Chicago Art Department

The Chicago Art Department (CAD) is an artists' collaborative that cultivates new voices, ideas, and practices in contemporary art through exhibitions, artist residencies, classes, workshops, and community partnerships. CAD is using grant funds to spread Connected Learning and advance the Cities of Learning strategy through design, media production, and art. CAD is producing videos about Connected Learning and Cities of Learning, providing graphics and design support for presentation decks and reports, developing video shorts and other sharable media to engage young people in Connected Learning and Cities of Learning, and engaging the creative community in the work of spreading Connected Learning in Chicago through a public art competition.

The Chicago Art Department is an artists’ collaborative that cultivates new voices, ideas, and practices in contemporary art through exhibitions, artist residencies, classes, workshops, and community partnerships. With this grant, its artists will work with leadership from digital media and learning projects to develop video and other multimedia content for public audiences, including policymakers, educators, parents, and youth. The organization’s efforts will help spread the principles and practices of Connected Learning, the approach to learning that underlies MacArthur’s grantmaking in digital media and learning, to become an important framework for rethinking and supporting learning for the 21st century.

The Chicago Art Department (CAD) artists’ collaborative cultivates new voices, ideas, and practices in contemporary art. With this grant, CAD artists will work with the Learning Labs project and Chicago Hive Learning Network - two key projects of MacArthur’s digital media and learning initiative - to develop video and other multimedia content for public audiences, and help build a visual narrative around project activities and ideas. This will help the projects tell their stories to important public audiences, including city officials, funders, educators, parents, and youth, and spread the principles and practices of Connected Learning, the framework for learning that undergirds the digital media and learning work.