Theaster Gates’ “thoughtful care” in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood has prioritized place-making that centers the arts, beauty and culture.
For years, the work of his Rebuild Foundation has transformed abandoned buildings, creating the Dorchester Art+Housing Collaborative from a former public housing project and a garden space along Kenwood Avenue between 68th and 70th streets.
The shuttered St. Laurence Catholic Elementary School at 1353 E. 72nd St. reopened its doors last Sunday as the Land School, an arts incubator for artists. Gates rang a bell that once hung in St. Laurence Church, which was demolished in 2014, to welcome the community inside. The last time we saw the school was in 2021, when work was beginning.
Hugs, cheers and a call and response moment with dozens of people in the school courtyard drew forth those beginning and those well into their practices to fill the halls of the school that will “provide a future of care, a practice of listening, a radical stewardship of time, space,” musician Yaw Agyeman said.
“Know that whatever has happened here has happened because of a collective will (and) the collective desire to see artistic practices flourish,” Gates said.
Gates admitted he didn’t have an ambition to be a developer on the South Side. Still, he’s glad he did because it meant helping professional developers make different kinds of decisions around who deserves good housing, how artists should be part of the conversation of affordability and helping thicken the cultural fabric of the area.
“I didn’t want to have to go over ‘there’ anymore,” Gates said, referring to parts of the city with more resources. “Every time I found myself saying I should go over there, I would try to solve that problem.” When he heard that St. Laurence school was going to be torn down to become a parking lot for an assisted care facility, something in him was activated.
Kori Coleman, founder, executive and artistic director of D-Composed, a chamber music collective dedicated to presenting works by living Black composers, tried to hold back tears as she shared how Rebuild and Gates have aided her nonprofit. From hosting their first event at the Currency Exchange Cafe to doing family programming at the Stony Island Arts Bank, D-Composed has grown since 2017. With the opening of the Land School, Coleman announced the collective would be a creative partner of the space.
“I will never forget the day that Theaster asked if D-Composed had a home,” Coleman said. “I answered no, and the following week, he showed me a school, and that school would soon become our home. It wasn’t until Theaster helped me dream even bigger for D-Composed by showing me the Land School.”
Ciere Boatright, commissioner of the city’s Department of Planning and Development, was on hand Sunday to express her joy that her department was able to support the $12 million project with a $2.5 million Neighborhood Opportunity Fund grant.
“I think it’s true that we can have many different priorities, and I think we can prioritize how we provide funding,” she said. “Just as bullish as we are providing resources downtown, we want to be just as bullish providing resources to our neighborhoods, because our constituents deserve it, these buildings deserve it and these amazing concepts deserve the investment.”
The Land School’s opening was a full-day affair with performances by the likes of D-Composed, DJ Duane Powell, Ben LaMar Gay, among others. Between performances, guests toured the 40,000-square-foot building, which was shuttered in 2002. Rebuild acquired the building in 2014. The addition of the Land School extends Rebuild’s ecosystem of artistic sites, offering space, access and cultural programming that St. Laurence alumni Melody Waller and Talatha Haskins, both longtime residents of Greater Grand Crossing, are looking forward to.
“This has been a dream come true. … I was here from pre-K through the sixth grade,” Waller said. “My mom would sit and look out the window and watch me on the playground. I learned how to jump double Dutch. I still remember all of the teachers’ names. This is a wonderful space for joy.”
Haskins agreed. “We were nurtured here, for sure. We were loved,” she said.
Both have visited the Kenwood Gardens and the Stony Island Arts Bank, and are open to volunteering at any of Rebuild’s facilities. From showing movies on the outside of the building for the community to view to holding community listening sessions and sending out surveys for community members to share their stories, both women were excited to feel involved in the school’s reopening. They both say Gates’ engagement with the community shows his commitment to the area. Waller suggests that those wanting to do any development in neighborhoods follow a similar pattern.
“Come to the community, listen to what we have to say, listen to what we want, what we desire, what we dream about,” she said.
“There’s this illusion that we don’t have the capacity to do great things, that we don’t deserve great and significant things, and that our successes will always be dependent upon other people’s generosity,” Gates said. “We never needed a perfect space. We just needed one that was ours.”
Gates adds that the joy isn’t in completing projects like the incubator and the Arts Bank; instead, the joy is in knowing he’s a co-conspirator with community members in helping strengthen and support culture.
“If we all do our job, we will have fewer and fewer complaints about the things that are lacking in our neighborhoods,” he said.