by Nahlah Abdur-Rahman
September 30, 2024
For the installation’s creators, bringing the art piece to life in Chi-town is as historic as the work itself.
Black Future Newsstand, the media exhibit that features works focused on a better world for Black people, has hit Chicago’s art scene.
The exhibit will display at the Black-owned Gallery Guichard. It will include the newsstand’s signature collection of diverse content where racial justice has occurred. For the installation’s creators, bringing the art piece to life in Chi-town is as historic as the works themselves.
“With regard to Chicago in particular, it’s really important for us to have the newsstand happen in Chicago,” explained Tia OSO, senior director of Media 2070 project, to The Triibe. “Chicago is a great example of both a city and a Black community that is a part of a really harmful national narratives that are not coming from Chicago.”
The exhibit first launched in Harlem in 2023, moving across the United States to Austin’s Afrotech celebration. Now, it reaches to Chicago as part of the nationwide series “Cultural Week of Action on Race and Democracy.”
Moreover, an additional art installation, titled “Blue Noise,” will join the newsstand. Curated by Brandi Collins-Dexter, a partner behind the main exhibit, the accompany piece showcases an “artistic representation” of the media’s role in police perception. It notes how the media accomplishes this while also harming Black people.
“So much of what we understand about Black American culture, so many of those roads travel through Chicago,” Collins-Dexter stated in an interview. “Chicago is, in a lot of ways, the place that established how we understood a shared story of who we are as people. It’s where a lot of Black media was innovated, and it’s where we gained a certain type of political identity.”
For all the creators involved, the goal is to challenge the negative media portrayal of Black communities.
Collette Watson, a co-creator of Media 2070, added, “…Our team understands that the city of Chicago, and the name of the city of Chicago, is so often thrown around by bad actors in the media and journalism space, who want to cast a false image of Chicagoans, and particularly Black Chicago, as an excuse for police brutality and the continued funding of police abuse in our communities.”
Moreover, their collective mission to showcase a positive future and perception of Black people starts here.
“There’s a quote from 1966, where Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘If we can break the system in Chicago, we can break it everywhere,’” explained Watson. “I truly believe that.” For all the creators involved, challenging the negative media portrayal of Black communities also remains tied to Chicago.
The Black Future Newsstand hits Chicago officially on Oct. 4.
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