Public Events

Join Crook & Folly, DePaul University’s award-winning student arts and literary magazine, as they celebrate the launch of their 2019 issue. The evening will include a short program highlighting contributors to the magazine as well as the editors and staff. RSVP on Facebook →

Presented in partnership with the Stockyard Institute, this conversation poses the question: How might contemporary creative practices create conditions that promote a more democratic society? Artists Maria Gaspar and Eric J. Garcia, DePaul Associate Professor Horace Hall, and DPAM Director and Chief Curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm will present from their recent cultural works and projects. Moderator Rachel Harper will invite the audience to take part in a public conversation about issues of social imagination, education, creative resistance, and the struggle to pursue social priorities that are of the people, by the people, and for the people. RSVP on Facebook →

Modern Reeds will present a live performance drawing from several themes explored in New Age, New Age: Strategies for Survival, including works from the 1960s and 1970s that connect to ideas of environmentalism, communal creative practice, spirituality, and mysticism. They will be focusing on a musical movement that emerged in the same time period that involves similar themes: minimalism. Featured works include Steve Reich's Counterpoint series—Vermont Counterpoint for flute choir and New York Counterpoint for clarinet choir—as well as a new work inspired by minimalistic tradition entitled Ex Machina by Chicago-based composer Marc Mellits. RSVP on Facebook →

Modern Reeds explores unlimited genres in new music through the promotion of contemporary repertoire for woodwinds. Striving to engage musicians and audience alike in an atmosphere of inclusiveness, the ensemble values interdisciplinary engagement with local artists and composers to promote collaborative relationships in the new music community.

Learn about the ways that the David Lynch Foundation equips veterans to address trauma and the side effects of PTSD with Transcendental Meditation (TM). Chris and Julia Busch, co-directors of the David Lynch Foundation in Chicago, with Supriya Venkatesan, TM teacher and veteran, will discuss simple, easy-to-learn, and evidence-based approaches for veterans to relieve symptoms of PTSD and major depression and develop greater resilience to stress. RSVP on Facebook →

Join artists Lise Haller Baggesen, Matt Morris, Mindy Rose Schwartz, and Luis Sahagun in the galleries as they discuss their works on view now in New Age, New Age: Strategies for Survival and engage in conversation with the audience and each other. RSVP on Facebook →

Protest and sexuality come together in Goodbye Gauley Mountain, a rollicking documentary following campaigning "ecosexuals" Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle. Returning home to the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia to protest against the environmentally devastating practice of mountain top removal (MTR), which involves blowing up the local environment, they preach their doctrine of "Earth as lover" with its literal embrace of the natural world. As they put their bodies on the line, bringing sensuality and spirit to the environmental movement, Goodbye Gauley Mountain demonstrates how the fight for environmental justice can be inclusive, sexy and fun, even in the face of environmental tragedy. RSVP on Facebook →

This collaborative performance by Cathy Hsiao and Lakshmi Ramgopal is based on their collective interest in re-figuring the cultural archive. Incorporating the song of a Tamil lullaby passed down through generations and a mother’s Buddhist prayer necklace transformed into a sound sculpture, this ritual performance cites the artists’ personal pasts and the larger historical-cultural contexts that shaped their familial trajectories. Using memory and history, Hsiao and Ramgopal fluidly access tradition as a narrative and formal device for this sound-based performance. RSVP on Facebook →

Join artist and curator Jesse Malmed for a multimedia performance and screen reading scooting around poetic memoir, speculative seeking, and family time travel in post-hippie spiritual milieus. Once upon a time that never was and always will be, the softie science of time travel arrives at its new now. Looking back at the new age and considering familial slippage and skippage, Jesse Malmed offers an idiosymphonic drift forward and backward through the morass of time. A “guru kid” whose parents were “there then,” Jesse’s own accidental embodied and embedded anthropological approach to the strange scene of post-hippie spiritual seeking helps orient a broader if not specifically general drift through sanyas, beyond heroic super cosmics, the flows and flaws of cultural appropriation, crunchy co-ops, and the messiness of flake mishigas. A reading that’s a screening that’s a screed, like some kind of social meditation or a raga against the machine. RSVP on Facebook →

DPAM Assistant Curator Mia Lopez will lead a guided tour through Eric J. Garcia: The Bald Eagle’s Toupee. RSVP on Facebook →

Strategies for Survival is an afternoon-long exploration of rituals and practices that promote wellness and healing. Learn tools for resistance, empowerment, community-building, social change, and self-care from a variety of artists and practitioners.

11am–5pm: New Age, New Age: Strategies for Survival Exhibition On View​​
New Age, New Age: Strategies for Survival is an exhibition of work from the last fifteen years by contemporary artists who appropriate, critique, or embrace “New Age” aesthetics and concerns from a modern perspective.

11am–12pm: Yoga Session with Stephanie Hicks of Yoga for Black Lives
Join us to take part in a life-affirming and life-sustaining yoga practice led by Stephanie Hicks, Ph.D. Stephanie will lead sessions through poses, breath work, and meditation in order to respond to the violence that Black people experience across the United States every day. Stephanie teaches strong, classic asana to help people to turn inward, notice their thoughts and emotions, sit with what they need to, and put the rest down. This is an accessible class which invites students of all experience levels. Please bring your own mat.

12–4pm: Custom Aromatherapy Sessions with Kiam Junio of Mahal Healing Arts
At 12pm, attend a presentation by Kiam Junio of Mahal Healing Arts on essential oil basics. Afterward, sign-ups will be available for 20–30 minute one-on-one consultations throughout the afternoon. These personalized and intimate sessions begin with looking at your physical-emotional-spiritual balance using principles of Ayurveda and Traditional East Asian Five Element Theory. You will explore and sample a variety of essential oils and learn how to craft a custom potion based on your therapeutic and scent preferences. A sign-up list will also be available for those who would like to schedule future sessions.

11:30am–2:30pm: Tarot Readings with Emilie Modaff and Sarah Luczko
Sarah Luczko is a poet, dancer, performance artist, bookstore owner, and Tarot reader. Her readings are down to earth, while still keeping one foot in the other world. Sarah works with querents to produce a reading through collaboration with the cards. She embraces the traveling tradition of party readings. She prefers to read in loud bars, outdoors, in a garden, at art openings, or anywhere away from more traditional settings. Emilie Modaff is a Chicago-based artist. They are weird. They go by they/them. They are always creating, usually laughing, and most definitely wearing a bold lip.

1–3pm: Community Acupuncture with Five Point Holistic Health
Community acupuncture is effective for pain, headaches, neuropathy, seasonal allergies, colds and flus, stress, digestive issues, menstrual issues, chronic inflammatory conditions, and continued maintenance of any symptom. Five Point Holistic Health provides high-quality, accessible holistic healthcare and education in an effort to cultivate long-standing relationships between highly trained practitioners and the community that are socially and economically just.

2–3:30pm: Dissolving Barriers Workshop with Rhonda Wheatley
Presented by artist Rhonda Wheatley, this workshop will focus on dissolving barriers. Through original guided meditations, writing exercises, group discussion and other tools, participants will work through self-doubt and manifest future goals.

RSVP on Facebook →

With a history dating back several centuries, tarot is a spiritual tool that now faces the reality of our modern times. Reflecting on Audre Lorde’s question “Can the master’s tools dismantle the master’s house?” this panel discussion grapples with the history of tarot, considers a more inclusive present, and imagines a future of healing and transformation. A visual presentation of the evolution or tarot artwork will introduce the discussion and its themes. Tarot practitioners Danielle Meijer, Alia Walston, Grace Deveney, and Casey Rocheteau will share their unique tarot-based practices and discuss how the art of tarot can be used as a tool for community building and radical change. RSVP on Facebook →

Presented alongside Eric J. Garcia: The Bald Eagle’s Toupee, DPAM will host a panel to discuss issues surrounding the "military entertainment complex," socially engaged art games, and critical play in the history of games. Panelists include Patrick Jagoda, Associate Professor, Department of Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago; Steve Ciampaglia and Kerry Richardson, Co-Founders, Plug-In Studio; Chaz Evans, Director of Exhibitions and Programs and Co-Founder, Video Game Art Gallery. Preceding the discussion, warGames Tactical Media Collective will preview the game DISCHARGED, which follows the experience of a veteran returning home and re-acclimating to civilian life. RSVP on Facebook →