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2024 Partner Convening in Chicago: What is Possible?

July 8, 2024  •  3 minute read

NPN attendees visit the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial at Marquette Park. Stewarded by the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, the memorial marks the site where Dr. King led activists for fair housing, and was violently attacked by counter-protestors, in 1966. Photo by Daniel Pruksarnukul.

Nearly 80 attendees from 42 national Partner organizations gathered in Chicago in April for NPN’s first in-person convening since 2020. With so much of NPN’s work organized around reciprocity and resource-sharing among NPN Partners, the convening invited us to reconnect and reimagine our guiding question: “What is possible when we are in ideological alignment, deep learning, relationship building, and practice together?”

The smaller-scale setting encouraged candid peer-to-peer exchange around topics shaping our work and our world—from caring for artists, to organizing for Palestine, to deepening intergenerational connection—as well as intimate community learning with local Chicago artists and culture workers.

Our local engagement focused on Chicago’s Hyde Park and Englewood neighborhoods on the South Side, with the theme “What does it look and feel like when the arts are central to collective, community justice and wellbeing?” Organized by Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN), Hyde Park Art Center, and ENRICH Chicago, we met with artists, activists, and culture workers from A Long Walk Home, Artists Run Chicago Fund, Chicago Dancer Pay Transparency Project, and Red Clay Dance to learn and dream together.

Our time together reaffirmed the generosity, joy, and curiosity of our Partners and the power of shared learning and practice from a place of connection and possibility.

Two men stand in the shadow against a white painted brick wall and address an audience that is only partially visible in the extreme foreground of the composition. The man on the left is a Black bearded man with short dreadlocks that are tied back. He is wearing a black shirt with a knitted red vest, a green knit cap, and black and gold sunglasses. He is holding a microphone and gesturing with his free hand as he speaks. The other man appears to be of Middle Eastern descent. He is wearing a loose-fitting white and black shirt, a grey cap, and mirrored sunglasses, and he is playing a drum held between his knees as he leans back against the brick wall and smiles at the other man.
NPN attendees in conversation with hip hop artist and activist Heavy Crownz (left) and IMAN Executive Director Rami Nashashibi at IMAN’s Go Green Community Fresh Market. Photo by Daniel Pruksarnukul.

NPN partnered with Sixty Inches From Center—a collective of arts writers and others who promote and prioritize the preservation of culture within Indigenous, diasporic, queer, and disability communities in Chicago and the Midwest—to attend and reflect on NPN’s Partner meeting.

Screenshot of the headline and featured image of the post "The Irrepressible Now — Two Days of the National Performance Network Conference," published at the website sixtyinchesfromcenter.org

Jared Brown’s beautiful essay, “The Irrepressible Now”, highlights the community learning in Hyde Park and Englewood, and reflects that “these two days spent with NPN have reinstated my belief that performance is an ongoing protest effort, commentary on our world, our values and our vision for the future.” You can read the full essay, including Luz Magdaleno Flores’ accompanying photography, on Sixty Inches From Center’s website here: https://sixtyinchesfromcenter.org/the-irrepressible-now-two-days-of-the-national-performance-network-conference/

A Poetry and Photography Reflection by Daniel Pruksarnukul

Poem title:

Healing history

Circle sings aspirations 

Dr. King Stood HERE

Train Stops Here Again

Inshallah

Community Engaged Stewards

Breathe Life inside spaces that get

Forgotten without notice by

Politicians on the 15th floor

Of buildings off in the distance

Making plans for places

They’ll never come down

To see

Two men stand in shadow against a white painted brick wall of a building; one of them is speaking into a microphone. Before them, a group of people sit in rows of folding chairs and listen.
An arial shot of a circular arrangement of people standing in partial shadow in a small red brick courtyard in the afternoon. They appear to be engaged in a group activity and are looking at someone on the right side of the circle.

A space

Community fought

Community won

Home in any language

Means you belong to a place

Red text printed directly onto a white wall in an undisclosed location. There is a large title in letters that are 12 to 18 inches tall, followed by three paragraphs of smaller text. The title reads "The Art of Solidarity." The smaller text is unreadable. To the left and right of the text stand potted plants.

Together we rise

Let yourself rest

The Art of Solidarity

Envisioning Liberation

A group of people standing in random positions throughout a brightly lit, large white room with a low ceiling and no windows. The view is from the back of the group so that most of the people in the photo are shown from behind. They all appear to be listening to a person at the other end of the room who is speaking into a microphone while gesturing to something off to the side.
The interior of a bus, with most seats filled with people of various skin tones and genders. On the left side of the photo, a nearby wall blurred by the motion of the bus is visible through the windows. On the right side, a more distant wall can be seen.

Hearts + Bellies Full

Conversations flow freely

On the bus ride home

The 2024 Partner Convening in Chicago was made possible through the generous support of:
Walder Foundation, Field Foundation, Joyce Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts