Me, Chicago

CityX - Me, Chicago

Art Project 2021

The participative CityX art project, which has now passed through 12 cities around the world – in Europe, Asia Minor, Africa and South & Central America –, made its North American debut in Chicago. Due to the pandemic-related travel restrictions, Doris Graf was unable to fly to the USA, resulting in CityX – Me, Chicago – being held as a ‘hybrid’ event for the very first time.

The aim was to work with the city’s residents (children, adolescents and adults) to create a cityscape of pictographic images. Organised digital or analogue campaigns called on the population to draw a picture that reflected their view of the city. All the scanned drawings were sent to the artist digitally, and she then sorted them by theme and motif to produce a cityscape of 16 pictographic images.

The project was supported by ‘Wunderbar Together USA’, a comprehensive, collaborative initiative financed by the German Federal Foreign Office and implemented by the Goethe Institute. Various drawing activities were organised and run across Chicago thanks to the dedicated on-site involvement of artist Prof Adelheid Mers, her assistant Scott Ashley O’Brien and local partners.