The Lawndale Pop-Up Spot outdoor museum, which is located on a North Lawndale lot at the southwestern corner of Douglass Boulevard and Central Park Avenue, will host a free exhibit about the West Side bicycling experience.
The Moving Freely exhibit is curated by Mechiya Jamison, a recent graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Urban Planning and Public Administration. According to the official description, the exhibit will explore “racial equity through the lenses of mobility justice and environmental justice.” The grand opening will be held on May 15 at 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., and it will run until June 15.
Lawndale Pop-Up Spot operates out of a freight shipping container. Co-created in 2016 by UIC graduate Chelsea Ridley and artist Jonathan Kelley, of Uptown, it was originally supposed to be located in a vacant building on 16th Street before the it was torn down.
According the museum’s website, their goal is to host exhibits created by the community that “connect history, culture, and nature.” Before the newest exhibit, the Pop-Up Spot hosted “Lawndale: A Living History,” which used photography, personal belongings and text to tell the stories of the community elders.
For the latest exhibit, the museum is working with Equiticity, a self-described “racial equity movement” that advocates for equal access to bicycles and e-scooters in minority communities. West and South Side neighborhoods have had fewer Divvy bike-sharing stations, fewer bike lanes and other cycling infrastructure — a trend that the city has tried to reverse.
The exhibit will feature videos of bike rides and walks in Equiticity organized in North Lawndale, Little Village and other parts of Chicago in order to give “an opportunity for residents to learn about the interconnected histories, cultures, and environmental issues of their surrounding communities, and Equiticity’s work toward racial equity.” The exhibit will also include interactive installations such as a a bicycle wheel that lists statistics.
Jamison stated that her goal with the exhibit is to “celebrate and learn from the past while maintaining focus on what we can do here and now to fight for racial equity and justice.”
The exhibit will kickoff with a grand opening event that will feature food, music, art activities and plant and seed giveaways.
Residents will also be able to sign up for the Divvy for Everyone program, which offers discount memberships to Chicagoans with income at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty level.
Lawndale Pop-Up Shop is open on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, from 1 p.m. to 4 pm., and residents can schedule individual appointments at other times. For more information and to schedule an appointment, visit https://www.lawndalepopupspot.org/movingfreely.
