1224 W Loyola Ave is a storefront project space for exhibitions and events in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois.
186 artist-led projects – November 2012 through September 2025.
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.
186 artist-led projects – November 2012 through September 2025.
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.
The Circus
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago IL
August 15, 2025 - August 24, 2025
Reception Friday, August 15 from 7-9 PM
The circus comes to town and it sprouts up from the ground. It is both and but never except. It is from afar and of the place. Always the same but never the same way. Only in one place and always in any place. It is self-memorializing. Space is an index of memory. Its multitudinous stimuli vibrate with knowledge. Tendrils trapping echoes in their grasp. Spatial erasure threatens memoricide. And so, we withdraw. To shelter. To find refuge within this familiar edifice. But its might fled prior first pangs at the door. Urgency now. Remember, remember, remember to not forget. Observe and document each case in detail and each detail in case. But like a plant shapes a seed, so we send the circus.
Benjamin Luebkemann’s art and architecture practice is situated in the space between nostalgia and anticipation. His work engages historical, apocryphal, and imagined narratives of a place. Discover more at benluebkemann.com.
During this installation, concurrent projects will occur at 1224 W Loyola:
if a tree falls by Tallulah Cartalucca
Wednesday, August 20 at 6 PM
City in Heat 2 by Carlos Ferguson, Kate In, Johanna Kasimow
Friday, August 22 at 8 PM
Untitled 'The Storm' by kee mabin
Saturday, August 23 at 7:30 PM
by-passing-upon
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago IL
August 9, 2025
Performance Saturday, August 9 at 2 PM
Join Ro(b)//ert Lundberg with Will Greene, Deidre Huckabay, Jeff Kimmel, Lia Kohl, and Sam Scranton for by-passing-upon. This iteration prompts performers and audience with a score both graphic and notated, responsive to the infrastructure of 1224 W Loyola Ave. Performers will navigate clouds, pools, and flows of notation along with curb stops, sidewalks, stairs, doors, sinks, and walls to realize music that moves in the cracks between pre-composed and improvised. Seeking to animate a critical fascination with water infrastructure, the score discusses possibilities in property lines and watery flows amongst the notation. The resultant piece straddles sonorous ambient tones and driving, flowing, bubbling patterns. This performance will also preview an album and artist book releasing this fall.
This performance will be followed by a closing set featuring John Marks and Crystal Myslajek as a part of their concurrent installation Permanent Fixture.
Ro(b)//ert Lundberg makes music, drinks water, plays with images and words. Their solo work focuses on the interaction of human infrastructure and the spaces it inhabits. Through slowly shifting rhythms in sound, language, and video, they attempt to reorient audiences to more-than-human relations hiding in plain si(gh)t[e]. Drawing sonic inspiration equally from the glitch minimalism of Ryoji Ikeda, the tuneful experimentalism of Arthur Russell, and the engrossing trance of Hamid el Kasri, Lundberg constructs performances that unsettle presumed relations to pipes, property, pollution. Now based in Chicago, they have performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe at venues and festivals such as Big Ears, Roulette Intermedium, Norwegian BioArt Arena, and CURRENTS New Media Festival. They perform solo and in outfits ranging from improvising ensembles to art rock band JOBS. They studied music at The New School and law and environmental art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Permanent Fixture
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago
August 5, 2025 - August 9, 2025
Reception Saturday, August 9 from 2-5 PM
Performance by-passing-upon at 2 PM, with a closing set by Marks and Myslajek
Permanent Fixture is a multimedia installation and performance based on projected moving images and sounds captured in the vicinity of the storefront space on Loyola Avenue that draws on the artists’ relationship to the Rogers Park and Edgewater neighborhoods in relation to Roman Susan’s significance as a place. This project celebrates the artistic, relational, and geographic connections that the Minneapolis-based artists have made between themselves and this community as a result of exhibitions, performances, and gatherings made possible by the Roman Susan’s tenure at 1224 Loyola Avenue.
John Marks is an interdisciplinary artist who locates his practice at the confluence of experimental film and electroacoustic music. His moving image and sound pieces center on time and place as materials for abstraction. Crystal Myslajek is a composer and multi-instrumentalist whose genre-defying music is both lyrical and ethereal. On her albums with Moon Glyph and Water Wing Records, as well as self-produced releases, Myslajek layers looping vocals, keys and effects to craft expansive songs with geographical and environmental themes. Together, Myslajek and Marks create audio/visual textures that manifest in multimedia performance and installation. Their collaborations have been presented in museums, festivals, galleries and underground venues throughout North America.
