Summer Youth Employment

Each summer, 6018North hires Chicagoland High School students to learn skills and collaborate with artists to realize various projects including aspects of Soil and Soul, Justice Hotel, In Wood We Trust, Its Elemental, and yearly projects for EXPO Chicago.

Students learned woodworking, video editing, audio recording, and podcasting. Most importantly, students learn cooperation: to work with each other, mentors, and artists, along with stick-to-itiveness.

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 and audio production allows for a highly experimental approach.

This program has been partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit arts.gov.

2025

Summer Youth Employees Arezo, Ayan, Katerina, and Mahmud are working with Vedgewater garden leader Ayo Ma’at and artist and carpenter Erik Peterson to enhance accessibility in the community garden space and at 6018North.

Once again this year, 6018North teams up with the Ismaili Center Chicago and Edgewater Environmental Coalition to bring our Youth Employment program to Vedgewater Community Garden in Edgewater. A prototype circular wheelchair ramp at 6018North will feature in our fall outdoor revitalization alongside Circular Saver as a partner of the 2025 Chicago Architeture Biennial.

Play the video below to learn about the project the youth are creating at 6018North!