By Rev. Sarah Lyn Jones, Director of Community Engagement
The South Side of Chicago has a long association with artists who have made their homes in and taken their inspiration from its neighborhoods. While the legacy of creatives like Gwendolyn Brooks, Lorraine Hansberry, Muddy Waters, and Oscar Brown Jr. runs deep in these communities, it can be a challenge for new artists to find the resources they need to create, rehearse, exhibit, and perform their work. In 2021, Arts Alliance Illinois held meetings with South Side artists to learn what might support their work. One of the clearest needs was affordable space.
Congregations on the South Side of Chicago have a storied history of their own, with magnificent buildings to match. But over the past 30 years, many of these congregations declined and aged in membership, rendering their theaters, classrooms, sanctuaries, and fellowship halls largely empty during the week. So what would happen if a congregation with space to share and an artist with creative energy to spare were to bump into each other? “It’s like the old Reese’s commercial,” said Henry Wishcamper, founder of Bustling Spaces LLC. “You create something amazing.”
Although always on the lookout for affordable space, artists are often unaware that sacred places have the amenities they are looking for or that congregations would be open to a partnership. Similarly, congregations don’t always see their space as an asset for the creative community and often don’t have the connections to promote their buildings as potential studio, theater, and instruction space. Bringing congregations and artists together to imagine what might be possible opens new opportunities for both. The South Side Artists in Sacred Spaces (SSASS) program was piloted in 2023 with the goal of creating opportunities for artists and congregations to explore these kinds of partnerships. The program is a collaboration among Partners for Sacred Places, Bustling Spaces LLC, and Arts Alliance Illinois, and is funded by the American Recovery Program through Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
Artwork from local artists hung in stairwell.
“It’s not that the arts aren’t happening [on the South Side],” said Coya Paz, Director of Free Street Theater, “but space is incredibly hard to come by. Free Street lost our storefront space … in August 2022, and it took us over a year to find another space in the community to rent. There are a lot of storefronts left purposely empty (for tax credit) in divested neighborhoods. Meanwhile, what I’ve learned from the SSASS program is that there are a lot of sacred spaces that are eager to activate their spaces to serve the community in ways that are aligned with their values and mission.”
As part of the SSASS program, 18 congregations and 44 artists or arts groups came together for joint training sessions. The program began with each participant describing its mission and values—the key inspiration and drivers of its work. In these introductions, the two communities began to see the overlap and intersection that could lay the foundation for a strong partnership. “These arts users will act as a direct reflection on the congregations hosting them so it is imperative that the artists and congregations share a value set,” said Karen DiLossi, Partners’ Director of Strategic Partnerships. “Each one can act as an extension of the other’s mission and vision for the community’s future. Doing a value and mission alignment provides the best possible foundation for success in the space-sharing partnership.” After these introductions, artists were invited to tour the congregations’ buildings, where they found underutilized spaces that had the amenities they were looking for. Congregations met artists and groups that were doing work that resonated with their own missions and who they would be excited to host in their spaces.
The SSASS program was based on Partners for Sacred Places’ successful work in New York City, which brought together dancemakers and sacred places during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over three years and three cohorts, DiLossi introduced and refined a program that provided artists and congregations the tools and experiences needed to forge mutually beneficial relationships. The matches involve not only mission and values alignment but also physical space for particular artists’ needs, congregational capacity to manage space-sharing relationships, and negotiations of “minor” details (e.g., insurance and fees for use). These are particularly important conversations for congregations, whose experience and policies around sharing space tend to evolve organically and in isolation. As part of the program, artists and congregations practice negotiating contracts, and SSASS was able to bring in the Cook County Assessor’s Office to give a guest presentation on local tax considerations. “[Congregations] are not in it for the money. They just want to do the work, whether that work is spiritually based or artistically based,” DiLossi said. “They’re not thinking about taxes or legal forms … and we want to make sure that they’re crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s.”
Signage of First Presbyterian Church in Chicago.
The training was eye-opening for Rev. David Black, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, located in the city’s Woodlawn neighborhood. Rev. Black came to First Presbyterian from New York City’s Judson Memorial Church, which built a reputation as a hub for artists. Coming to First Presbyterian in Chicago, Rev. Black immediately began building connections and relationships with local artists to use the massive Gothic structure in creative ways. For First Presbyterian, the SSASS program’s coverage of the nitty-gritty details was enlightening, especially the conversations around financial compensation for space. In college and at seminary school, money was treated as an “ugly necessity,” Black said. In contrast, SSASS “taught us how to think about space-sharing agreements, how to think about the value of a space and also the value that’s created by the use of the space,” he said. “It completely changes the conversation.”
The SSASS program allowed Partners to enhance the training refined in New York by providing a key resource for both the artists and the congregations: money. Artists that completed all the training modules gained access to rental assistance to help make space-use at participating congregations viable and to support the development of a longer-term partnership. That incentive fostered relationships with almost every congregation that participated in the program. Congregations that completed the program were also given the opportunity to apply for mid-size capital grants to improve their facilities in ways that would make them more attractive and accessible to artists. Six congregations were awarded a total of $135,000 for these projects, which included upgrades to lighting and sound equipment, building out a local creative hub, installation of climate control systems, and “facelifts” for existing performance spaces.
For Rev. JeVon Moore, pastor of Bryn Mawr Community Church in the South Shore neighborhood, the capital grant was a way to realize a long-standing dream of the congregation. “In the 1960s, Time Magazine wrote a feature article about the Christmas pageant that would happen in our theater,” said Rev. Moore. “When I learned about that, I said, ‘We have to get this back online.’” Bryn Mawr Community Church will use its grant dollars to repaint the theater and repair the windows so that theater groups can use the space for rehearsals and performances, bringing the tradition of community theater back to the church and to South Shore.
Sacred space in use by local artist.
DiLossi, who built up Partners’ Arts in Sacred Places program over more than a decade, describes it as a counterexample for cities that are wringing their hands over vacant entertainment districts—by investing in vibrant art scenes at the neighborhood level. “All across the country, we are seeing large theater companies, companies we all thought were solid in their finances—mostly due to their artistic quality, their audience following, and lastly their permanent venue—closing their doors, cutting staff and programming, or losing their space,” said DiLossi. “The impact of this program may bring more artists back to the core of why they became artists in the first place: to do the art, not to maintain a building. By harnessing the beauty and stature of these historic houses of worship, these artists are enabling these facilities to do exactly what they were meant to do 25, 50, or 100, 150 years ago: bring people together for a communal and perhaps even spiritual experience that art and worship can both create. These houses of worship are community centers in their neighborhoods, and the artists can help them fully realize that potential.”
For Rev. Sarah Lyn Jones, Partners’ Director of Community Engagement, the SSASS program presents a unique opportunity for a broader conversation. Jones has lived for 13 years on Chicago’s South Side and sees enormous potential for the development of underserved neighborhoods using sacred places. “These buildings and congregations represent social and public infrastructure that is critically underutilized,” Jones said. “Artists didn’t know the abundance of resources that were already in their neighborhoods, and congregations didn’t know there was a need they could so easily fulfill. More importantly, the city and local funders couldn’t imagine the potential that could be unlocked with a little financial support.” Jones wonders what might be possible if entire civic sectors began to see sacred places as public infrastructure. “What if we started public health conversations knowing that there was already space for health clinics in every neighborhood? Or economic development conversations knowing there was already space for vocational training and job placement programs?”
With the success of the SSASS program, Partners hopes to find other funders who will invest in partnerships between congregations and artists to enhance the access and viability of arts and culture throughout Chicago and especially in neighborhoods that have historically been overlooked for arts funding.
