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If you wanted a poem, you had only to look out a window. There was material always, walking or running, fighting or screaming or singing.

Gwendolyn Brooks
Report from Part One, 1972

Artist Statement

Twenty Eighteen.

We’re running, fighting, screaming, shooting and tweeting.

Dream[er]s despair.

Resonating our constant of a tense and shameful urban

life and lack of genuine respect for all human beings.

We haven’t found a balance yet. Still so far away.

“Look at what’s happening in this world. Every day there’s something exciting or disturbing to write about. With all that’s going on, how could I stop?”

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks [1917–2000] Pulitzer Prize, State of Illinois Poet Laureate

Art Design Chicago

The Great Ideas in this section of the exhibition features great ideas from Chicagoans interpreted by Chicago artists and designers. These works are presented as part of Art Design Chicago, an initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art exploring Chicago’s art and design legacy, with presenting partner The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.


Design Museum of Chicago, Passing the Torch, 2020.


Great Ideas at ChiDM, 2018. Photo: The Office of Experience.


Learning Lab at Chicago Cultural Center, 2018.

Displayed