1224 W Loyola Ave has three descending stairs to a recessed floor; regrettably, the interior of the exhibition space is not wheelchair accessible. The public washroom is a very confined space, up two stairs from the exhibition floor. If these factors or others present a barrier for your visit, please write to art@romansusan.org or leave a voicemail at (773) 270-1224 in advance for alternate arrangements. Roman Susan at 1224 W Loyola Ave is located 85 meters northwest of the Loyola CTA Station, with direct access for public transit via the Red Line train and the 147 bus line. A Divvy bike-share hub is located at the west exit of the CTA. There is on-street parking on W Loyola Ave, and a paid parking garage at 1210 W Arthur Ave immediately to the south. For all projects at 1224 W Loyola Ave, open hours are scheduled in advanced, and available at other times by appointment. All projects are visible from the sidewalk immediately outside the space 24/7.
Death Cleaning
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago IL
November 24, 2024 - December 1, 2024
Performances by RSVP Only
Ruthless and regretful in a cloud of haunted dust, utterly owned by your belongings, you persist with death cleaning. It’s a ritual. It’s a chore. And no one rushes forward to help except the psychotherapist and the spiritualist. Your relics and hoardings want to slip free of meanings. They’re absurd, sad, embarrassing. But they’re hopeful survivors.
Go ahead, kill your darlings—they’re immortal anyway.
Carole McCurdy: installation, video, sound, full text score, performance
Paul Escriva: voiceover, Spiritualist research, brainstorms
Judith Harding: voiceover, performance
Noa Fields: spirit piano
Carole McCurdy is a Chicago-based artist whose movement-based work addresses grief and anxiety, duty and resistance, and the absurd mysteries of embodiment. She has performed at spaces including the Chicago Cultural Center, Epiphany Dance, Links Hall, Hamlin Park, High Concept Laboratories, Defibrillator Gallery, and Movement Research (NY). She received a 2016 Lab Artist award from the Chicago Dancemakers Forum and was a Fall 2016 Sponsored Artist at High Concept Laboratories, Chicago. She created and directed an ensemble piece, WAVER, with support from CDF, HCL, and 3Arts Chicago, and most recently created Just Passing Through (2021–22), a video, installation, and performance shown at Roman Susan gallery. For more information, please visit carolemccurdy.com.
Paul Escriva began exploring performance art with Frank Moore in Berkeley in the 1980s. He is inspired by Annie Sprinkle, Chilli Pepper, and Linda Montano. Escriva has been privileged to serve as midwife to the dying, having lost forty friends to HIV/AIDS, and his work investigates the queer body’s health within the community. His performance work has been shown extensively over thirty years, receiving a grant from the Alphawood Foundation.
Judith Harding has been kicking around the vicinity of performance as a writer/performer and all-around bottom-feeder. Hobbies include watching clothes dry. A teaching artist, Harding is an ensemble member of Tellin' Tales Theatre.
Noa Fields is a trans poet with hearing aids. She is the author of the chapbook With, and her work has been published in Tripwire, Anomaly, Zoeglossia, Elderly, Tyger Quarterly, and Sixty Inches From Center, among others.
Desynchronized Body
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago IL
November 10 - November 17, 2024
Performance Sunday, November 10 at 4 PM
The ridges and ravines on a shell, the furcation and fractures in my hair, backwater lingering, advancing within the flesh.
Able to see the ups and downs? The ashes and erosion?
Are they a whisper or a stare? Profound or invisible?
The growth rings, are growing and forgetting, grown and forgotten.
Engraved and obliterated, by whom?
It’s the name given by a mother.
Desynchronized Body is an interdisciplinary performance and installation work by Zachary Sun, part of the ongoing project, Fortuitous Peaks of Almanac. This project stems from a series of studies on body rhythms, inspired by a 1954 oyster experiment. Through the symbolism of oysters and a collage of occurrences, Desynchronized Body provides a physical intersection for examining the power dynamics of named bodies/labeled identities, modern cosmopolitanism, and environmental ideology.
Zachary Sun is a Chinese-born, Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist who creates performances, installations, writing, film, animation, and puppetry. He instrumentalizes his artistic practice as a way to observe and perceive. He deconstructs the semantics and media of presence to cultivate new syntactic forms beyond the poetic and absurd through the processes of weaving and collage. His current focus is to use this framework to explore personal experience, archaeological discoveries in his hometown, geological development, and power succession — and, through these elements, to uncover new possibilities for expressing structural relationships.
Double Stitch
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago IL
October 18, 2024 - November 2, 2024
Open Hours Wednesdays, Thursdays, Sundays 4-7 PM
Closing and RS Anniversary Saturday, November 2 from 6-9 PM
Join us for the 200th art project of Roman Susan, which concludes our 12th year, and begins our 13th season at 1224 W Loyola Ave in Chicago, Illinois. Double Stitch features garments, costumes, and objects created by Roman Susan founder Kristin Abhalter Smith in collaboration with others, alongside related artworks and ephemera by Eliza Fernand, Ginger Krebs, AJ McClenon, Vida Sačić, Corey Smith, Lauren Sudbrink, and others. The opening reception on October 18 will feature performances by John Marks and Crystal Myslajek from Minneapolis, and Sara Zalek from Chicago.
Kristin Abhalter Smith is a multimedia artist, designer, and organizer who specializes in collaborative projects. She started Roman Susan in 2012, and has led the organization to share the work of 1165 artists at 30+ locations. Her practice is focused on soft sculpture, printed and painted materials, and patchwork in relation to the body in motion. Themes of exuberance as well as grief are expressed through garments constructed with hand drafted patterns and found materials. The inspiration to collaborate and support other artists to produce their work is a continued thread of a professional background in scenic art and design for the stage. Kristin has an MFA from the University of Minnesota and is the founding director of Roman Susan. Chicago exhibition history includes Art on Armitage, Flatland, Hyde Park Art Center, Ignition Projects, and NEIU Gallery, among others. For more information, visit kristinabhalter.com.
chinelo house
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago IL
September 14, 2024 - October 13, 2024
Open Hours Thursdays + Sundays 4-7 PM, and by appointment
Weaving Workshop Sunday, October 13 at 4 PM RSVP
chinelo house is a gathering space utilizing traditional shelter forms inspired by Igbo (An ethnic group of Nigeria) architecture(s). The site is inspired by the historic Nigerian homestead obi, “the most important part, or heart, of any given place”, which is typically dedicated to the eldest brother in a family. This show is named after ebere’s eldest sister, dr. chinelo agwuncha who is a detail oriented healer, her spirit grounds those that visit and come in contact with the space. chinelo house is a site specific installation transforming the interior and exterior architecture of Roman Susan through an adornment of woven reed, willow, cane, and jute fibers. This contemporary iteration invites the audience to enter, wander, create and meditate throughout the site.
ebere agwuncha is a Chicago born and based Nigerian American transdisciplinary artist whose practice seeks to reach the natural depths of memory that hands carry through contemporary craft practices. They dream alongside the archives of the black diaspora making architecture(s) for the world to embrace through touch, preservation, ritual, domesticity, and intimacy. She currently utilizes various techniques including woodworking, ceramics, woven natural fibers, photography, interactive sound, installation, sculpture, and moving image. For more information, please visit eagwuncha.com.
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