Theaster Gates and LBBA Brainstorm for the Dorchester Artist Housing Collaborative during Chicago Ideas Week

Hey creative brains, start firing your synapses– October 10-16 is Chicago Ideas Week! CIW will bring 100 of the world’s top speakers together for labs and discussions with Chicago’s best thinkers to create an ecosystem of innovation, exploration, and intellectual recreation.

Theaster Gates, artist, planner and founder of Dorchester Projects and the Rebuild Foundation, partnered with LBBA and a small group of arts and development specialists, will brainstorm economic scenarios for the abandoned Dante Harper building– a 36-unit CHA low rise housing project that will soon become the Dorchester Artist Housing Collaborative. As architects for the project, LBBA will be rehabbing the space into 33 units of affordable rental public  housing. The development will contain a central artist community space for work, display and community classes and events.  In exchange for reduced rent, artists living in the development will contribute time to providing art and performance classes to public housing and other residents, and work with the Enrico Fermi school across the street.  The project is planned for opening in early 2013.

Dorchester Projects and the Rebuild Foundation focus on activating creative community resources in the reuse of  marginalized cultural institutions throughout the Midwest.

Join in on this exciting discussion on Monday, October 10th from 5-8pm at Dorchester Projects on Chicago’s South Side. Purchase tickets for this, and any other CIW event here.