Tending to the M{other}
1224 W Loyola Ave, Chicago IL
July 29, 2025 - August 2, 2025
Individual Movement Sessions
Free – with childcare provided!
July 29 to August 1 by RSVP
Performances
Saturday, August 2 at 3 PM
Saturday, August 2 at 7 PM
We invite you to witness and participate in the labor of caregiving. Celebrate these private, intimate moments in a public space!
Experience the collective power of embodied fly-as-hell m{others}. We have all cared for others. We have all been cared for by others. We wonder how radical love and caring might be a roadmap for a more interconnected world.
Have you rocked someone to sleep?
Has someone cried out for you?
Have you helped others get dressed?
Has someone you love thrown a tantrum?
Do you have dishes to wash?
Do you have to pack bags and unpack bags and pack bags and. . . ?
Do you worry that your loved ones need you to feed them?
This performance is for you!!!
Performers: Christine Shallenberg, Aurora Tabar, Chad Hagedorn, Wannapa P-Eubanks
Music: Jess Baldissero
Christine Shallenberg is a teaching artist and mom. Her work ranges in mode from electronic textiles to light and sound installations to participatory choreographies for audiences (and sometimes her child). Her long-time collaboration with Jenn Cooper, JCSpaceRadio, engaged in a casually critical dialogue with frequencies through workshops, performances and interactive installations. Her work has been seen at Links Hall, High Concept Laboratories, Experimental Sound Studio, Hume Gallery, Tritriangle and No Nation in Chicago, as well as Movement Research, Galapagos Art Center, Williamsburg Arts Nexus, and Triskelion Arts in NYC. She also worked as the Lighting Designer for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for whom she designed Second Hand, Antic Meet, Nearly 902 and more than 30 unique Event performances seen around the world. She continues to design for performance with Every house has a door. More info at christineshallenberg.com.
Aurora Tabar is a Chicago-based performance artist, occupational therapist, and multi-tasking mom. She creates live performances and public actions that meld contemporary dance forms with research, storytelling, and audience participation. She wonders how the experience of live art can be a catalyst for healing. From 2018-2020 she facilitated The Existential Coat Check, an interactive popup booth that invited participants to shed their psychic baggage via writing and drawing activities at venues across the midwest. Her last evening length performance, Tiny Vibrating Strings, explored the life of Mileva Maric, Einstein’s first wife, whose contributions to the field of theoretical physics were overshadowed by her domineering spouse. Aurora has presented solo and collaborative performances in Chicago at Links Hall, Elastic Arts, High Concept Laboratories, Prop Theater, Chicago Cultural Center, and Roman Susan Gallery, and nationally at Movement Research (NY). More info at auroratabar.com.
Jess Baldissero is a seasoned multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, improviser and mother based in Chicago, IL. Whether supporting other artists as a side player on tour, arranging and producing recorded work for artists around the country, writing scores for live theater and art installations, or self-releasing original work with her songwriting project, Joybird, her impact is authentic and dynamic, elevating any project she has a hand in. With a background in social work and a passion for teaching youth, Jess is deeply inspired by communal, connection-centered art. This has led her toward making music as a therapeutic tool, fiddling for social dance and community events, and nearly a decade teaching at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk music before founding her own private teaching studio, Heart Strings Chicago. Jess’s playing has been featured on NPR, XRT, and the BBC, among other local and national broadcasts, and she can be seen touring currently with experimental blues artist, Buffalo Nichols (Austin, TX), or daytimes frequenting most any playground on the northwest side of Chicago with her precious two-year-old daughter. More at @jess__baldissero.
Chad Hagedorn is a dad and caretaker of two children, 13 and 1. He wonders if he has lost or found himself in the process. He currently teaches carpentry/woodworking, and works with special ed young adults. He loves movement and partner dancing. Dancing is one way he figures things out for himself.
Wannapa Pimtong-Eubanks is a Butoh Artist, choreographer, movement coach, improviser, and actor. She is a mother of two children, and at the same time also a caregiver to her special needs daughter. Her work often stems from a personal experience or a specific memory that grows into a poetic image that she imbues with the memory of the moment. She was selected to be showcasing for Dance/USA showcase 2011 at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago. From 2010-2021, Wannapa was a former Artistic member of Erasing the Distance, a non-profit arts organization based in Chicago that uses the power of performance to disarm stigma, spark dialogue, educate, and promote healing surrounding issues of mental health. Since then, she has been passionately focusing on exploring relationship between mental condition and movement. More at @wannapapeubanks.