Announcing the CAB 5 Participants
Chicago Architecture Biennial Announces Participant List for Fifth Edition, This is a Rehearsal
Under the artistic direction of Chicago-based collective Floating Museum, North America’s leading architecture and design exhibition will feature more than 100 activations and programs by multidisciplinary creatives from 30 cities across the globe.
(Chicago, IL — June 5, 2023) –– Today, the Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB)––a nonprofit organization dedicated to convening the world to explore innovative ideas and collectively imagine and shape the future of design––is proud to announce the participant list for its fifth edition, CAB 5: This is a Rehearsal. Opening across the Chicago metropolitan area this fall, the citywide exhibition will feature more than 70 creative practitioners whose work spans art, architecture, design, and performance.
Under the artistic direction of Floating Museum––a collective of artists, designers, poets, and educators focused on building connections between art, community, architecture, infrastructure, and public institutions––CAB 5 will be presented across a constellation of sites throughout the city. The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) will once again serve as the Biennial’s official Presenting Partner to host programs at the Chicago Cultural Center and sites across the city. As in past biennials, CAB 5 will feature a broad range of local and global partners, including returning partners such as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Puerto Rican Arts and Culture Center, the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, the Chicago Architecture Center, and more. Projects and programs will activate cultural and community-based venues––including the Joffrey Ballet, the South Side Community Art Center, Urban Growers Collective, Overton Elementary, the Thompson Center, and Grow Greater Englewood––and across sites in Bronzeville, Edgewater, Englewood, Lincoln Park, North Lawndale, Pilsen, West Ridge, Hyde Park, and the Loop, among other neighborhoods and districts within the city. A full list of partners will be announced later this summer.
This is a Rehearsal will center process and community through a broad curatorial lens, bringing together a network of activations that investigate how architecture is integral to collective care and the improvement of urban life. Selected by Floating Museum, which includes Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford, Faheem Majeed, Andrew Schachman, and avery r. young, this year’s participants will explore how environmental, political, and economic issues transcend borders, while also addressing these concerns within specific contexts. With more than 100 activations––from large-scale installations to performances––CAB 5 will invite public participation and discourse by broadly considering how infrastructure, history, and the aesthetics of space impact us all.
“Floating Museum considers the city as a framework for rehearsal, where the horizontal field of activity becomes a convivial palace for innovation, memory, and change,” shared the collective in a joint statement. “In this view, individuals, community organizations, institutions, and municipal authorities are invited to participate as equals––which opens new possibilities for collaboration across disciplines, geographies, and histories. We are excited to have the opportunity to think together with an expanded network of artists, architects, designers, poets, filmmakers, anthropologists, historians, institutions, and civic leaders.”
Many of the artists and architects featured in the fifth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial will exhibit or produce major new works, offering viewers different vantage points from which to regard the built environment. Interrogating the idea of process in a discipline typically focused on completion, designer Chris T Cornelius of studio:indigenous will present a project that sits in the space between installation and realized building, prompting viewers to reflect upon the use of Indigenous land. Similarly interested in showcasing processes to imagine better futures through architecture, Anupama Kundoo will unveil her work on a social housing project in India.
Interdisciplinary interventions and performances will further contemplate the act of moving through cities. Christine Jones, Artistic Director of Theater for One, and New York-based design-studio LOT-EK will partner with the Poetry Foundation on a project. Meanwhile, Ruth De Jong will explore architecture’s cinematic function as a character of its own through an installation that draws upon her set design for the movie NOPE, which was written and directed by Jordan Peele.
Other participants will expand upon local projects that are already underway; for instance, urban agriculturalist and social change artist Erika Allen of the Urban Growers Collective will partner with design studio The Living to construct a semi-permanent residency building on an urban farming site in South Chicago. Further illustrating the citywide exhibition’s spirit of collaboration across disciplines and geographies, social enterprise Grow Greater Englewood will team up with architect Feda Wardak to imagine new possibilities for the Englewood Nature Trail––a 2-mile linear park that transforms a vacated rail corridor into a green space for neighbors. From programming focused on architecture in cinema to participatory urban food justice projects, CAB 5 will emphasize multidisciplinarity and invite both local communities and global audiences to forge unexpected connections.
“The 2023 Chicago Architecture Biennial promises to again be a platform for ideas, imagination, and innovation at the intersection of architecture and the built environment," said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. "Since 2015, the Biennial has enlightened and entertained Chicagoans of all ages, drawn visitors from across the nation and around the world, and I look forward to its opening in September.”
“Led by the Chicago-based, multi-talented artistic collaborative the Floating Museum, CAB 5 promises a blend of architecture and art, historical references and challenges to practitioners for the future. Visitors can expect an exploration of ideas from across the world that expand beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries,” remarked Jack Guthman, Chair of the Chicago Architecture Biennial Board of Directors.
A celebration of public exchange, the Chicago Architecture Biennial brings new perspectives to Chicago while acknowledging the city’s unique architectural history. Participants in This is a Rehearsal represent a range of practices and media, including architecture, art, design, building, drawing, film, furniture making, installation, landscape architecture, painting, photography, sculpture, social practice, spatial design, urban planning, agriculture, fiber arts, ecology, and scenic design. Over the coming months, the Biennial will announce additional collaborations between participants and community organizations for this year’s edition.
