Every Thursday and Friday, Rebuild Foundation’s Retreat at Currency Exchange Café hosts free music programs featuring local Black and Brown musicians, DJs, and performance artists to showcase their practices and curate the soundscapes of the multifunctional and community-centered café space.

• As part of a partnership between the Mellon Foundation and Rebuild, a $3.5M grant will, over the course of two years, be put towards developing infrastructure for the archives and funding fellows’ projects. The four inaugural fellows are singer, songwriter, and musician Corrine Bailey Rae, interdisciplinary performing artist Yaw Agyeman; professor and performance studies scholar Dr. Honey Crawford; and composer and cornetist Ben LaMar Gay. 

• The program will further amplify Rebuild’s mission to demonstrate the impact of innovative and ambitious cultural initiatives in the Greater Grand Crossing Neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago by advancing world-class discourse and artistic production through collaboration, amplification, and critique. Heralding an expansion of the non-profit’s activities, the program will introduce infrastructure for the support of individual artists while also providing the public with new methods of engagement with the organization’s significant archival holdings. 

• Note for attached press release: The name of the program is currently officially the ‘Mellon Archives Innovation Program.

On Tuesday, April 5, 2022, we were honored to host friends, neighbors and partners at the Stony Island Arts Bank to announce the inaugural cohort of theDorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab, a three-year program in partnership with Prada to support and amplify the work of emerging and established designers of color. 

The following fourteen designers were nominated by luminaries across the creative industries and demonstrate extraordinary creative potential in their respective practices. Each designer received monetary support, access to Theaster Gates' and Prada's network of design leaders, as well as opportunities to gather, connect and collaborate. 

• Tolu Coker, Fashion Design (London, UK) 

• Germane Barnes, Architecture (Miami, FL) 

• Norman Teague, Product Design (Chicago, IL) 

• Kyle Abraham, Dance (New York, NY) 

• Mariam Issoufou Kamara, Architecture (Niamey, Niger) 

• Kendall Reynolds, Footwear (Chicago, IL) 

• Yemi Amu, Agriculture (New York, NY) 

• Kenturah Davis, Visual Art (Los Angeles, CA) 

• Salome Asega, Art, Technology & Design (New York, NY) 

• Damarr Brown, Culinary Arts (Chicago, IL) 

• Maya Bird-Murphy, Architecture (Chicago, IL) 

• Brandon Breaux, Fine Art & Design (Chicago, IL) 

• Summer Coleman, Graphic Design (Chicago, IL) 

• Catherine Sarr, Fine Jewelry Design (Chicago, IL) 

• As we officially announced the cohort, Theaster Gates was joined by Professor Sarah Lewis, Dr. Louise Bernard and Kimberly Drew for a conversation around the increasing importance of artists to the fashion industries.  

Launched in July 2021, Retreat’s residency model fosters and encourages creative entrepreneurship while providing historically under-resourced communities with the ability to refine their hospitality business acumen, collaborate and learn from one another and build a customer base on the South Side. To date, Rebuild Foundation has supported five emerging creative entrepreneurs working in hospitality and the culinary arts through Retreat’s residency program. Rebuild Foundation has provided a brick-and-mortar space, mentorship, an honorarium and community for Monday Coffee Company, Pour Souls Cocktail Club, Chef Ariya Taylor, Chef Jazer Syed, CTRL Z Coffee and Dozzy’s Grill.

The Black Artists Retreat [B.A.R.] is an annual convening of black visual artists that originated in Chicago, IL. Initiated by Theaster Gates and Eliza Myrie in 2013, the Retreat brings together black artists working in many forms and those who believe in and support black artists. In 2019, B.A.R. marked a new chapter as it expands outside of Chicago to create communities across the globe.  

Gates’ clear ambition to gather and strategize en masse, outside of any institution, was matched by Myrie’s goal of motivating intergenerational dialogue amongst artists of color. These ideas ultimately led to a larger discussion, incorporating artists Carrie Mae Weems and Sarah Workneh as advisors, about how contemporary artists of color foster collaboration and generosity. 3 From this initial seed, The Black Artists Retreat [B.A.R.] was born with the goal of creating time and space for a community to engage. Each year, this artist-led initiative is guided by the tenets of fellowship, rejuvenation, and intellectual rigor. Underwritten by Theaster Gates and Rebuild Foundation, the Retreat is hosted across spaces within the Rebuild ecosystem in Chicago, IL and beyond. Guests are invited to think, learn, and party during this moment of evolution and growth.

Every Sunday, Rebuild Foundation hosts free yoga sessions led by yoga instructor and dancer April Falcon, at Kenwood Gardens. The weekly sessions focus on breath-work and deepening your connection with your body. April hopes to create space to move through life with more mindfulness and to establish a balance in our energetic frequencies.

A native of Chicago's North Shore suburbs, April grew up as a dancer, receiving her BFA in dance from the Alonzo King LINES Ballet program. Though hesitant when first introduced to yoga, April took her time to make her practice her own and has since blended it with her dance practice. Drawing from personal experience, she believes that yoga can promote longevity, mental and spiritual resilience, and collective well-being for all people. April teaches group yoga and private classes all over the Greater Chicago Area. She completed her 200hr yoga certification in Fiji through YogaWorks and also has a crystal healing certification from the Hibiscus Moon Crystal Academy. 

Sunday Service, presented by Rebuild Foundation and DJ Duane Powell, is an ongoing music program and sonic sanctuary dedicated to House music, fellowship, liberation, and spiritual release for the South Side community. Sunday Services take place on different dates throughout the year, at the Stony Island Arts Bank and at Kenwood Gardens, with DJ Duane Powell and occasionally DJ Celeste Alexander.

Music Moves Chicago (MMC) is a place-based, youth-focused, intergenerational initiative that aims to inspire, restore, and transform communities by providing access to high quality arts education, concerts, and workforce readiness through partnerships with community organizations, schools, and other institutions located in South and West side neighborhoods. MMC is an initiative by the Old Town School of Folk Music.