Curb Appeal Gallery is pleased to announce our first exhibition of 2024, Heayoung 해용 Jang: Home, Sweet Home. This exhibition stems from Jang’s master’s research in art therapy and features a series of one-hour artistic coffee tastings and narrative workshops entitled “Coffee Drinking Narratives”. On the opening weekend (March 23-24, 2024), select visitors to the gallery are invited to participate in one of the coffee tastings led by Jang, who employs the ritual of preparing, sharing, and drinking coffee as the foundation for fostering collective dialogue between participants about the mental health system. Pulling from previous experience working in the coffee industry and an affinity for the power of “everyday rituals,” Jang invites viewers to consider a culture of care rooted in community and craft. In addition to the “Coffee Drinking Narratives,” the exhibition includes a videography and mixed-media journal installation comprising elements based on the everyday ritual of coffee preparation and consumption, artistic narrative and scores of the experiences, and used coffee filters.

Heayoung. 해용 Jang: Home, Sweet Home is hosted in collaboration with the Disability Culture Activism Lab (DCAL) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. (SAIC). This exhibition is part of ongoing research toward Jang’s Master’s thesis supervised by Sandie Yi, PhD, ATR-BC, assistant professor in the department of art therapy and counseling at SAIC, and Arts and Culture Project’s Coordinator at Access Living.

Heayoung 해용 Jang (She/her/hers) is a Chicago-based, Korean craft-artist, and a graduate student at the School of the Art Institute Chicago whose research explores the intersection of art and everyday rituals within the context of art therapy. As an artist, Jang considers ‘everyday rituals’ as a ‘Home,’ a space for exploring one’s relationship to the world and caring for themselves. She navigates avenues to enhance the accessibility of art while preserving the creative meaning-making inherent in our daily lives through process-oriented art making practices, including, mixed-media, installation, and culinary performance. Her art practice aims to transcend radical self-care to shared rituals that foster connection and a culture of care within a community.

About the gallery: Founded in 2023, Curb Appeal is an apartment gallery located in the Heart of Chicago, run by Todd Garon and Sandy Guttman. As an organization, we are interested in the intersection of art and accessibility. We draw inspiration from the neighborhood topology of our historic storefront space and its visibility to the community in which we are sited. Our large windows and sidewalk stoop encourage passersby to peer in as well as invite themselves into our live/workspace. Grounded in the idea of “home” with an ethic of accessibility, Curb Appeal reimagines what both an apartment and a gallery can be.

For more information, please contact info@curbappeal.gallery.

Accessibility: Curb Appeal is wheelchair accessible. ASL interpretation is available by request. Please request ASL interpretation by March 20th when you RSVP. If you have any questions about accommodations, please email Heayoung at hjang@saic.edu. While masks will not be required for those participating in the performance of The ‘Coffee Drinking Narratives’, we encourage masking while in the gallery and will have masks available. Please note, Curb Appeal is an apartment gallery and doubles as a home to our gallery dog, Momo.

Image description, from left to right: A photograph of a hand holding a pencil, writing on a small piece of paper on a table. Just off in the distance, several mugs are scattered on the table, slightly out of focus. At right: A person pours a pot of freshly brewed coffee from a glass carafe into a clear glass mug. A warm patch of sunlight cascades across their left hand and the mug of coffee.

This research workshop is supported by the Arts and Culture Project at Access Living, an independent living center for people with disabilities; Shirley Ryan Abilities Lab; and the Disability Culture Activism Lab (DCAL), a teaching lab housed under the department of art therapy and counseling at SAIC. This program received generous funding from Healing IL: funded by the Illinois Department of Human Services in partnership with the Field Foundation. This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

The contents of this event were developed under a grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR grant number 90RTCP0005). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents of this event do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, or HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

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Tags: Chicago, Curb Appeal Gallery, Heayoung 해용 Jang, Heayoung 해용 Jang: Home, Lower West Side, Sweet Home