The participant list for CAB 5: This is a Rehearsal is as follows:
Amanda Williams (Chicago, USA)
Amy Kulper + PROPS SUPPLY (London, United Kingdom)
Andrea Carlson (Chicago and Grand Marais,USA)
Andrea Yarbrough / House of Kapwa (Chicago, USA)
Anupama Kundoo Atelier GmbH (Berlin, Germany)
Asim Waqif (New Delhi, India)
Baerbel Mueller (Vienna, Austria and Accra, Ghana)
Barkow Leibinger (Berlin, Germany)
Black Reconstruction Collective (USA)
Botanical City (New York and Chicago, USA)
Camille Henrot (Paris, France and New York, USA)
Candice Lin (Los Angeles, USA)
Carol Ross Barney with Ryan Gann and DuSable Park Design Alliance (Chicago, USA)
Cecil McDonald, Jr. (Chicago, USA)
ChartierDalix (Paris, France)
Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project (Chicago, USA)
Chris Bradley (Chicago, USA)
Chris T Cornelius of studio:indigenous (Albuquerque, USA)
Could Be Design (Chicago, USA)
Dan Peterman (Chicago, USA)
Deb Sokolow (Chicago, USA)
Depave Chicago + The Montessori School of Englewood (Chicago, USA)
Diana Al-Hadid (New York, USA)
Diane Simpson (Chicago, USA)
Dream The Combine (Ithaca and Minneapolis, USA)
Edra Soto (Chicago, USA)
Eve L. Ewing (Chicago, USA)
Feda Wardak (Paris, France)
Gamaliel Rodriguez (Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico)
Gelitin (Vienna, Austria)
Grow Greater Englewood (Chicago, USA)
Helmo (Paris, France)
Ibrahim Mahama (Accra, Kumasi, and Tamale, Ghana)
interim studio (Nora Akawi and Eduardo Rega Calvo) (New York, USA)
Institute for Computational Design and Construction, Prof. Achim Menges; Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design, Prof. Jan Knippers; ITECH & IntCDC Cluster of Excellence, University of Stuttgart, Germany (Stuttgart, Germany)
Jean Marie-Appriou (Paris, France)
Jeff Carter (Chicago, USA)
Jennifer Reeder and Adri Sitiwat (Chicago, USA)
Kane One / Graffiti Institute (Chicago, USA)
Keller Easterling (New York, USA)
Kiel Moe (New York, USA)
Larissa Fassler (Berlin, Germany)
Lauren Pacheco / Steel Studio (Chicago and Gary USA)
Leticia Pardo (Chicago, USA and Mexico City, Mexico)
Limbo Accra (Accra, Ghana)
David Benjamin / The Living and GSAPP Footprint Project (New York, USA)
A Long Walk Home (Chicago, USA)
LOT-EK (New York, USA)
Modou Dieng Yacine (Chicago, USA)
Norman Teague Design Studios / Tonika Johnson / Max Davis / Ernest Wong Mejay Gula / Tanner Woodford (Chicago, USA)
Oren Pinhassi (New York, USA)
Paa Joe (Accra, Ghana)
Para Project (Amenia and Cambridge, USA)
Paul Ramírez Jonas (Ithaca,USA)
Perry Kulper (Ann Arbor, USA)
Practice Landscape (Cambridge, USA)
Project Onward with Ricky Willis and Kareem Davis (Chicago, USA)
Red Clay Dance Company (Chicago, USA)
Roy Kinsey (Chicago, USA)
Ruth de Jong (Livingston, MT, USA)
Saay|yaas (Praia, Cape Verde)
Samuel Levi Jones, LAA Office, and Sam Van Aken (Chicago, Columbus, and Syracuse, USA)
site / site design group, ltd. (Chicago, USA)
SKETCH (Panama City, Panama)
Slo ‘Mo (Chicago, USA)
SpaceShift (Chicago, USA)
Storefront for Art and Architecture (New York, USA)
Stoss Landscape Urbanism (Boston and Los Angeles, USA)
studio chahar in collaboration with The Apprenticeshop (Boston USA and Tehran, Iran)
Terra Alta (Accra, Ghana)
The Buell Center and AD—WO, Columbia University (New York, USA)
The High Line (New York, USA)
Theatre for One (New York, USA)
Tschabalala Self (New Haven , USA)
Ugo Rondinone (New York, USA)
Urban Growers Collective - Lead Artist Erika Allen (Chicago, USA)
Vyjayanthi V. Rao & Kush Badhwar (New York, USA)
WOJR (Cambridge, USA)
Since its founding in 2015, CAB has supported projects and commissions created by more than 400 architects, designers, and artists from over 40 countries. As a platform designed to highlight and explore innovation, CAB is poised to present a global event––bolstered by a recent $500,000 grant from Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity––that responds to changes in the way we gather, engage, and learn.
With support from the Zell Family Foundation, CAB is partnering with Mobile Makers—a nonprofit organization founded by Maya Bird-Murphy, that offers youth design and skill-building workshops in Chicago and Boston communities—to offer an array of youth and family programs, including a youth council, student design competition, and curriculum resources. A schedule of in-person and virtual programming—youth workshops, conversations, and community events—will also be announced in the coming months and will be available on CAB’s website: chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org.
ABOUT THE CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE BIENNIAL
The Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) is a non-profit organization dedicated to convening the world to explore innovative ideas and bring people together to collectively imagine and shape the future of design. CAB’s programs are committed to producing opportunities to explore and address timely global issues through the lens of architecture and design, emphasizing community input, sustainability, and equity. Free and open to the public, CAB stands as North America’s largest international survey of contemporary architecture.
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