RAVENSWOOD — A collective of artists will bring a taste of Englewood to the North Side this week at a global immersive art fair.
The Other Art Fair runs Thursday-Sunday in Chicago. Art lovers can visit Artifact Events, 4325 N. Ravenswood Ave., to view work created by over 100 artists selected by a committee. The fair previously made stops in London and Los Angeles
Back for its sixth local edition, the interactive fair features workshops, music sets, live performances and more. At the Art Swap Shop, guests exchange an original art piece for something new without knowing what they’ll receive.
The Englewood Arts Collective, a group of South Side artists, will pay homage to their Englewood roots at The Other Art Fair with its “Home Is Where the Art Lives” exhibit.
Tickets for Thursday’s opening night celebration are $40 if you buy in advance and $45 on site. General admission Friday-Sunday is $20 before April 11 and $25 at the Fair. You can buy tickets here. Attendees can use discount code “EAC20” for 20 percent off tickets.
The Englewood group will kick off “Home Is Where The Art Lives” with a printmaking workshop at 7 p.m. Thursday “until the ink runs out,” said Janell Nelson, the group’s co-founder.
The exhibit continues the collective’s 2022 pop-up, which transformed a vacant South Shore building into a rotating studio, art exhibit, storefront and collaboration for spot local artists, Nelson said.
The immersive exhibit will “invite folks into our living room” because “where there is art, there is home,” Nelson said. The collective received sponsorship funding from the Chicago Community Trust to cover materials and artists’ participation, Nelson said.
“For us, art is seamlessly infused into our way of life. Sometimes that looks like painting, but it is so much more than that,” Nelson said. “We hope folks meet us where we’re at and challenge the way they think about art and how Black people are constantly reinventing it.”
Each day of the fair will have workshop sessions such as beat making, folded mapmaking, live painting and macrame. There will also be limited art for sale, Nelson said.
“We are showing the diversity of what art can be,” co-founder Pugs Atomz said. “Art is therapy.”
Other South Side and local artists also will be featured at the event.
Eddie “EDO” Santana White, a multi-disciplinary artist from the South Side who recently collaborated with fashion brand Kith, will display his work.
Reveal Agarwaal, a multi-disciplinary artist from New Delhi, India, currently based in Chicago, will share her textile and collage work, including brightly-adorned quilts.
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