July - September 2017

This summer, four Summer Youth Employees from different parts of Chicago will:

- LEARN WOODWORKING - build an outdoor deck-like structure and jungle gym working with artists and master carpenters

- LEARN VIDEO: FILMING AND EDITING –­ gain the skills to create a video about their experience, as well as create video interviews with artists about their work

- BLOG AND UPDATE SOCIAL MEDIA – let our followers know what we're up to.

Project mission:

4 teenagers are trained by 2 master carpenters to learn woodworking, video making and editing. Most importantly, they learn cooperation: to work with each other, mentors, and artists, along with stick-to-itiveness.  This year the youth are working with the Chapuisat Brothers to build In Wood We Trust. The program rethinks the potential of immersive body-based education. The high degree of the students' work and their esprit de corps confirms the value of treating education as a dynamic space: emphasizing bodily skills, repetition, and technique and an appreciation of older, often forgotten systems of production and bodily movement. While the woodworking honors craftsmanship, the video production allows for a highly experimental approach. The students film their woodworking process, interviewed the artists they worked with, and compile the footage into videos.

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency through federal funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts