| This project drew on methods from the visual arts, social science survey research, and community engagement practice to study the economic and social health of several neighborhoods on Chicago’s South Side. |
The Black Wall Street Journey (BWSJ) project brought together the visual arts, social science survey research, and community engagement to study the economic and social health of several neighborhoods on Chicago’s South Side. The research team's work centered on producing the content of Houston-based artist Rick Lowe’s “Stock Tickers,” sculptural interventions distributed in select Chicago neighborhoods in the summer of 2021 as part of Toward Common Cause, a multi-site exhibition organized by the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago and presented on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the MacArthur Foundation’s Fellows Program. The BWSJ research team sought to better understand residents’ perspectives of their neighborhoods and to project this information through the sculptures Lowe created during his residency as a Neubauer Collegium Visiting Fellow. The challenge was three-fold: 1) to design and conduct a sociological study that conceptualizes, gathers, and analyzes data on the focal neighborhoods’ economic and social health; 2) to determine, with residents, what kind of information might be of use to residents of disenfranchised neighborhoods; and 3) to make those data legible in artistic form. The creation of the data, and the tracking of reactions to and engagement with the sculptures, provided social science insights into how community is perceived, described, and documented. The sculptures are a new source of information that constitutes value and facilitates decision-making by residents of low-income, historically divested communities.
Professor of Sociology, Director of the U-M Institute for Social Research
University of Michigan
Kathleen Cagney was named the Director of the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research in 2021. Professor Cagney's work examines social inequality and its relationship to health with a focus on neighborhood, race, aging, and the life course. She has developed a series of papers on...
Founding Director, Urban Center for Computation and Data; Former Senior Fellow, Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation
Urban Center for Computation and Data
Charlie Catlett is the founding director of the Urban Center for Computation and Data, UrbanCCD, which brings social, physical, and computational scientists together with artists, architects, technologists, and policy makers to explore science-based approaches to opportunities and challenges...
Visual Artist, Professor of Art
University of Houston
Rick Lowe (Professor of Art, University of Houston) is an artist whose approach to community revitalization is path-breaking: Lowe has initiated arts-driven redevelopment projects in Houston – the renowned Project Row Houses – and other cities, including the Watts House Project...
Research Data Scientist, Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation
Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation
Nico is a Research Data Scientist with the Mansueto Institute. He holds a multi-disciplinary background in data science and urban research with a strong interest in harnessing advances in data and machine learning, which he is now applying to gain deeper insights into the science behind cities....
Associate Professor of Sociology; Deputy Dean of the Social Sciences
University of Chicago
Professor Vargas is a social scientist interested in research on cities, law, and race. His writing and teaching focus on identifying the political-economic forces shaping neighborhood conditions and city responses to social problems. His multi award-winning book "Wounded City: Violent Turf Wars...
Independent Curator and Scholar
Abigail Winograd is an independent curator and writer. Since 2018, she has collaborated with Rick Lowe on the Black Wall Street Journey project. Until April 2023, she was Curator-at-large and MacArthur...
