S Nicole Lane

"I'm sure you've heard the words to describe Englewood are 'Black, dangerous, poor, gun violence,'" says Tonika Johnson in one of the opening lines of her short film, The Folded Map Project. Englewood is where Johnson was born and it's where she still lives. Englewood is home.
In her film, Johnson asks the viewer to think about how they came to live in the neighborhood where they live or to think about the neighborhood where they grew up. She asks viewers to think about how they decided to li...

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to the painter and recent SAIC graduate Ricardo Partida about greek mythology and power dynamics. I first stumbled upon Partida’s work through Instagram, following them through a digital world and was re-introduced while viewing the SAIC MFA Graduate Thesis Show. The figures in Partida’s ...

Health Features

MedTruth talked to five folks living with various chronic illnesses and asked them what makes a good chronic illness ally. How can folks offer their help? What do those without an illness or disability get wrong? How can this change?

Ace Tilton Ratcliff

Disabled journalist and artist Ace Tilton Ratcliff, 33, focuses on disability justice and intersectional feminism where they work towards eradicating discrimination and amplifying marginalized voices. (Intersectional feminism e...

The southeast side of Chicago was once a bustling and flourishing neighborhood. With boutiques, bars, and blue-collar jobs, the community was thriving. Situated between waterways, Lake Michigan, and just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Indiana border, the neighborhood once employed 40,000 workers. However, by the time filmmaker Steven J. Walsh grew up in the neighborhood, it was a totally different landscape. “Everyone I knew was struggling and now I’m seeing why. My generation was a pr...

Philip, a 39-year-old cisgender male from Chicago, has relied on various antidepressants for the last 10 years to treat his anxiety and severe depression. When he started taking the drug duloxetine, he noticed new sexual side effects after just a few weeks.
“And it was abrupt,” Philip told MedTruth. One day, Philip’s sex drive just stopped. He’s also suffered from premature ejaculation and a loss of pleasure during sex since starting duloxetine.
“Things have gotten to the point where now I am...

The goal is to not let go.
When the bull bursts through the chute, the timer starts. In eight seconds, a cowboy rides a bucking bull with one hand on a rope and the other in the air. The energy is chaotic as the rider’s body jolts back and forth, convulsing on top of the bull. The goal is to not let go. The crowd roars in those few seconds, unsure of what may happen next. It’s rough, it’s dirty, and it’s glamorous. It’s a little something called the gay rodeo.
In Nevada, 1976, the first gay r...

Wading through the sea of people in Wicker Park—masks-off—wasn’t the most relaxing Sunday. Patio seating, pop music blaring, horns honking, and shops bustling all appeared to be so much louder since the last time I was in the neighborhood (prior to the pandemic). Ah, but then, there it is—Heaven.
Heaven Gallery, that is.
The gallery space and its current show, “Relic, Ritual, and Remedy,” is a sanctuary amongst the bustle of the streets below. Objects and archives are exhibited alongside text...

I always leave the School of the Art Institute (SAIC) graduate opening reception sweating. With more than 100 artists, it’s a marathon art-viewing experience. Bring your water, grab some cookies, and take it all in. Every year I leave saying, “I’m exhausted.” However, this year, things look a lot different.
Originally slated to open April 24 with a comprehensive floor plan in the Sullivan Galleries, the MFA thesis show was a year-long process for curatorial fellows. But as we know, those plan...

White supremacy, exploitative labor, capitalism, and abusive hierarchies are rampant within art and cultural institutions. And the MCA is no exception. On July 16th, staff from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago demanded action to protect the safety of workers and towards uprooting white supremacy and racial injustice within the museum. They wrote a list of demands addressed to the Pritzker Director of the MCA, Madeleine Grynsztejn.
Full-time and part-time staff, artists, volunteers, and ...

In a recent survey published in the Singapore-based paper the Straits Times, "artist" was labeled the top nonessential job during the pandemic. Folks flocked to social media to push back and criticize the results—and rightfully so. Just because museums have been largely closed and art openings have been put on pause doesn't mean art is absent from our everyday experience.
Art spaces are trickling back with shows, events, and exhibitions since we entered phase four of the reopening. That's why...

I first met Louise LeBourgeois on the rocks. I’ve called myself a “rock person” for a few years, ever since I first landed in Hyde Park and my skin was warmed by the large formations that line the shore of Lake Michigan on the Southside. I’ve formed friendships with fellow rock people throughout the years, but it was only recently that I decided to finally meet up with the Point swimmers, a group of open water swimmers who meet in the early morning (some even swim year-round). I’m more of an ...

In 2009 Martha Bayne was bartending at the Hideout and had been working with the community meal and hunger-relief fundraiser Soup & Bread over the winter. Bayne, Sheila Sachs, and Ben Helphand began brainstorming ways to keep the momentum of Soup & Bread going well into the summer. “I suggested salad and bread,” says Helphand, executive director of NeighborSpace, which is a nonprofit that preserves and supports gardens in the city. “Martha said that was a terrible idea and suggested veggie bi...

Jennifer Bou Lahoud, a 28-year-old Lebanese-American and paraplegic from San Dimas, California, was an avid swimmer before her accident.
“I'm your typical SoCal beach-loving girl. Whenever I was in the water, I would feel at peace,” she told MedTruth.
Then, in 2008, Bou Lahoud dislocated two vertebrae in a sledding accident, bruising her spinal cord.
“One insignificant fall on a small hill changed my entire world,” she said. “After my accident, I didn't know if swimming again ...

Last weekend, a group of women laid down on the star-studded red carpet at the British Academy Film Awards. A London-based direct action feminist group, Sisters Uncut used the highly visible opportunity to bring attention to their work, fighting domestic, sexual, and state violence toward women, nonbinary, agender and gender variant people. This action was specifically protesting the UK government’s cuts to domestic violence services. Their shirts read “Time’s Up, Theresa,” their mission to bring awareness to Prime Minister May’s lack of action when it comes to providing funding to refuges and

I first saw Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s work at the Hyde Park Art Center in 2014 during his Jackman Goldwasser Residency in my neighborhood in Chicago. I was fresh out of college with a photography degree and immediately drawn to his fragmented figures, use of self-portraiture, and narrative images. Gay culture and desire wereand still areevident in Sepuya’s body of work. But his execution of imagery, and layering of ephemera is what activates the viewer; has them groveling on the floor.