“Information Wants to Be Free & So Do We” asks audiences to question the idea that social, emotional, and intellectual control are necessary for public safety, rehabilitation, and justice.

This Pop Up Library will run September 6-30 at Comfort Station Logan Square as part of The POWER Project and is open during any public event. A Read/Write Librarian will be on-hand every Sunday 10am-4pm for facilitation and additional programs will take place throughout September. In October, the Pop Up Library will travel to 6018NORTH in Edgewater.

Events:
Cards for Clemency – September 21

Reading Group Brunches – September 15, 22, & 29

More to come.

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In 2019 there are seemingly limitless ways to connect with family, friends, and to participate in our communities, whether we are physically close to them or far away. Education and self-improvement are easy to access and we can set our own course for what we want to learn.

While many privileged Americans take this for granted and bemoan our constant state of connection, information is increasingly controlled and restricted in jails, prisons, detention, and throughout the justice system — including while awaiting trial and after release.

This Pop Up Library and programs aim to make these punitive and often arbitrary policies and their effects on individuals, their families, and communities visible through collections of work made by currently and formerly incarcerated youth and adults in Chicago; materials from Illinois Deaths in Custody Project; censored and returned communications between family and friends; books banned from prison libraries; information maps; and conversations and workshops with individuals and organizations working to change these policies and end mass incarceration.

Featuring collaborative programs with Illinois Deaths in Custody Project, Moms United Against Violence and Incarceration, Black & Pink, Free Write and more.

“Information Wants to be Free & So Do We” is supported by an Envisioning Justice Grant from Illinois Humanities and will travel throughout Chicago in Fall 2019.

About Read/Write Library Chicago

Read/Write Library collects, preserves, and provides access to Chicago community media in order to promote and inspire diverse forms of cultural production and civic engagement. We recognize the contributions that all community members make to co-creating a city — prioritizing those that have been left out of or suppressed from the record — and believe that learning to value these stories plays a vital role in building empathy, community pride, and the ability to see oneself as a change agent. Unlike a traditional read-only library, a “read/write” library makes the record rewritable, constantly adding material from Chicagoans of all ages, backgrounds, education levels, neighborhoods and languages. Through our public programs and free browsing hours, growing collection of over 6,000 publications, and open source catalog, we strive to raise the visibility of this work in order to reveal connective threads across neighborhoods, generations, and cultures and to encourage inquiry into and ownership of the historical record.

About The POWER Project

Beginning in 2017, Comfort Station Logan Square and Art Leaders of Color Network – ALCN have joined forces to present the annual P.O.W.E.R. Project In lieu our regular programs over the course of one month, the Comfort Station will be transformed into an ‘empowerment hub’ with a series of performances, lectures, discussions, happenings, self-care exercises, and much more led by artists and members from the broader Chicago creative ecosystem. The hope is that through series of engagements, people will be able to not only to lead their own actions but inspire others to take a stand against injustice and intolerance through meaningful artistic experiences.

The 2019 edition of the P.O.W.E.R. Project will occur in September, with programming by Jamillah Hinson, Dewon Evans, and Alyssa Martinez. Brett Swinney is the ALCN director of the project.

Official Website

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Tags: Alyssa Martinez, Brett Swinney., Chicago, Comfort Station Logan Square, Dewon Evans, Information Wants to be Free & So Do We at The POWER Project, Jamillah Hinson, Logan Square, Power Project, Read/Write Library