Lake Street Truth Collective Summer 2022

Who we are: 

We are a collective of artists, neighbors, and community organizers who share a commitment to the community that surrounds Lake Street and Chicago Avenue.

What we do:

The Lake Street Truth Collective brings the community surrounding Lake & Chicago together by creating accessible spaces for listening, healing and building relationships.

Our history:

Last summer was the collective's inaugural season. After more than a year of injustice, burning and protests, economic instability amidst a pandemic, the Collective organized community members to engage in difficult conversations about the truth of our circumstances and to rebuild a sense of belonging and connectedness to this land and one another. Throughout July and August 2021, the Collective organized a grassroots “truth and repair” process that included free dinners, facilitated conversations, and dance parties on the empty lot at Chicago and Lake Street, formerly home to the Roberts Shoe Store. Neighbors grew friendlier, strangers talked to one-another for the first time, and our community wanted more of this refreshing outlet for listening and being heard. 

Our efforts were only possible due to an outpouring of support from the local community surrounding Lake and Chicago. By the end of the summer, hundreds of volunteer hours and over $100,000 had been donated to support our programming. Throughout the fall and winter the Collective has been strengthening its network and developing the programming that we are excited to bring to the corner of Lake and Chicago this summer. 

Our Summer 2022 plans:

This season of collective work will be centered around four evenings of community gathering around food, entertainment, and dialogue. Each "conversation café" will have its own topic, with the four themes of education, housing, community safety, and the environment. For accessibility each conversation will have interpreter support in Spanish, Somali, and ASL. 

Doing this work well takes a team of people! Central to our mission of creating welcoming space will be a curator-in-residence, who will help create the container of our discussions by implementing visual arts installations and planning activities like dance parties and workshops for the space.

While our curator will work to make the space feel celebratory and joyous, a key feature of our work involves bringing history to the forefront. Each conversation café will have teach-in elements that tie in to the theme of the night and provoke reflection about the legacy of Lake Street in order to better plan for our future.

Given that our events will stretch on into the evenings, safety and security is a vital piece of this work as well. Our approach to security looks different than what many are used to: our collective includes compassionate security professionals who are trained in de-escalation and conflict mediation. We are proud that the people who keep us safe are just as warm and approachable as any other part of the team.

Lastly, this wouldn't be a community-driven event without strong support from our neighbors. Our work is currently underway to reach out to residents surrounding Lake Street. Rather than simply rely on social media for outreach, our hope is to foster a more organic base through door-to-door outreach, hand-delivered invitations, and candid conversations that literally meet neighbors where they're at.