We here at LivingRoom could not be more delighted than to be opening the year with this one of a kind show from the multi-talented artist Jamie Hayes.

In the spring of 2009, Jamie contacted a group of friends and colleagues to participate in a collaborative project, called Past Perfect, wherein participants would work with her to design a dream garment: items they’d loved and lost or items they’d always wanted. Participants were also asked to write about why the item was important or compelling to them. The following summer, Jamie and Photographer Alix Lambert went to Vietnam and worked with tailors there to create these garments and accessories. Alix documented this process in Vietnam, as well as photographed the final portraits of the participants in their items. This show is the first time all of these amazing items will be on display together. And we here at LivingRoom invite you to join us for what will most certainly be a remarkable evening!

This years winners:

FYI – For Youth Inquiry
Is a collective of artists, educators and activists. Our mission is to engage youth in safe, accessible conversations about sexual health and sexual violence through participatory theatre. FYI is a partner with Communities in Schools of Chicago (CISC) to recruit audience participants. CISC targets schools in the most need of comprehensive sexual health programming, i.e. schools in neighborhoods with the highest STI, HIV and pregnancy rates. Together they develop relationships with the schools and administration to help us provide creative programming and LivingRoom is proud to help FYI fill a much needed gap in Chicago’s health and arts community.

Jingwoan Chang – Community Yoga at Lindblom School
Jingwoan Chang is a one woman force dedicated to bringing the practice of Yoga to Chicago’s Englewood community, where she teaches. For the past three years Jingwoan has been changing the perceptions many students and adults in the neighborhood had about Yoga and has been providing classes on a pay what you can afford basis. Jingwoan admires the meditative and peace bringing aspects that Yoga has on the individual and is very excited to bring this gift to the Lindblom School. We here at LivingRoom salute Jingwoan and are more than happy to help her program continue to blossom!

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And although we could not award them with cash…LivingRoom was also very proud to help the Southside Hub of Production get the kitchen appliances they were looking for through generous donations from The Rebuilding Exchange and Allied Buying Corporation.

SHoP (Southside Hub of Production) is a collective of artists, writers, film makers, craftspeople, educators, and local civic organizations who have come together to create a local cultural hub space in Hyde Park, Chicago. SHoP’s main aim is to stimulate local cultural activity and to foster artistic and cultural enrichment of all kinds in the neighborhood.

The Nite Market is an open venue for all the brilliant ideas in food that is being made in small kitchens in Chicago. It is a platform for unlicensed or uncertified artisan food makers to sell their goods to hungry food-geeks. This is a collaborative work to give space to testing out ideas in food, without the high cost of certification.

We will be curating this market to lean towards the Autumn weather we have been encountering, so keep that in mind when looking to sign up. We also have a bit of a limit on space and want to keep things intimate and expansive all at once. (I know it’s a tall order, but that’s what keeps it fun.) Look forward to some fantastic food, some great company and a lovely Autumn lounge to get cozy in.

To help out our sponser, Living Room Realty, we will be asking for a donation of $2 to attend the market. Half of this money will go towards Living Room’s Micro Grant. The Micro Grant funds Chicagoland community oriented projects (up to $1500 each) in the areas of art, sustainability, and overall world betterment. The second half of the funds generated will go towards Nite Market, to ensure that we continue to host these events and that you have access to incredible underground, community building food sources.

For more info and to register please check out the Nite Market Website!

The West Town Chamber of Commerce along with Post 27 are proud to present Design Harvest, a new annual street festival for Chicago. This one of a kind fest will feature Chicago’s best local furniture and home accessory makers, vintage and antique collectors, and local retailers of the home design industry.

And if that wasn’t enough, there will also be music curated by The Hideout. This years bands include Califone, The Hoyle Brothers, The Sanctified Grumblers and more…including LivingRoom’s own Annie Coleman appearing in The Golden Horse Ranch Square Dance Band! See you there!

Here is some more information from the website:

Packet pickup begins at 9 and the walk begins at 10AM. The course will be approximately 2 miles, featuring local parks that have made improvements as well as a peek at the changes we’d like to make at Eckhart Park. All registration fees will go to the fund for a new playground at Eckhart Park, and include a tshirt, coupons to local businesses, and 2 tickets to a raffle that will include gift certificates from local businesses including Branch 27, Noble Grape, and East Bank Club.

Many of the classes are even free, so take a look and learn something new!

With over 300 vendors, live music and food & drinks…this is an event you don’t want to miss. And the best part is, it’s free! (that is until you fall in love with a something. Like a screenprint, or a necklace, or a T-shirt, or a toy, or a…)

Broken Photo features the work of Sarah Baar, Dave Bone, Lindsey Conroy, Matthew Hannigan, Theo Katsaounis, Andrew Thomas Lopez, Jim Newberry, Meg T. Noe, Trent Reusnow, Patrick Scott and Jessi T. Walsh.
Broken Photo is a film-based exhibition built from imagery created with altered film and modified cameras. Film and images are hand-processed by non-digital means and are devoid of digital retouching of any kind.  From the broken beauty of the everyday to intentionally distended film emulsion, Broken Photo is about bearing witness to our lives and making the images we want to see using tactile, physical means.