Interrupting Criminalization: #Defund Police Campaigns; Chicago ACT Collective; Undocumented Projects
A Liberated Library for Education, Inspiration, and Action, 2020
Installation

In 2020, many people across the United States, in the middle of a public health crisis and racial reckoning, are rethinking what is needed to make communities truly healthy and safe. This library of zines, booklets, and guides created by artists and community organizations based in Chicago provides tools, vision, and inspiration for community transformation.

Chicago has a long history of intervention toward community transformation. The artists and community organizations in this temporary library continue the Chicago legacy of reimagining communities through intervention, education, and creativity. Community organizers and artists, in their resistance to neglect and state sanctioned violence, present these zines and share knowledge gained from local action, so that we all can imagine the communities of the future and the steps we need to take to get there.

Since our current crises in public health, racial justice, and democratic institutions have deep roots, these publications respond to the events of 2020, but may have been made many years prior. Their relevance today only makes their information more urgent. Browse the pages and find information to help defend democratic principles, learn about actions that challenge state-sanctioned violence, policing, and prisons, and examples of how to defend human rights.

Know a zine created by an artist or community organization that should be added to the temporary library? Email the name and title to [email protected]. As the exhibition travels, the temporary library can grow.

By Ross Jordan (based in Chicago, United States)