Find Purpose. Create Progress

Find Purpose. Create Progress., created by KIPP Chicago students in grades 1-6, is an exhibition that calls on us to engage, reflect, and participate in making our neighborhood, country, and the world a better place. The students participated in five art workshops at the museum to create this exhibition. Each week of workshops involved a different theme to explore ideas of social justice and activism. Utilizing a variety of materials and skills, students used art as a means for reflection and engagement in conversations around activism and justice.

During the Create a Mural workshop, students collaborated to design and draw a neighborhood with the changes they wanted to see, thinking of all the ways our own communities could be safer, cleaner, and better for all residents.

The Upcycled Art workshop encouraged students to explore the numerous possibilities for upcycling our old, unwanted clothes, toys, and housewares into works of art. We turned discarded paper into new decorative paper and old t-shirts into yarn for weaving.

Using Post-It notes to create a flipbook during our Animation week, students learned the most basic form of animation. Then, they wrote short stories about using challenges to inspire change and used learned stop-motion animation techniques to tell the stories.

Students investigated the roots of traditional cultural objects and their current appropriations during our Craftivism Week. After learning of the origins and story of the Ojibwe dreamcatcher, local artist-led students in creating their own.

During the Activist Superhero workshop, students imagined themselves as superheroes and wrote about their powers, actions, and character traits that would allow them to be social justice activists. They created superhero trading cards, designing everything from their costumes to powers and taglines.