“Walk the Gap, Beyond Here, Beyond Now”
Artist Walks Series — Summer 2025

Guest artists curated a series of place-based, interactive walking experiences that explored the idea of “the gap” as a space between identities, times, and realities.

The series featured four artist-led walks in and around the Edgewater and West Ridge communities of Chicago:

Listening to the Train with Shi-An Costello — July 5
River Park Listening with Jeannette Dominguez — July 21
Experiments of Perception: Body as Canvas with Mónica Guzmán — August 9
Graveyard Meander with Eliza Fernand — August 24

All events were free and accessible to the public. Posters designed by Nat Brotherton.

The 2025 Artist Walk Series was funded in part through a CityArts Program grant — thank you to DCASE.

Listening to the Train with Shi-An Costello

Peterson/Ridge Metra Station — July 5, 2025

Shi-An guided walkers through the regularly occurring sounds in and around the station as participants discover them together, drawing on themes like memory, place, connections, and divisions. This 1.3 mile walk concluded at Experimental Sound Studio, where Shi-An gave a short demo-performance on 'prepared piano' using the sounds that were uncovered on the walk, while describing compositional techniques and extra-musical inspirations behind creating music with these found sounds.

Shi-An is a classical concert pianist, curator and composer of film, video, and concert music. He has appeared as a guest artist with the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, Architek Percussion, Warhol Dervish String Quartet, and others. Shi-An has recorded four albums and his film credits include Flight of the Butterflies, Softly - A GIANT STEP, and Are You Happy With The Answer?

River Park Listening with Jeannette Dominguez

River Park — July 20, 2025

A soundwalk at dusk led in collaboration with Good City Group, as part of the “Beyond Here, Beyond Now” artist walks series.We traced a slow loop from fieldhouse to confluence point, tuning into layered soundscapes shaped by history, infrastructure, and ecology. At the meeting of the North Branch of the Chicago River and the manmade North Shore Channel, we reflected on the park’s position, a story shaped through colonization, industrial engineering, and environmental restoration.

Participants moved between natural and built environments, listening to cottonwoods, cicadas, river flow, and overhead airplane drones. At the confluence, we attached a Geofón magnet to the railing, amplifying earthly vibrations, hums of the river, footfall, and spontaneous voice play. The walk offered a gentle disruption of how we move through public space, inviting deeper attunement to place and presence

Jeanette (she/they) is a Tejana listener living in the Midwest. Their work spans field recording, sound mixing on film sets, and experimental composition stitching together recordings drawn from familial archives. They are currently deepening their connection to sound through ongoing study in the principles of Deep Listening. Jeanette's interests are rooted in place, memory, and the quiet harmonies that emerge and intermingle across built and natural landscapes. Their work aims to invite shared moments of listening, reflection, and play.

Click to view the Walk Listen Create page →

Experiments of Perception: Body as Canvas with Mónica Guzmán

West Ridge Nature Park — August 9, 2025

This walk offered an opportunity to mindfully engage different elements of perception. Participants were guided to walk in dyads; with attunement and curiosity to the environment, to each other, and to emerging sensory impulses. At the end of the walk for those who wished to participate, we gathered again as a group for the creation of a living sculpture to integrate our experiences.

Mónica, a bilingual psychotherapist, art therapist, and somatic experiencing practitioner; channels her creative insight to design and lead programs that enhance well-being and foster community connection.

Monica’s August 9th Good City Group walk serves as a template for future walks that are either group facilitated or self-guided “experiments of perception.” Monica created a guide that can be printed or viewed on your phone to create your own self-guided experience. This guide also encourages experiments of perception as a group walking event.

Click to view the PDF walk guide →

Experiments of Perception, August 9, 2025

Graveyard Meander with Eliza Fernand

Rosehill Cemetery — August 24, 2025

On this interactive guided walk through Rosehill Cemetery, participants considered rest and interconnectedness through the sensory experiences of smelling, touching, listening, speaking, imagining oneself as other-than-human, and adding to a zine to take home.

Eliza Fernand (they/them) is an artist and educator who works primarily with video, sound, fabric, and clay. With a BFA in Sculpture and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts, they have led a cross-country career, attending over a dozen artist residencies and exhibiting internationally. A newer citizen of Chicago, they continue to pursue artmaking and teaching opportunities, with the aim of provoking acceptance of loving practices outside of the norm, and promoting experimentation on all levels.

Eliza produced a Zine as a prop to guide participants on their September 24 walk and read from it at stops along the way. The group also read aloud from the Zine and each walker made leaf tracing art on the pages of their personal copies.

Click to view Zine by Eliza Fernand →