About the Collective Learning Program:

The Collective Learning Program (CPL) at Chicago Art Department is a collaborative and immersive initiative inviting artists, creative practitioners, and invested individuals to focus on a set topic over two months. Working with a lead facilitator, participants will engage in deep exploration, skill-sharing, and creating a culminating presentation in our main exhibition space in the winter of 2025.

In previous years, the program has explored critical topics such as immigration and displacement, radical self-care and repair, and responsive and ethical photojournalism. Each iteration has brought together diverse voices to create meaningful dialogues and impactful educational and artistic interventions.

CAD and this program firmly believe in the power of cross-medium and cross-sectoral collaboration, as well as the hybridization of ideas and fields to engender innovation and drive radical change. By fostering such collaboration, we aim to address critical social issues comprehensively, ensuring that our organizational and intellectual efforts reverberate widely across the general public. Artists are the ultimate collaborators, producing work that often hybridizes art, culture, and new visions for what can be. CLPs is an experiment in collaboration that transforms ideas and connection into new possibilities for justice.