Jenny Sheppard was a regular customer at the Mystery Spot, a vintage furniture and curio shop located on the rapidly changing stretch of West Division in Wicker Park. When the store went out of business in February, the 31-year-old artist and musician figured it was at least partly due to neighborhood gentrification, and she thought that topic was worth discussing with a group of Wells High School students she instructs through Street-Level Youth Media.
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Street-Level was founded seven years ago to provide city teens with a safe place to go after school and the resources to create art. Often working in partnership with Gallery 37–which allows the teens to be paid for participating–Street-Level focuses on video making, computer-based art, and media literacy, with the aim of fostering self-expression through technology. The group hosts a multitude of programs both at its three storefront multimedia centers and inside the Chicago school system. Street-Level provides lots of public forums for participants’ work, including its annual block party, a free outdoor event that features music, performance, large-format video projection on sheets hung across streets, and video and computer monitors installed on curbs, stoops, and porches.
She says this is “the first time these kids have considered they have a voice people might want to hear,” and they’ve chosen to screen the videos where they may be seen by the key targets of their anger. Sheppard says that her students are directly challenging the passersby to “consider the impact of gentrification on the character of a neighborhood and the people who live in it.”
