North Lawndale whirligigs

Between January and October 2022, the caretakers of eight community  gardens located in North Lawndale worked on the design, fabrication and  installation of whirligigs – sophisticated weathervanes  – which are now signaling each one of their gardens. This project was  made possible by a Neighborhood Access Program grant from the City of  Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE). To  come up with the final design, a team of four designers and project  managers met with liaisons from the eight gardens several times for  ideation sessions and progress review. Along the way, improvements were  made both to technical elements – making sure the whirligigs would take  the wind correctly, be at the right height and have the right length –  and to the artwork, keeping the essence of what each garden wanted the  whirligig to express. Together, the curating team and the garden  liaisons chose the elements that are specific to a particular whirligig  and those which are standard to all of them. The result is a beautiful  set of eight distinctive kinetic sculptures whose moving parts spin in  the wind, making its speed and direction visible. The whirligigs are  both technically precise and artistically meaningful. The cut-out  elements and adinkra symbols were chosen by the gardens’ liaisons to  represent the vision of each individual garden yet together, the  whirligigs tell the story of a community that champions collaboration  and participation in all of its decision making.