You’re invited to help with an experiment in audience engagement.
For 2nd Floor Rear 2017, we’re testing out new educational programming—guided walking tours of select festival events, led by local museum professionals and arts educators. These tours will be free and open to the public, highly interactive and conversation-based, and somewhat improvisational.
Want to take a tour? Here’s what you do:
- Show up at the meetup location at the designated time
- Look for the tour guide (they’ll be wearing 2nd Floor Rear 2017 credentials)
- Take the tour! (Discuss! Participate!)
- Fill out a questionnaire at the end and hand it to your tour guide
- (PS: Happen to see a tour stopping at a festival event? Ask the tour guide if you can join up!)
2017 Guided Tour Options:
The North Logan Square Tour with Jacqueline Finley (Saturday, February 4)
This tour will be audience-responsive and kid-friendly.
- Meetup time: 4:00 PM
- Meetup location: Corner, 2912 N. Milwaukee Ave., Storefront
- Approx. start time: 4:15 PM
- Events covered: An Altar to a Chosen Family, A Moises Imbatchi Experience, Four Exhibitions at the Hairpin Arts Center, and Genuflexion
About Jacqueline Finley: Jacqueline Finley has been a docent for the University of Chicago, Smart Museum since 2015. She is currently developing the first docent program for the Hyde Park Art Center. She creates engagements for audiences Pre-K – High School, as well as private tours for community groups and organizations. Additionally, Jacqueline is a mixed media artist who exhibited with Woman Made Gallery and South Side Community Art Centers’ 20 Neighborhood Project, and recently the University of Chicago, Smart Museum’s In Anticipation of Belonging SmartSpaces summer project. ‘I am a facilitator of dialogues and conversations about the experience before the viewer. Let’s talk!‘
The West Pilsen Tour with Tracy Montes (Sunday, February 5)
Join Tracy Montes for a tour that touches on healing and loss, personality auras and color-grapheme synesthesia, everyday rituals, and the histories of collage and ‘zine production. Expect some interactive individual and group activities such as word association, ‘zine-making, relaxation exercises and creative visualization.
- Meetup time: 11:45 AM
- Meetup location: Nitecap Coffee Bar, 1738 W. 18th St.
- Approx. start time: 12:00 PM
- Events covered: FUTILITY I, Glitter Beach Oasis, and Lenses
About Tracy Montes: “I am an arts educator, writer and collage artist. I’ve lived in Mexico, the Netherlands and now in the U.S. where I am involved as an artist guide at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago. My interests include grief therapy, healing and arts and culture.”
The Mana Contemporary Tour with Grace Needlman (Sunday, February 5)
This will be a dialogue-heavy tour with some guided writing (and maybe a game) along the way.
- Meetup time: 2:45 PM
- Meetup location: 1st floor lobby, Mana Contemporary Chicago (2233 S. Throop St.)
- Approx. start time: 3:00 PM
- Possible events covered: in silence from dawn till dusk, Public Screening, A Song an Hour, The Thing That Does Not Need to Come up for Air, Memory Mandala (Found Objects)
About Grace Needlman: “I am an interdisciplinary, collaborative artist working across teaching, curating, and immersive, object-based performance. I work to make institutions of contemporary art sites of authentic inquiry and to foster learning communities across difference. I explore the conflicts and possibilities that arise when play and imagination collide with traditions, rules, and expectations. I build puppets, pillow forts, haunted houses, worlds within suitcases. I facilitate conversations. I mentor youth. I believe in the lasting connections made through honest, vulnerable dialogue, and support other people in finding agency within their own experiences and imagination.“
2nd Floor Rear 