donzell, James, Jaylen worked with Bryan Saner, Bluestem Co-op, and Ronen Goldstein on a collaborative project with to build an open-air pavilion/gazebo in a community garden at the corner of 75th Street.

For this work, 6018North Justice Hotel curators are partnering with the Greater Chatham Initiative (GCI), and Ameena Matthews in the Pause for Peace garden, as a part of the GCI Restorative Justice Practices and Programs. Reused wood for this work provided courtesy of Chicago Park District and Michael Dimitroff. The platform constructed this summer will host Youth and Community dialogues during the fall as a partner program for the The Available City of the Chicago Architecture Biennial.

In 2019, Summer Youth Employees Amber, Ari, Kaniela, Keearin, and Rowan worked with Blok by Blok, Summer Coleman, Ronen Goldstein, and Mashaun Hendricks. Together, they produced a video about Justice Hotel featuring Amanda Williams, recorded a Land Acknowledgement reading with Heather Miller at the American Indian Center, and created a Justice-focused podcast interviewing neighbors, which was shared at Walk in our Shoes: Youth in Urban Design at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

In 2018, Summer Youth Employees Lauren, Samantha, Syd, and Thelonious worked with Erik Newman to develop Sanctuary – a social justice space designed by Amanda Williams and activated by 3Arts Make A Wave artists Carris Adams, Maya Camille Broussard, Mashaun Ali Hendricks, Nikki Patin, Amina Ross, Rhonda Wheatley, and others at EXPO Chicago. This project has been made possible as a part of the Year of Creative Youth organized by Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE). Sanctuary unveiled a prototype of Justice Hotel – supported by a Joyce Foundation ideation grant.

In 2017, Summer Youth Employees Billie, Joli, Kassy, and Quinn worked with Troy Briggs, Zachary Hutchinson, and Bryan Saner to construct In Wood We Trust by the Chapuisat Brothers. Originally built for the Chicago Architecture Biennial 2017, this project is partially supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation. You can visit and explore this permanent installation at 6018North during open hours and by appointment.

In 2016, Summer Youth Employees Christopher, Jonathan, Mary, and Micah worked with Troy Briggs, Zachary Hutchinson, and Bryan Saner to build adjustable graffiti walls for Miguel Aguilar and Chris Silva’s live painting as a part of VIP: Very Important Performances at EXPO Chicago.

In 2015, the inaugural year for 6018North Summer Youth Employment, Devonte, Emilia, Francis, and Moises worked with Bryan Saner to create Palimpsest of work which records the history of the building’s window, which they restored together over the Summer. The Youth Employees also constructed Shotgun by First Office and created pedestals for Chapel by Rodrigo Lara Zendejas. Shotgun and Chapel of the works were featured at EXPO Chicago, all of the works were a part of Its Elemental at 6018North. Throughout the process, the Youth Employees documented their work and learned video skills with artist Zachary Hutchinson.