A Sustainable Poem: Bryn Mawr Poetic Activations

Edgewater is at a crossroads. Empty commercial storefronts and reduced foot traffic caused by the CTA modernization strain local businesses, while proposed upzoning along Broadway raises concerns about gentrification and displacement. Neighbors in the Kenmore-Winthrop corridor—home to 6018North—fear losing their homes. West of Broadway, long-time single-family homeowners worry about the erosion of neighborhood character. Across Edgewater, renters continue to fight for affordable housing.

The City hopes to attract business and development through TOD incentives and zoning changes. Meanwhile, the Edgewater Environmental Coalition advocates for environmental sustainability, and the Bryn Mawr Historic District Alliance seeks to preserve the character of Bryn Mawr Avenue between Broadway and Sheridan. These are competing visions for a neighborhood long defined by its diversity.

A Sustainable Poem  is our response to that tension—not by choosing sides, but by creating space for dialogue. Through a series of neighborhood storytelling sessions, residents from different walks of life will meet, share, and reflect on what it means to live here now. Each session inspires a new verse written by Chicago poet Keli Stewart and installed in a different storefront window along Bryn Mawr. Verse by verse, window by window, the poem unfolds as a living reflection of Edgewater’s complexity, conflicts, and shared aspirations.

We want to do this project because we believe art—especially public, participatory art—can bring people together when policy divides them. Our goal is to turn a corridor of vacant storefronts into a corridor of voices, ideas, and visions for Edgewater’s future. By creating an evolving public poem, we invite ongoing engagement with questions of sustainability: not just environmental, but economic and cultural as well.

Subject to funding, we are involving neighbors, local businesses, community groups, and civic advocates, beginning in late summer and unfolding into fall 2025. Bryn Mawr—located near the lake, served by the CTA, and full of intersecting identities—is an ideal location to explore how we sustain our shared life. Let’s use poetry to bridge divides, build relationships, and imagine a more connected Edgewater—together.

Street-long Poem by Keli Stewart kicks off project

The activations begin with a bold, evolving poem by Chicago writer Keli Stewart. Keli meets with neighbors to discuss and distill thoughts about Bryn Mawr, Edgewater, and the various communities that call the neighborhood home, to write a stanza. This stanza is then incorporated into a window. 

The poet then meets with another group - beginning with Edgewater Historical Society to set the historical tone - and then to other groups and individuals who meet and discuss to each create another stanza, so that the windows becomes an ongoing poem about the community that everyone participates in and lives in. 

The outdoor window installation is designed and installed by a graphic designer. It is designed to run the length of the street, to attract attention, build excitement, and foot traffic, while setting the tone for activities and activations to come. 

Installation/Activation by Redemptive Plastics and Alt_

An empty storefront is transformed into an environmentally focused installation by Redemptive Plastics and Alt A. This vibrant space invites the public to gather, reflect, and contribute—not only to the evolving poem but to a circular economy. Community members can bring plastic waste, which is repurposed on-site into seating that supports ongoing conversations. It’s a space for words, recycling, and connection—where sustainability is both spoken and built.

Installation/Activation by Candace Hunter

Environmentally-focused installation is  created by Candace Hunter (chlee) is a Chicago-based artist whose mixed media collages, installations, and performances tell layered, urgent stories. Known for her deep engagement with water justice, she brings visibility to the struggles of women fighting for clean water around the world. Using appropriated materials—vintage maps, textiles, magazines—Hunter constructs landscapes that are as beautiful as they are politically charged. Her work often explores the weight of history, from the lives of the enslaved to the missing daughters of Chibok, and from death row to the absent children of modern violence. Through her practice, storytelling becomes both meditation and resistance.

Installation of works by Jin Lee

Great Water is a decade-long photographic meditation on Lake Michigan, captured from a single point. Through shifting seasons, weather, and light, the series traces the lake’s ever-changing surface—a study in ephemerality, repetition, and wonder. Created in sustained dialogue with the lake, the work echoes the shoreline near Bryn Mawr, where the evolving Sustainable Poem now unfolds.

Just blocks from the water, the Bryn Mawr installation invites neighbors to reflect on cycles of change—ecological, social, and personal—mirroring the rhythms of Great Water. Both projects are rooted in place, shaped by time, and invite us to see the familiar anew.

Light installation at night by Luftwerk

At night, the storefronts come alive with a light installation by artist collaborative Luftwerk, transforming windows into shifting tableaux. This glowing beacon extends the project’s reach after dark, drawing neighbors in and signaling that something is happening here—something evolving, communal, and alive. 

Dance Residence with Chicago Dancemakers Forum

As A Sustainable Poem unfolds window by window through community storytelling, the Chicago Dancemakers Forum brings movement into the dialogue. At the start of warmer weather, their dance residency and work-in-progress showing invite neighbors to gather, reflect, and respond—not only through words, but through the body. Like the poem, the dance is shaped by the moment, the place, and the people present, offering another lens through which to explore what collaboration can look like in Chicago.