2011: Patriotism in Everyday Life
In 2011, the Chicago-based arts collective COMIGO were selected to paint the east Glenwood wall from Morse to Lunt, responding to a local call for artists on the theme of “Patriotism in Everyday Life”.
COMIGO is Diana Berek, Chiara Padgett, and Juan-Carlos Perez, three Rogers Park artists who have had extensive experience in the visual arts as well as in mural and public arts. They first met when they worked on last year’s Mile of Murals project.
About their reponse to the theme and their design for the wall, the collective says, ““The core of our understanding of Patriotism in Everyday Life resides in this culturally negotiated understanding of “freedom”, i.e. in the perceptions, contradictions, questions, problems and issues that for more than 200 years continue to be challenged and re-defined. It is embedded in a persistent struggle to define and achieve freedom. It is distinctly opposed to casting American values in bellicose chauvinism, or a belief in national superiority. The American narrative is one of a deep striving toward personal success and individual freedom within a social, economic and political fabric of shared liberty and rights. The movement towards these ideals has been rocky, sometimes heroic and enlightened, sometimes ugly and violent, but the vision continues to inspire.”
