Myth of the Organic City

Fall 2024 at 6018North

Opening Sunday, September 22 from 3-7 PM

Myth of the Organic City presents a historical and contemporary overview of Chicago’s design and land use, from its indigenous roots through 20th century infrastructure projects to present-day developments. Chicago’s seal proclaims “Urbs In Horto" or “City in a Garden” as a projection of environmental custodianship; however, Chicago has been designed and constructed in often inequitable and unsustainable ways, with cycles of dispossession and dislocation of nature and people. 

The exhibition includes a range of maps, landscape designs, installations and interventions, wall drawings, sculpture, and multimedia works. Pairing both a historical overview of design choices that have led to our current situation and contemporary community-led approaches of equity and sustainability, it offers ways to reimagine our complicated relationship with City and nature. While the exhibition cannot offer a silver bullet for our looming climate crisis, it highlights and celebrates the power of individuals and groups establishing natural connections and creating change. Myth of the Organic City reframes Chicago’s design history to understand how the City has created inequity by design – and how knowledge of this history can lead to a more environmentally just future. The exhibition is situated within and informed by these often difficult discussions surrounding historic and (even contemporary) understandings in regards to indigenous land, the environment, race, gender, economics, ideas of quality, assumptions of linear design and development, and power.

Myth of the Organic City is part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art that highlights the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities.

Myth of the Organic City is funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency through an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. This program is partially supported by a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events. 6018North projects are partially supported by an anonymous donor advised fund at The Chicago Community Foundation, a CityArts Innovation Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, a Gen Ops Plus Grant from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Field Foundation of Illinois, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, IL Humanities, Illinois Arts Council Agency Youth Employment Grants, Joyce Foundation, The MacArthur Funds for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art, and individual donations. 

The image above is a map of Indigenous trails and villages of Chicago, Illinois, and of Cook, DuPage and Will Counties, Illinois, in 1804 by Albert F. Scharf (1900-01). Villages highlighted in green; principle trails in red; and waterways in blue. Chicago History Museum, ICHi-029629.