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Tania Bruguera, Alistair Hudson and the Asociación de Arte Útil

“Arte Útil”, as defined by artist Tania Bruguera, is “an idea of art as a tool for social change.” Initiated by Bruguera and co-directed by Alistair Hudson, the Asociación de Arte Útil is a growing international network of people and activities that promote this idea. The project exists primarily as a growing online archive of hundreds of case studies from around the world that exemplify the concept of “Arte Útil.” The archive is activated through exhibitions, meetings and exchanges that further interrogate the idea of ‘useful art’. This Chicago iteration of the Arte Útil Archive is presented within the former library of the historic Hull-House, reactivating the room as resource for local neighborhood groups, artists and activists to exchange knowledge that may prove useful in the local context.

The Asociación de Arte Útil is accepting nominations and submissions for Chicago area projects to add to their international open-source archive. Learn more below.

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Jorge González “other forms of we”

Jorge González’s artistic practice serves as a platform for the recuperation of Boricua material culture, in an attempt to create new narratives between the indigenous and the modern. In 2014, he founded Escuela de Oficios in response to omissions of dominant histories and deteriorating academic spaces. Proposing recovery through community regeneration, Escuela de Oficios creates spaces for collective learning and promotes self-directed education. Its activities include mapping, documenting and employing artisanal techniques, and creating a mobile program that includes conversations, workshops, and exhibitions.

Commissioned by the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial, …and other such stories, curated by Yesomi Umolu, Sepake Angiama and Paulo Tavares.

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Arte Útil:
open call for submissions!

“Arte Útil roughly translates into English as 'useful art' but it goes further suggesting art as a tool or device. Arte Útil draws on artistic thinking to imagine, create and implement tactics that change how we act in society.”
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Asociación de Arte Útil

As part of an ongoing partnership with the Chicago Architecture Biennial and the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, the Asociación de Arte Útil is accepting nominations and submissions for projects to add to their international open-source archive. The ambition of the archive and the Asociación de Art Útil is to create a resource for knowledge sharing and a platform to promote and disseminate socially motivated forms of art. The public is invited to submit information on historical as well as ongoing projects, located in the Chicago area.

1) Propose new uses for art within society
2) Use artistic thinking to challenge the field within which it operates
3) Respond to current urgencies
4) Operate on a 1:1 scale
5) Replace authors with initiators and spectators with users
6) Have practical, beneficial outcomes for its users
7) Pursue sustainability
8) Re-establish aesthetics as a system of transformation