ONE YEAR, SIX SHOWS, TWO DECADES OF SNOW CITY ARTS

Snow City Arts has been providing arts education and creative inspiration to youth in Chicagoland hospitals for over 20 years! We celebrated our 20th anniversary with A Room Without Walls, a year-long series of special events around Chicago. Each event represented a discipline in which Snow City Arts works: Creative Writing, Visual Arts, Teaching Artistry, Theatre, Film, and Music. These events offered a unique opportunity to get to know the work of Snow City Arts’ students and Teaching Artists. These events partnered with some of the most popular and respected cultural institutions across the City. All the events were free and open to the public. Scroll down for more information about the individual events that took place.

CREATIVE WRITING EXHIBITION

FEBRUARY 15 @ OPEN BOOKS, WEST LOOP

The Creative Writing Exhibition, co-presented by Open Books, featured the work of Snow City Arts students and the poetic responses by Claudia Rankine, Matthias Regan, Dan Beachy-Quick, Christine Hume, Matthew Zapruder and live readings by Roger Bonair-Agard, CM Burroughs, Emily Jungmin Yoon, and Snow City Arts founder Paul Sznewajs. The evening was hosted by Snow City Arts Teaching Artist, Eric Elshtain.

VISUAL ARTS EXHIBITION

APRIL 6 – 27 @ THE ARTS INCUBATOR at THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Our Visual Arts Exhibition, co-presented with the Arts Incubator at The University of Chicago, featured the work of Snow City Arts students of all ages over the course of our 20 year history. Viewers were able to walk through pieces from our archive, allowing the students’ artwork guide them through a visual history of Snow City Arts. Representative works included drawings, paintings, collages, photographs, mosaics, prints, and sculptures.

TEACHING ARTISTRY EXHIBITION

JUNE 8 – 22 @ WEINBERG|NEWTON GALLERY

All Snow City Arts Teaching Artists are practicing artists in their field. This exhibition, co-presented by Weinberg|Newton Gallery, featured the professional work of our Teaching Artists, past and present, along with examples of their student’s work. The pieces, in conversation with each other, aimed to exemplify how their work as professional artists informs their practice as educators.

THEATER EXHIBITION

JULY 25 & 26 @ STEPPENWOLF THEATRE

This Revue explored the twenty-year history of theatrical collaborations by our students composed while being treated in the hospital. This evening of short performances featured a student ensemble and professional Chicago Theatre Artists, showcasing samples of creative writing, music, puppetry, storytelling, and design live on the Steppenwolf stage.

MEDIA ARTS FESTIVAL

OCTOBER 14 @ GENE SISKEL FILM CENTER

Snow City Arts, in partnership with the Gene Siskel Film Center, presented student films and works of media arts in a one day festival. Guests witnessed battling monsters, high-speed car chases, alien encounters, heavy metal superheroes, and talking paintbrushes, celebrating 20 years of student films, videos and animations created at Rush University Children’s Hospital, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Children’s Hospital of University of Illinois, and John H. Stroger Hospital. From genre-specific narratives, music videos, contemplative visual poems, and surreal animations, this retrospective transported us into the minds and through the eyes of hundreds of young artists.

MUSIC EXHIBITION

DECEMBER 16, 2018 @ SCHUBAS TAVERN

Snow City Arts, in partnership with Schubas, presented a one-night-only celebration of 20 years of music made by children in hospitals. Teaching artists and students were joined onstage by very special guests from Chicago’s music community for an evening of live performances interpreting the amazing musical work our students have created in hospitals since 1998.

Featured: Ailani, Emmy Bean, Stacy Erenberg, Billie Howard, Olivia, Marc Piane, Ami Saraiya, Kevin Smith, Michael Zerang, Lenny Zieben