The Richard and Mary L Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry is a forum at the University of Chicago for experimental collaborations between artists and scholars.

Our Fellows

Dieter Roelstraete
Hillary Chute
Sidney Nagel
Cauleen Smith
Augusta Read Thomas
W. J. T. Mitchell
Patrick Jagoda
Jessica Stockholder
Sha Xin Wei
Garland Martin Taylor
Lawerence Abu Hamden
Bill Brown
Learn More

Events

16

Aug

Cinema 53: Sankofa with Haile Gerima and Shirikiana Aina

 Aug 16, 2018, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
 Harper Theater

5238 S Harper, Chicago

17

Aug

Sankofa City Summer School 2018

 Aug 17, 2018, 7:00 PM – 7:00 PM
 Various Hyde Park locations

17

Aug

Cinema 53: Brick by Brick with Shirikiana Aina and Haile Gerima

 Aug 17, 2018, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
 Logan Center for the Arts

915 E 60th St, Room 201, Chicago

Programs

Cinema 53

SIDEBAR

Sankofa City Summer School

Fellowships

Mellon Fellowships for Arts Practice & Scholarship

VoiceGrooveSong

Professor Steven Rings (Department of Music) and composer / percussionist Glenn Kotche aim to rethink the three musical categories of voice, groove, and song, considering them at once as a fused, holistic group, and as parameters amenable to strategic separation and recombination.

Fellows

Glenn Kotche
Steven Rings

Imagining Futures

This interdisciplinary project brings together New York-based Transmedia artist and theorist Thenmozhi Soundararajan and two faculty from Ci3’s Transmedia Story Lab, Melissa Gilliam (adolescent health researcher and physician, Biological Science Division-founder of Ci3), and Patrick Jagoda (game designer and scholar, English & new media studies) as they explore significant social, cultural, and political issues that will impact possible human futures through a series of experimental and interactive digital narratives. 

Fellows

Melissa Gilliam
Patrick Jagoda
Thenmozhi Soundararajan

Ghost Village

University of Chicago historian and professor Judith Zeitlin (Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations), and Beijing based composer Yao Chen collaboratively undertake the creation of an opera, with Yao composing the music, and Zeitlin writing the libretto. Entitled Ghost Village, the opera will be based on a ghost story that features in Pu Songling’s (1640-1715) masterpiece, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.

Fellows

Yao Chen
Judith Zeitlin

Give It or Leave It

Artist Cauleen Smith (California Institute of the Arts) and Film Scholar Robert Bird (UChicago Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Department of Cinema Media Studies) endeavor to unpack the revolutionary potential of filmic images. This project began with their work together on the Smart Museum's exhibition Revolution Every Day (September 17, 2017 - January 28, 2018), and will continue to develop through various forms, including their co-taught fall 2018 course.

Fellows

Robert Bird
Cauleen Smith

The Whispering Campaign

Curator Dieter Roelstraete and artist and professor Pope.L (University of Chicago) expand upon their collaboration at documenta 14 where Pope.L first presented his Whispering Campaign project. 

Fellows

Pope.L
Dieter Roelstraete

Studio R-A

Professors Bill Brown (University of Chicago, Department of English) and Ted Brown (Syracuse Univeristy, School of Architecture) embark on a collaboration that seeks to explore theoretical, practical and formal dimensions of re-assemblage. To initiate this collaboration, the Brown brothers will co-teach a course that is both seminar and studio based, working with students from diverse backgrounds of study, and bringing in other working artists to offer their insights on various notions of re-assemblage. 

Fellows

Bill Brown
Ted Brown

Projects

Brown People Are the Wrens in the Parking Lot

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Poetry and Classics Workshop

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Chicago Studies: The Workshop

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The Imaginary Funeral: Image, Artifact, and the Work of Mourning

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