About this Event
Ujamaa & Color: Community Archiving, Art & Cooperative Economics Workshop
(Capture & Color Series – Austin Edition)
Presented by Capstone Clique × Chicago History Museum
Free Community Event | RSVP Required
A Creative Community Gathering Rooted in Memory, Art, and Collective Power
How do we preserve the stories of the West Side while building its future? Join us in Austin for an interactive afternoon of art, storytelling, and community dialogue exploring cooperative economics and the power of archiving our neighborhood memories.
Ujamaa & Color is a community dialogue centered on cooperative economics, collaboration, and co-op building, rooted in storytelling and creative archiving.
Hosted in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, this interactive workshop invites West Side residents, artists, youth, elders, historians, and creatives to gather in reflection and imagination.
Together, we will use writing as a form of archiving, creating letters to our future selves while capturing memories of the people, businesses, and spaces that shape the West Side.
By documenting these stories, we harvest something powerful:
Community memory as community power.
Austin Through an Architectural Lens
This workshop centers the built environment as an archive of community life.
Buildings hold powerful stories about who neighborhoods were built for, who was excluded, and how communities continue reclaiming and transforming these spaces today.
Through guided conversation and storytelling, participants will explore:
• How architecture reflects community values and economic systems
• What services historic buildings provided to residents
• How spaces evolve through community leadership and cooperative investment
We’ll highlight transformative community spaces in Austin including:
• ALT_ Space Chicago — a historic 1913 bank building reimagined as a creative and community hub
• Forty Acres Fresh Market — a Black-owned grocery store addressing food access in Austin
• Leaders Network Financial Credit Union — a community-led financial institution focused on closing the racial wealth gap
What to Expect
A creative and interactive experience blending community dialogue, storytelling, art, and neighborhood archiving.
Ujamaa Reflection Writing Exercise
Inspired by the Kwanzaa principle of Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), participants will reflect on the role we each play in strengthening our local economy.
Prompt cards include:
• Name one Black-owned business in Austin you commit to supporting this year
• What skill or gift do you have that strengthens our local economy
• What does cooperative economics look like in real life on the West Side
Participants will also write letters to Future Austin, their future selves, or the next generation as part of a collective community archive.
Photo Tenting Art Workshop
Participants will transform black-and-white and sepia photographs into vibrant keepsake art pieces using oil pastels.
Photo sizes available:
• 4x7
• 5x7
• 8x10
This creative exercise bridges time:
Past → Present → Future
Reimagining photographs as living artifacts of Austin’s story.
Photo Digitization Station
Bring printed family or neighborhood photographs to be scanned and digitized.
Participants will learn how digitization protects images from loss while contributing to a growing West Side community archive.
Voice Notes & Story Capture
Participants can record short audio reflections attached to photographs, sharing:
• What a building means to them
• What a place meant to their family or community
• What they hope the space becomes in the future
These recordings may contribute to a future digital archive of West Side voices.
The Austin Time Capsule
Participants will write letters that will become part of a community time capsule.
Prompt ideas include:
• Write a letter to Future Austin
• Write to a building that shaped your life
• Write to the next generation of West Side residents
Youth and elders alike are invited to imagine the future of the neighborhood.
Interactive Community Activities
Additional experiences throughout the workshop include:
• West Side Love Map Activity — mark meaningful places across Austin
• West Side Trivia with Drea with prizes
• Creative coloring and design stations
• Intergenerational storytelling conversations
Bring This With You
Participants are encouraged (but not required) to bring items that help tell their story.
You may bring:
• A printed photograph of family, friends, or a meaningful place on the West Side
• A memory of a building, block, or neighborhood space that shaped your life
• A story about a local business, church, or community hub
These memories will help us build a collective archive of West Side experiences through storytelling, art, and conversation.
Pull Up With Your People
Community archiving works best when stories are shared across generations.
We invite you to pull up with your people — a friend, neighbor, family member, elder, or young person who carries a story about Austin or the West Side.
Bring someone who remembers what the block used to look like.
Bring someone who is imagining what it could become.
Together we’ll reflect on the places that shaped us, the memories we carry, and the future we’re building — one story, photograph, and conversation at a time.
The archive grows stronger when more voices are in the room.
Why This Matters for Austin
Austin is one of Chicago’s largest and most historic neighborhoods on the West Side — shaped by generations of families, faith institutions, local businesses, and community leadership.
At the same time, neighborhoods across the West Side continue to face challenges connected to investment, resources, and how their stories are told and remembered.
Community archives do not only live inside institutions or museums.
They live in family photographs, neighborhood buildings, local businesses, and the memories people carry every day.
Spaces like ALT_ Space Chicago and Forty Acres Fresh Market represent a new chapter — one where community leadership, cooperative economics, and creative vision are shaping Austin’s future from within.
Through the West Side Love Map Project, a collaboration between Capstone Clique and the Chicago History Museum, neighbors are contributing to a growing archive documenting the beauty, resilience, and leadership of Chicago’s West Side.
This workshop invites participants to reflect on the past, document the present, and imagine the future of Austin together.
Because preserving community stories isn’t just about remembering history.
It’s about protecting legacy and shaping what comes next.
Event Details
Ujamaa & Color: Community Archiving Workshop
(Capture & Color Series – Austin Edition)
Location
ALT_ Space Chicago
5645 W Corcoran Place
Chicago, IL
Saturday, March 21
1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Free & Open to the Public | RSVP Required
About Capstone Clique
Capstone Clique focuses on the historic preservation and storytelling of Chicago’s West Side, engaging neighbors through photography, film, and community-driven media.
Our documentary project Love Letter to the West Side captures powerful stories from leaders, artists, and residents whose work shapes the culture and legacy of the neighborhoods we call home.
Through initiatives like the West Side Love Map, we are building a living archive celebrating neighborhood pride, shared memory, and collective imagination.
Sponsored by
Chicago History Museum
Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP)
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
5645 W Corcoran Pl, 5645 West Corcoran Place, Chicago, United States
USD 0.00
