grace needlman

10-week course for middle and high school students

Designed and facilitated at Marwen, Fall 2023

Students learned toy-theater and reed-building techniques while being exposed to theater artists and conversations about storytelling, design, and socially-engaged art.

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Manager 2016- 2021

Lead Artist 2013-16

mcachicago.org/Learn/Teens

Creating spaces with and for teens to showcase their work and build community in leading contemporary art museum

Twenty-five curious, creative 15–19 year-olds from all over the Chicago area form the Teen Creative Agency (TCA), the MCA’s core program for teens.

The TCA meets every Saturday during the school year to develop projects with artists, museum staff, and other young people. This tight-knit community is passionate about creative and civic exchange and works to make the MCA a platform for fresh and emerging ideas.

Manager 2016-2021

Chicago artists transform the museum for kids and their grown-ups with workshops, open-studio sessions, gallery tours, and performances. Learn more at: https://mcachicago.org/Learn/Families

Corner, Autotelic, Comfort Station, Hume

2016

co-organizer and facilitator

Art + Value is a series of conversations that address different aspects of how artists and artistic labor are valued in Chicago today. We hope to create space for Chicago artists to speak openly about how we are compensated and recognized, and how to feel more able to advocate for our work. 
Many of us artists have been having these conversations privately, and we think it’s time to get together as a community and connect more vocally and visibly around these issues.  
 

http://www.cornerchicago.com/artvalueconversations.html

Crosswalk is a partnership between Urban Gateways and a retirement home in Hyde Park called Montgomery Place. Teaching artists from Urban Gateways will be taking a small group of high school students to work with a small group of elders. Together, young and old artists created original pieces and show them in an exhibition. 

http://hpherald.com/2015/08/19/art-brings-two-generations-of-hyde-parkers-together/