Hui-Min Tsen
After Oakenwald. A Field Guide.
Lake Meadows
Project Launch Saturday, October 17 at 11 AM
starting at a group of trees by E 33rd St and Rhodes Ave
If you take a square and lay it flat on the ground, the interior becomes a scene set aside by the frame around it. Instead of open space, it is now a human landscape, brought to order by the one who drew the lines. Millions of squares, both visible and invisible, cover our country in a system of townships (6 miles square), divided into sections (1 mile square), divided into quarter sections (¼ mile square) which can be divided and subdivided indefinitely. Each square gives a promise, “as owner, you can make and name the world inside my border.”
Our square is the Northeast Quarter of Section 34, Township 39, Range 14 East. There is nothing remarkable about its size and shape other than a small curve in the top corner where the lake once cut westward (the “meander of Lake Michigan” as the original survey plat phrased it in 1832). At ½ mile by ½ mile and 160 acres, it is the size of a classic American homestead; small enough for a family to farm, big enough to sustain them. Randomly pick any quarter section and you would find a story to tell, filled with local color. Threading through would be common themes such as private equity and speculation, arteries and memory lines heading into and out of the area, ideologies imprinted on the land and subsequently erased.
Our story, though, looks at one specific square and its significant lineage. This is about Senator Stephen Douglas’ former estate and what happened in its aftermath. It is presented as a field guide to help the reader recognize the impact of the actors and events on our inherited public spaces.
Throughout, I use the word “our.” Our story, our quarter section, our remains, our country. The word, meaning “of or relating to us,” implies that you and I are one, and that the subject belongs to us in a joint ownership. Of course this is not literally true; I have no personal relationship with the quarter section in our story, it is not my story to tell or my space to define. The lineages and ideas behind these spaces, though, belong to all of us. Even if we rebuild the land, the past is written there, shaping our movements and determining the plot we live within.
After Oakenwald. A Field Guide.
Lake Meadows
Project Launch Saturday, October 17 at 11 AM
starting at a group of trees by E 33rd St and Rhodes Ave
If you take a square and lay it flat on the ground, the interior becomes a scene set aside by the frame around it. Instead of open space, it is now a human landscape, brought to order by the one who drew the lines. Millions of squares, both visible and invisible, cover our country in a system of townships (6 miles square), divided into sections (1 mile square), divided into quarter sections (¼ mile square) which can be divided and subdivided indefinitely. Each square gives a promise, “as owner, you can make and name the world inside my border.”
Our square is the Northeast Quarter of Section 34, Township 39, Range 14 East. There is nothing remarkable about its size and shape other than a small curve in the top corner where the lake once cut westward (the “meander of Lake Michigan” as the original survey plat phrased it in 1832). At ½ mile by ½ mile and 160 acres, it is the size of a classic American homestead; small enough for a family to farm, big enough to sustain them. Randomly pick any quarter section and you would find a story to tell, filled with local color. Threading through would be common themes such as private equity and speculation, arteries and memory lines heading into and out of the area, ideologies imprinted on the land and subsequently erased.
Our story, though, looks at one specific square and its significant lineage. This is about Senator Stephen Douglas’ former estate and what happened in its aftermath. It is presented as a field guide to help the reader recognize the impact of the actors and events on our inherited public spaces.
Throughout, I use the word “our.” Our story, our quarter section, our remains, our country. The word, meaning “of or relating to us,” implies that you and I are one, and that the subject belongs to us in a joint ownership. Of course this is not literally true; I have no personal relationship with the quarter section in our story, it is not my story to tell or my space to define. The lineages and ideas behind these spaces, though, belong to all of us. Even if we rebuild the land, the past is written there, shaping our movements and determining the plot we live within.
Full online field guide, forthcoming via huimintsen.com.
Hui-min Tsen is an interdisciplinary artist whose projects explore the link between the physical and the imagined landscapes around us. Ten has exhibited and published with the Chicago Artist’s Coalition, Chinese American Museum of Chicago, Graham Foundation, Hyde Park Art Center, and Sector 2337, among others. She received a BFA from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
After Oakenwald is a part of Navigations, a series of artist projects in and about public space. In 2026, this program is supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council Agency; Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation; Reva and David Logan Foundation; Teiger Foundation; as well as in-kind support from Chicago Park District. Between 2023 and 2025, this program were supported in part by CityArts grants from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events; Cliff Dwellers Arts Foundation; Hyde Park Art Center’s Artists Run Chicago Fund in partnership with Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art; and by federal assistance listing number 21.027 awarded to Roman Susan Art Foundation NFP by the US Treasury through the American Rescue Plan Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds in the amount of $50,000, representing 17.5% of total project funding.