Champaign-Urbana is facing a crisis in housing for low-income families and the under-sheltered.  To bring this issue into sharper focus, the University Y’s Art@ the Y program, in collaboration with the School of Art + Design and the School of Social Work, initiated BED SHOE HOME, a community-based art action organized by nationally known artist Jane Gilmor, who has maintained socially engaged art practice since the late 80s.  Gilmor was in residence on campus for a month this fall working in community organizations serving the homeless:  the Daily Bread Soup Kitchen, Courage Connection, and the Phoenix Center.

The project helped build a sense of community both within the under-sheltered population and between the university, the larger C-U community and those living on the edges. Gilmor’s work explores identity, dislocation, and border crossings: poverty/privilege, public/private, rural/urban, male/female.

BED SHOE HOME opening: Thursday, January 26, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m., Murphy Gallery, University YMCA, 1001 S. Wright St.

Hosted by: School of Art + Design, School of Social Work, University YMCA

In conjunction with: College of Education, Courage Connection, Daily Bread Soup Kitchen, Department of Gender and Women's Studies, Department of Sociology, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Phoenix Center, School of Architecture, Spurlock Museum

Thanks to the Center for Advanced Study listserv for this information item.