Placemaking with Culture and Nature on Chicago's South Lakefront

Abstract

M everywhere are adapting to changes in the ways publics view the place of these institutions in their social landscape. No longer do museums tend to stand solely as temples of rarified knowledge or art that visitors are invited to encounter through experiences with objects interpreted by academic scholars. Increasingly, museums are being challenged to co-curate exhibitions with members of communities that have expertise related to the materials or information on display. Many museums are also being called to more directly engage with pressing contemporary challenges at the global and local scale. Anthropologists have an important role to play in ensuring that museums critique and improve representational practices and also have an impact in the world beyond their walls. In the Science Action Center of the Field Museum, my work has primarily focused on the world immediately outside our walls—the Chicago communities that are the institution’s nearest neighbors and the lakefront green space that runs south from the museum campus as well as east to Northerly Island. Our main objective is to deepen connections between residents of nearby neighborhoods and lakefront natural areas as well as the resources of the Field Museum. Historically, both physical (railroads, highway) and social (segregation) barriers have limited access to Chicago’s south lakefront for the Black, Latino, and Chinese-American communities adjacent to this public space. Visitorship to the museum, relatedly, does not reflect the demographics of our ethnically diverse city. Drawing from over a decade of ethnographic research and relationship building in these communities, our team of anthropologists and ecologists is leading a collaborative process aimed at creating features in this landscape and institution that more Chicagoans identify with. An example of our action research approach is a project that will bring PLACEMAKING WITH CULTURE AND NATURE ON CHICAGO’S SOUTH LAKEFRONT