Shore Land (2023)
Photo by Eric Perez
From the first years of white settlement in Chicago, the shore of Lake Michigan has been heavily engineered. Legislation, lawsuits, planning, and construction have created today’s lakefront, with more than 5.5 square miles of lakefill stretching across 30 miles of shoreline between Evanston and Indiana. Over the years, the material for this landfill has come from trash, rubble of the Great Chicago Fire, dirt dug up from highway construction elsewhere in the city, and sand from the Indiana Dunes and the bottom of Lake Michigan.
Much of this land is publicly accessible green space won over decades by advocates inspired by Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago. Often described as visionary and enlightened, the plan was also designed to reduce labor conflict by providing recreational outlets for working class anger. Today’s concerns center on extending public access along the remaining privately owned sections, as well as addressing erosion and the effects of climate change on lake levels.
Yet this land technically does not belong to the city, or to the public. As the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi insisted in a 1914 lawsuit against the city of Chicago, this “made land” extends beyond the 1833 Treaty of Chicago boundary for cessions: the shoreline at the time. What does it mean that this much-vaunted public lakefront was born from an elitist vision of urban control and breaks treaty law by its existence?
This project takes the form of an audio walk that contemplates the lakefront as a liminal space between land and water, simultaneously a public good, treaty violation, and strategy to suppress insurgence. Weaving together interviews, laws, treaties, stories, and songs in English, Potawatomi, and Korean, the audio narrative contrasts modes of settler engineering (social, legal, material) with Indigenous perspectives on the sovereignty of land and water.
Featured interviews, writing and excerpts include:
Diane Hunter (Miami Tribe of Oklahoma)
Adam Kessel (Lakota/Italian)
Kyle Malott (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi)
Justin Neely (Citizen Potawatomi Nation)
Mona Susan Power (Standing Rock Sioux)
Monica Rickert-Bolter (Prairie Band Potawatomi/Black/German)
Gina Roxas (Prairie Band Potawatomi)
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg)
Billie Warren (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi)
Madolyn Wesaw (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi)
Nibi Water Song by Zoongi Gabowi Ozawa Kinew Ikwe (Strong Standing Golden Eagle Woman), Anishnabe Nation, Crane Clan (Ojijak)
PROJECT MAP
The project consists of six audio tracks of 25-30 minutes long. Each has a theme, and corresponds to a specific location along the lakefront:
PRESS
CITY CAST: 3 Questions With ‘Shore Land’ Artist
SUPPORT
This work is a part of Navigations, a series of artist projects shared and realized in public/common space sponsored by Roman Susan Art Foundation. This work is also supported by the Awesome Foundation (Chicago chapter), the Puffin Foundation, and the Individual Artist Program of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
Elements of this work were previewed at The Arts Club of Chicago in August 2021, at Steelworkers Park in October 2022, and at MCA Chicago as part of the APIDA Arts Festival in May 2023.