​Studio Assoc. Professor Schachman awarded Graham Foundation Fellowship

Fieldwork Collaborative Projects's “Park District,” was awarded a 2018 Graham Foundation Fellowship for their "Park District" documentary project. Fieldwork Collaborative is a transdisciplinary organization, led by IIT Architecture Studio Assoc. Professor Andrew Schachman as well as Nelly Agassi, Ionit Behar, and Merav Orgav.

"Park District" is an interactive, web-based, documentary and archive exposing the Chicago park network as a multiple and distributed platform for cultural life and civic activation. With over 600 parks and 438 fieldhouse structures, Chicago’s Park District is a unique network of public spaces. Fieldwork is interested in both local and global questions of “publicness”—the complex patterns of individuals and communities, and the systems that organize them. As a network of sites, each park is a polyvalent territory, at once natural, social, psychological, ecological, political, ethnic, historic, and economic. Through off-site interviews and in-situ videography, the documentary portrays the Park District as a platform of infinite potential. While this documentary supports and inspires cultural activation and art production, it also supports civic authorities, community organizers, educators, among others, as a resource and basis to promote their facilities and activities. This diverse range of constituents may use the documentary to portray their role and work within the Park District.

Fieldwork Collaborative Projects connects communities, Park Districts, Civic Authorities, and Public Schools with artists, curators, designers, urbanists, and other professionals from a wide range of disciplines. The FieldworkProject is dedicated to increasing cultural capital in the Chicago region, seeking potentials already latent within the region's existing public spaces, networks, and infrastructures.